 Maybe you've encountered one of those really difficult challenges in your life, or maybe you've just recently listened to David Goggins book and you're wondering how can I make myself mentally tougher to get through some of these challenges and to get through some of these struggles in my life. In this video, I want to share three ways you can think and reframe mental toughness to become a very resilient and strong person internally. Hey guys, Alex Heim, author of the book Master of the Day. Now the first link below, I've put together a free goal setting worksheet. It's exactly how to plan out your dream year and the exact daily rituals and habits to actually make them happen. So if you click the first link below and down that you'll get that delivered to your email. So the first thing I want you to think about is this idea of thick skin versus being a chameleon. You know, we think that thick skin, think about the term we use. We think of an elephant or a rhino, the ability to take these blows whether physically or verbally and they don't hurt you. But I think for me, the people that I know that are the most resilient, it's not about having a thick skin like all these arrows and all these words come at them. It's about being a chameleon. So there's this idea that for the sage, the sage almost has like this permeable skin where the things can go right through you. But since there's no wound internally, there's nowhere for those arrows to land or those words. So in my mind, the people I know that are the most resilient and the most strong, when I or someone else says something potentially hurtful, they're not like, Oh yeah, I got this, like screw these people. They're not like that at all. If there's some truth, they're like, huh, you bring up a good point. And if there's no truth, they are like, huh, I'll consider that. It's very different from this like tough, you know, the tough guy machisto image we have when we think of thick skin. So to me, thick skin is half about your triggers and half about mental resilience and toughness. Like let's say you're someone who has historically always been late. You're a tardy person. You're late for meetings. You're late for work. You're late for school. You're late for things with the partner and the person you date. And so whenever you get criticized for being late, that's a trigger because it's always been something that has caused you pain in your life. But for someone else who's not usually late, the boss says you're late and you're like, Oh yeah, sorry, I just got caught up. Not a big deal. So to me, we need to break down mental toughness and resilience in terms of mental triggers as well as actual toughness and actual resilience. So that brings up the second way to develop mental toughness and resilience. It's really dealing with your shit, AKA your triggers. You know, six years ago, after a lifelong experience of being a type A person, high strong, I realized that almost all of my stress only came from two things. It came from a high amount of external pressure with deadlines, whether it's school or work, or any time my inner state was bothered was when I was getting triggered by something. And being triggered was really my own unique flaws and my own unique hot buttons of emotion that had been stored in there for a long time. And so what I did was I spent about three months compiling a list of every single flaw and trigger that I had. Any single thing in my life that made me feel internally not at ease. I wrote down in a little Evernote document and that document documents what exactly my psychological root is of that trigger. So let's say, for example, I go on a date and a girl says, wow, you're pretty skinny. That would trigger me because my whole life I had been underweight and every woman I dated, my mom, my sister, my family, everyone made jokes about me being so skinny and they didn't say it in an endearing way. So when I went on a date, that was on me. It wasn't on her for saying that. Or maybe I didn't have quite as much of the financial success I hoped. And so when a girl or a friend, whatever would be like, oh, you know, I thought your business was doing better. You know, you're almost going to be 30. You got to have stability for a family and wife. That would trigger me because it was on me. I wasn't really as successful as I wanted at that time. And so I put together this list of documents of triggers and as I began to not only deal with them both externally by improving those external and internal aspects, but also internally making peace with those things. Yes, I am skinny and it's okay. Yes, I don't have the financial success I want yet and that's okay. As I dealt with both, I appeared to be a much more mentally tough person, even though that wasn't my goal. And the way it manifested was me being less reactive to anything outside of me. And so I wasn't trying to be Mr. Macho Machisto. Instead, I was internally letting go of a lot of the things that were really making me feel reactive and angry and agitated on a daily basis. So I would recommend taking some time to put together a list of every single thing that triggers you because you're going to understand that these are inner wounds that then become weaknesses over time because that is something that somebody else can say or do, not even maliciously or deliberately but will trigger you and will injure you internally. And it leads to you not having as much mental or psychospiritual resilience as you'd like because any time there's a wound, the more hot and buttons there are, the more areas you can be hit from it. Now the last thing that I think can really help is to come up with a monthly mental toughness challenge. Now Martin Luther King Jr. has this quote, very prayer phrased, that character can only come through adversity. And I've shared the story of a man who was asking about another man in business and he said, you know, is he a strong man of character? Does he conduct himself well? And the other man said, you know, I don't know, I've never seen him in a state of adversity and you cannot really predict somebody's character until they're in a state of adversity because so many people who are nice, kind, friendly people become nasty when the pressure's on them or when they are criticized. And so coming up with a monthly mental toughness challenge is a way to build that muscle, the resilience muscle, willingly before you are forced to. Now for you, that monthly challenge might be waking up at 5am. It's a trendy YouTube topic and it's not easy to do. And so you train yourself to force yourself to do that and then not complain when you're tired during the day. Or maybe it means you're going to do that thing every day like meditation or go to the gym and just for a month, you're going to do it and shut up. No negativity, no complaining. You're going to live the warrior's life, whatever that means to you. Maybe it is not raising your voice with your kids. Maybe it is saving money and sacrificing beer on Friday night and that's something you really like with your friends. Find something that requires you to be a more evolved, focused, that soldier part of you. Pull that out of you, anything. For others, it's going to be different from others. And the thing, the core trait is that it has to be something that is currently difficult. It has to be something that strains you and stresses you because that is where you're going to build your character. So I hope these suggestions help. In my own observation, mental toughness is as much about the inner qualities of overcoming those triggers as well as building that discipline and that grit and that soldier or that warrior's life, whatever that looks like for you to train that. So I hope that helps. Before you go, check the link below for the free yearly planning worksheet. It's going to help you come up with the exact habits and rituals that you can use to actually build out an incredible life and reach all your wildest goals. Now, if you go download that, come check out my video on this exact same topic right over here.