Mental Toughness | David Goggins

Inspired by David Goggins and with the recent events in my life that have required Mental Toughness, I thought it would be a great time to write about my perception of Mental Toughness, my personal experiences in shaping this perception, and how I have learnt to build a framework for Mental Toughness.

David Goggins

David Goggins is the only member of the U.S. armed forces ever to complete training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger and Air Force Tactical Air Controller.

He’s also a former Guinness World Record holder for completing 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. Today, at age 44, the retired SEAL is an accomplished endurance athlete, having competed in more than 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons and having won a handful of them. He’s also the New York Times best-selling author of â€œCan’t Hurt Me.”

Goggins credits his success to what he calls the “day one, week one” mentality. He lives each day like it’s the first day of the first week of a new job. While this mindset “rubs everybody the wrong way,” he says, "it works."

Mental Toughness

Mental Toughness is the ability to resist, manage and overcome doubts, worries, concerns and circumstances that prevent you from succeeding, or excelling at a task or towards an objective or a performance outcome that you set out to achieve.

With Mental Toughness, anything is possible. By having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to cope better than your opponents with demands such as competition, training, lifestyle and work ethic, and to specifically be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining focused, resilient, determined and in control.

Mental Toughness is the psychological ability to overcome anything your mind tells you, you cannot do. It is the ability to drown out external voices, disbelief and unfavourable comments, and continue to persevere. David Goggins, a man who went from 297lbs to 106lbs in just two months, is living proof of the term Mental Toughness.

"If you can get through doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness. I am not training for a race, I am training for life. I am training my mind, my body and my spirit, so it's all one, so I can handle what life is going to throw at me." - David Goggins

Personal Experiences

I have been honoured to have had many personal experiences which have contributed to the Mental Toughness I have learnt to love and grow. Ironically, the majority of the Mental Toughness that I have developed has all stemmed from negative and difficult experiences.

From being bullied at a young age, falling into anorexia as a young teenager and leaving home at 16, I learnt that Mental Toughness is built on hardship. Without experiencing these things at such a young and tender age, I would not have learnt the value of myself, others, and my mind. Finally, I would not have unlocked my exponential mental ability.

I grew more through the dark and lonely experiences, rather than through light and glorious experiences, as they taught me and helped me shape my own beliefs of life, as well as equip me with the tools in overcoming difficult and challenging tasks and experiences. I refer to the philosophy of balancing light and darkness, otherwise known as Yin and Yang. 

Mental Toughness Framework

For me, building a Mental Toughness framework became imperative for future success. I came across an article that further helped me solidify my thoughts and develop a framework to assist me in acquiring my vision of success. This was categorised into a term known as "The 4C's Mental Toughness Framework"

1C. Control

Control is your self-esteem, your life’s purpose and your sense of control over your life and emotions. Control is the extent to which you feel you are in control of your life and that you can make a difference and change things.

2C. Commitment

Commitment is your focus and reliability. Being high on commitment means that you are able to effectively set goals and targets and reliably and consistently achieve them without being distracted. 

3C. Challenge

Challenge is your drive and adaptability. Being high on challenge means that you are driven to be as good as you can be and to achieve your personal best. You see challenges, change, adversity and variety as opportunities rather than threats. 

4C. Confidence

Confidence is your self-belief and influence and describes to what extent you believe you have the ability to perform productively and proficiently and the ability to influence others. Being high on confidence means that you have the self-belief to successfully complete on tasks that other individuals with similar ability but lower confidence would think beyond them. 

"The Challenge and Confidence scales together represent the Confidence part of the Mental Toughness definition, namely your ability to spot and seize an opportunity. This intuitively, as well as scientifically, makes sense because if you are a risk taker you see more situations more clearly as opportunities and are willing to embrace and explore them. If you are confident in your abilities and you easily engage with others, you are also much more likely to convert the potential opportunity of these situations into successful outcomes."

David Goggins has been an inspiration to me and I continue to follow and install his ethics into my own, while creating my own dynamics and elements. Without being exposed to David, I would not have developed the mindset I have today and use him to be an exemplar to those around me.

If you have found this article interesting thus far, you may also like to read a few other articles of mine:

How I Created a Test to Further Enhance My Mind and Focus (pt.1)

Owning our Shadow Self: Unlocking Innovation, Creativity & Intuition

Cognitive Biases that are Warping Our Perception of Reality

Emotional Intelligence, The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) & Technical Assimilation

How To Be Fearless in Your Pursuit to Find Your Hustle

How to Operate in a World of Resistance & Obstacles

M?ind Shift

Sacrifices and Choices that changed my life before I turned 16 years old