John D. Rockefeller once recalled that “for years on end I never had a solid night’s sleep, worrying about how it was to come out.… I tossed about in bed night after night worrying over the outcome.”
This was coming from one of the most successful entrepreneurs of his time. Rockefeller was the founder of Standard Oil, the man who built the first true oil empire in the United States. At one point he was the richest man in the world and became the country’s first billionaire. His name is still synonymous with wealth and industry.
He believed that all the anxiety wasn’t worth it. “All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate for the anxiety of that period,” Rockefeller said about his time of excessive worry.
You will never get back the time you spend worrying, beating yourself up, and walking around with a depressed state of mind. When you face hardship in life, it’s easy to get down and think, “Why me? Why can’t life be easy for once?”
Well, I’ve been there many times too, and here’s what I’ve come to realize every single time: Life is never easy… And that’s exactly why we need to be tough.
You can have everything going for you and get hit with a disease. You can have all the money in the world and lose your child. You can love your career and have it taken away from you in an instant because of the economy.
The science of mental toughness
The word mental toughness sounds modern, but the idea isn’t. Athletes and coaches started using it in the late 20th century, and by the early 2000s, psychologists began to study it seriously.
In 2002, researchers Graham Jones, Sheldon Hanton, and Declan Connaughton published a landmark paper in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology that tried to answer the question: What is this thing called mental toughness?
Put simply, mental toughness means having a psychological edge that allows you to cope better than others with the demands of life, and to stay focused, confident, and in control under pressure.
Mental toughness is your ability to perform when everything feels like it’s falling apart. It’s not about ignoring fear or stress. It’s about showing up to the best of your ability despite the hardships of life.
Science just gave a name to something our ancestors already understood. The Stoics talked about it two thousand years ago.
Seneca said:
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.”
Obstacles are normal (don’t believe what you see)
We live in a world where people want to hide their obstacles. We only see the highlights of everyone’s life: the vacations, new jobs, business milestones, excessive stock returns, babies being born, completion of marathons, and so forth.
What we don’t see is that all people face the same issues of life. We all deal with moments of weakness. We all deal with obstacles and hardships.
But because our view of life is not edged in reality, our expectations of what a normal life is are messed up.
Are the following things normal?
- Being happy every minute of every day?
- Making more money every single year?
- Never arguing in your relationship?
- Going on a vacation every other month?
- Spending everything you earn?
- Always being healthy?
You’re probably saying no to these things. But secretly, you probably are expecting some of these things to happen to you, right?
Social media is really a disease of our times. Believing what you see online can seriously disturb your mental peace. Instead of believing that a perfect life is normal, believe that a hard life is normal.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said:
“Life is deeply steeped in suffering, and cannot escape it: our existence is in fact a tragedy.”
That’s basically his core idea: life is tragedy. Not because everything is bad, but because pain and hardship are unavoidable.
Everything is training
Just because life is hard doesn’t mean we should bend the knee. I’ve adopted the philosophy of Bruce Lee when it comes to this. Here’s what he believed:
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
As the platitude goes, the only way out of challenges is through. Don’t wish life was easy, wish you were stronger.
You know, the stuff they talk about on motivational posters. The truth is that you need mental toughness to endure a hard life. And since a hard life is the rule and not the exception, we all need to be mentally tougher.
But there’s a difference between reading a quote and living according to a principle. If you live according to the idea that you should focus on building mental toughness, you see everything as training.
Every time you notice some form of friction within you (complaining, giving up, anger), tell yourself:
THIS IS TRAINING
One of the most mentally tough people in my life is my dad. For all his adult life, he lived far away from his parents and siblings. He worked himself up from a cleaner at an industrial laundry to a manager.
He lost his parents relatively young, and he also lost his youngest brother. He built a business from scratch in a country he did not grow up in. And even though he can complain and get grumpy at times, he always took care of his responsibilities.
Forget about the Michael Jordans and Elon Musks of the world. Mental toughness is taking care of your own. It’s showing up every day to your best ability and making sure your life is in order.
And if that’s hard to do, don’t be surprised. Life’s supposed to be hard.
Just remember, you can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs.
