Work on being resilient in all situations. No matter what happens, no matter the outcome, you can and will overcome it. When you fall down, you can choose to stay down and wallow in sorrow, or you can choose to get back up. Be a riser. Others can’t keep you down, only you get to make that choice.
Don’t overdramatize things. Something didn’t go your way…What is complaining going to do? Nothing. Learn from your mistakes. And if you feel you did everything “right” but it still didn’t work out, that doesn’t mean you need to make a bad decision next time because the good decision didn’t pay off this time/last time.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Friedrich Nietzsche
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Friedrich Nietzsche
This is true for overcoming physical challenges, but also for overcoming mental challenges.
The biggest mental challenge sometimes isn’t even real. It’s the fear of “what might happen” if you do something. A lot of times, it’s that fear that holds us back from achieving our full potential. We fear that we’ll fail, that others will judge us, that we will be rejected or look dumb. Those fears might be realized. Nobody is immune from failing. BUT, what we need to focus on is not the failure itself, but rather that we mustered the courage to take action.
It’s just like Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the arena” speech. In it, TR says:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
When you face your fear, you feel like it’s going to kill you at first, but it doesn’t and you are stronger for it.
How do you become grittier? By following through with what you start in every area of life. Being gritty helps you become more gritty. Embrace challenge. Follow through! Don’t quit in the middle of something. If you decide to quit, that’s fine. But make sure that you do so at a natural stopping point (like the end of a season).
