Unfortunately, success is impossible without mental toughness.
We know this. It’s cliché at this point.
Every company, sports team, and organization I’ve partaken in has inserted words like grit, resiliency, or persistence within their core values. They’re all saying the same thing: we value our ability to do hard things for a long period of time.
Great. I got it.
Pain is not easy. Actually, it sucks. The trick is, how do we make it suck less? That’s what we all want to know.
I just got done running my third marathon in 12 months. This latest one was the toughest yet. It was an uphill slog fest in the afternoon heat. The course was damn near unlawful.
I felt that stinging endurance pain for hours during this race. I wanted to stop so many times. But I didn’t. I kept going, smiling through most of it.
In moments like this, when all I want to do is stop, there are generally three thoughts that loop in my head that help make the pain suck less.
Let me know what you think.
1.) You never actually hit the wall.
Ultra-runner and mental toughness guru David Goggins calls it the 40% rule. The idea that when you think you’ve reached your limit on how much pain you can endure, you’re actually only 40% of the way there.
I prefer the "fire walk" metaphor from sports journalist Matt Fitzgerald.
Here’s what he says:
“A race is like a fire walk. When you start a race, you’re standing before a bed of hot coals, at the far end of which stands a wall. The wall represents your ultimate physical limit. You never reach it. Your goal is to merely get as close to the wall as possible, for the closer you get the better you perform.”
When I first started training for marathons, an experienced runner encouraged me to stick with the slower pace group for long runs. She wasn’t insulting my speed. She believed I had to get used to, as she called it, “time on your feet.”
Enough time to get used to physical duress. Enough time to feel the boredom of running for hours on end. Enough time to feel the sting below the belt when you really have to pee.
Enough time on those hot coals.
Training is about preparing for those hot coals. It’s why we take on challenges. Because it helps to get used to the pain and get friendly with it.
2.) This pain is temporary.
I’m a Lord of The Rings fanboy.
I’ve watched the 4 hour-long extended versions several times over along with all the behind-the-scenes documentaries. I can’t get enough of it.
What made the films so fantastic comes down to how it was shot. The filmmakers hardly used CGI and green screens.. They filmed most of it in New Zealand on location. Many actors performed their own stunts.
It was risky. Peter Jackson, the director, knew it. Sets were uncomfortable, and actors often got hurt.
Viggo Mortensen broke his foot while kicking an orc helmet. Sean Aston stepped on a shard of glass and had to be rushed to the hospital, and Miranda Otto reached exhaustion during her battle scene with the Nazgul.
Peter Jackson used this quote to get his teams in the right mindset: “Pain is temporary. Film is forever.”
Is Peter Jackson a madman? Yea maybe.
There’s also wisdom here. Pain hurts, but it’s only temporary, and the payout is greater.
“Nature is merciful.” Winston Churchill wrote. “It does not toy her children, man or beast, beyond their compass. It is only where the cruelty of man intervenes that hellish torments appear. For the rest, live dangerously. Take things as they come. Dread naughts. All will be well.”
Moral of the story: The universe will not test you more than what you’re capable of handling, and nothing that hurts you is unending.
3.) Pain is part of the deal.
The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in the game.
Coaches love saying that.
I must have heard it 1,000 times growing up.
Near West Point’s Athletic Center there’s an old quote engraved in granite for all to see.
“Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds. That upon other fields, on other days. Will bear the fruits of victory.”
Maybe it’s my background playing a lot of sports when I was a kid, but I’ve always loved new challenges. It feels good to suck at something and eat pain every once in a while, ya know?
Some would say that’s a masochist.
I don’t think so.
I just understand the benefits of pain more than others.
Pain is the best teacher. It’s not only a measure of your ability, but it’s a pathway to improvement. It’s an opportunity to practice grit, resilience, and persistence that everyone holds in such high esteem.
“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war,” says General Norman Schwarzkopf.
Pain. It sucks. But it will make you better.