SELF-TRUST IS EARNED.
YOU COULD EARN THE HARD WAY. OR YOU COULD EARN THE REALLY HARD WAY.
I'll let you in on a little secret: You're not special.
Everyone has self-doubt. And everyone feels fragile sometimes. Everyone wonders whether they'll be able to handle the thing.
Whatever the thing is. It’s different for all of us.
For me, it’s venturing out on my own, running my own show. Not beholden to bosses in over their heads, to one-hour time-blocking that leaves no wiggle-room for real work, to meetings that could have been emails or Slack messages.
No longer shoehorned into mediocrity. With no one to pass the buck to, I have to Make. It. Happen.
Little old me. And maybe great things are not for the likes of me.
If I can’t make it on my own, then maybe I was mediocre all along.
That self-doubt is why most people stay in their comfort zone. Even if their comfort zone is mundane, monotonous, or downright malignant.
And in your comfort zone you atrophy. Just as muscles waste away if you lie in bed all day and don't move.
Rotating twice a day to avoid bedsores isn’t good enough. You need to get up. And move.
You'll never learn to trust yourself if you never test yourself. And you can't test yourself within the confines of your comfort zone.
Trust me: if you don't test yourself, life will test you anyway.
So, you need to build yourself up for the challenges now.
LIFT HEAVY. MANY REPS.
A few years ago, I was going through a really rough patch. I was juggling a PhD and a family crisis while trying to keep my head above water financially. One evening I was having a rare drink with a friend at a time I was barely social. I’d literally only slotted her into my calendar because she was about to leave the country, and it matters to me to show people that they matter to me.
She leaned into my challenges and asked me this: How did you get so damn resilient?
Well, I was stretched thin and clinging to the end of my tether. Things were objectively pretty gnarly. I wasn't my best self. Wasn’t feeling my most resilient. But I wasn't doing badly. I was showing up and getting shit done, and I wasn't letting my stress leak out into my work or affect how I treat others.
She was right: I was, and am, super-resilient.
But I'd never reflected on how I got that way. I'd just always focused on prioritising, planning, and sometimes, when necessary, playing bad cop to get shit done.
How did I get so resilient?
An innocent question, not really designed to dig as deep as it went. Perhaps from someone else it would have been more of a comment than a question, just a form of flattery. But Klara's a researcher, a deep thinker. I sensed she felt I had a secret and wanted in on it.
This is the answer that spilled out, without much thought:
This is not my first rodeo. It's not even my first of the season. I think I got resilient by going through a lot of shit and surviving it. It's like a muscle: you get strong through heavy lifting. Lift heavy, many reps. If you don’t break, then you know you’re strong.
I flinched after answering.
Damn.
That was her response.
I guess it's not really what anyone wants to hear. That resilience is essentially steel forged in fire. That I developed my ability to cope with shit by, well, coping with a lot of shit.
It's the sink-or-swim approach. Wholly unsatisfying to anyone who'd like to know whether they're going to be able to swim before they get dropped in at the deep end.
The idea that you have to get punched a lot to learn to roll with the punches seems unfair. And a bit backwards.
But we all know someone who's tough as nails and got that way the hard way.
The question is, do you really have to go through hell to get strong?
The answer is…. Well, yes. Sort of.
RESILIENCE BOOTCAMP
Sort of. Like how soldiers go through bootcamp in their initial military training. Bootcamp isn't fun by any stretch of the imagination.
Hell, in the US Navy, Phase 1 of SEAL training involves what they literally call 'Hell Week' that's designed to weed people out by breaking them mentally.
Only the strong survive. But they only really get strong enough to survive by going through it.
The irony is gnarly.
But here's the thing: it means that resilience is trainable.
And if resilience is trainable, then that means you don't have to wait for life to slap you about. You can take on the challenge of training out of choice.
And I don't mean Navy SEAL Hell Week challenge. Not unless you're a real glutton for punishment. (I'll admit I sort of am, though…).
But the principles are the same:
Assume that life is going to test you
Assume that you will not be forewarned of the test
Prepare to face the test at any time by learning key skills
Practice your skills until they are muscle memory
Periodically test yourself to make sure your skills are honed
It's less a matter of walking over hot coals and more a matter of sharpening your sword so you maintain your edge.
Less intensity, more consistency.
MUSCLE MEMORY
How does that look in practice?
Well, that looks different for different people, because different people find different things hard.
You have to do things that are hard for you, but doable. Not things that are hard for others but easy for you, or hard for others and impossible for you.
What it looks like for me is this:
I get up early in the morning (naturally, I like it that way), and I go out for a run.
I don't always feel like running. And sometimes it's cold out, or it's drizzling, and no part of me feels like embracing that. Sometimes I'm tired because I haven't slept well, or I'm fatigued because I'm having an autoimmune flare-up. I'd rather stay in bed and just imagine I'm a badass. I don't want to do the hard work of proving to myself that I actually am a badass.
But I throw on my trainers, chuck on some choons, and face forwards anyway because that way I get a bit fitter, faster, stronger. Not just physically, but mentally.
I know I can do hard things, not just when I'm at my best, but when conditions are tough and I'm not feeling it.
That's when it counts the most, because life be like that sometimes. Suddenly you find yourself playing on hard mode, and there’s no off button.
By still playing when it's on hard mode and I'm not feeling it, I'm training myself for those simple realities of life. When a crisis comes up, I don't get to choose what mode I play it on, and I don't get to shelve it for when I'm feeling up to it. I just have to face it head-on.
It helps that I have muscle memory for that.
Training resilience also looks like leaning into hard conversations, because one day you’ll need to have a really hard conversation, and you won’t want it to be your first.
It also looks like making quick, values-based decisions, every day. Because there will come a day that you’re put on the spot for a quick decision on a life-and-death matter, and dithering will not be an option.
And it looks like the sweet defiance of radical ownership. Get used to copping unfairness. Life be a bitch like that sometimes. For every little injustice, face forwards, and determine the next step you’re going to take toward the sweet revenge of your own success.
Or, I suppose you could just stay in your comfort zone, whinge to all the wrong people about the shit you’re not willing to change, self-medicate, and watch as life passes you by…
…But you could also start training today.
Drop a comment below to share your training regimen.