Mental Strength:

Condition your Mind, Acheive your Goals

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Chapter 2: Mental Resistance

In the last chapter we established that mental resistance is the thoughts and beliefs that stand between us and the things we want from life. We also discussed that mental resistance is actually a vital part of ensuring that we achieve those exact same goals! In this chapter, we'll explain why mental resistance occurs and why it is vital for our development.

We're probably all familiar with the negative thoughts that form mental resistance, but the question that needs to be answered is why these thoughts occur in the first place. And before we can answer why they occur, we need to understand when they occur.

Negative thoughts normally arise when you are are in a situation, or about to attempt something, that your subconscious, rightly or wrongly, considers risky.

To take an extreme example, let's say that you're about to do a parachute jump for the first time. You're thousands of feet in the air, you've never done a parachute jump before, and you're about to leap out of a perfectly good aeroplane! What thoughts are likely to be running through your mind? Are you likely to be thinking these positive, happy thoughts?:

'What a lovely view!'

'This is so much fun!'

'I wish this could last forever!'

Or are the following thoughts more likely to be popping into your head?:

'This is higher than I thought it would be! I'm not sure I can handle this!'

'I'm absolutely terrified; I really want to back out and go back home!'

'I never want to do this ever again!'

Unless you're a very experienced skydiver, I think we can agree that you're probably more likely to be thinking the negative thoughts from the second list. The reason you're much more likely to think those negative thoughts is that your brain considers what you're about to do to be a risk, and hence tries to talk you out of it. So why does the brain do this? The simple answer is survival!

Let's say that your brain actually liked it when you took risks. Instead of trying to talk you out of what it perceived as risky situations, it actually encouraged you to seek them out. How long do you think you'd live?

'Let's leap off this tall building; it will be such a laugh!'

'Let's go pick a fight with that gang over there; they look really dangerous!'

'It would be fun to try to out run that speeding car! I wonder if I could do it? Only one way to find out!'

Through thousands of generations and the process of evolution, we've inherited a brain that tries to talk us out of risky situations. Now, I'm pretty sure that there may have been the odd caveman who simply loved to poke sabre-toothed tigers with pointy sticks, but I'm also sure that they were weeded out of the gene pool pretty quickly!

When it comes to staying alive, the discouraging negative thoughts that prevent us from endangering our lives are very useful and most welcome. We're often told that it's good to face our fears, but there are definitely some fears we shouldn't face! Fear is not always a bad thing. For example, I'd be pretty scared if I was about to leap out of a tree onto a metal spike! Should I confront that fear? I'll give it a miss if it's all the same with you.

The problem we have is that our brains are pretty poor at determining what a real risk is. Ever watched a scary movie and actually felt afraid? You know you're not going to come to any real harm, but the brain still triggers that emotional response. You jump out of your seat (if the movie is any good) and avert your eyes as a socially acceptable way to run away. Ever ridden on a rollercoaster and screamed your lungs out? Again, you're in no real danger, and you know that, but you still feel like you are.

Ever felt terrified before a job interview? You don't have the job now, and the worst that can happen is you make a complete mess of the interview and you still don't have the job. Where's the risk? You could argue that the risk is not getting the job. However, I'm sure you'll agree that you're more likely to get the job if you are calm and collected rather than being a terrified, wobbly mess. The brain mistakes a perceived risk for an actual physical threat and responds accordingly.

When threatened, we call upon the much talked about flight or fight response. As a theory, it's my view that flight or fight is missing an all important third 'f'; that of 'freeze'.

Let's say that one of our caveman ancestors comes across one of the aforementioned sabre-toothed tigers. To survive, he basically has three options: he can run away (flight), he can kill it (fight), or he can remain perfectly still and hope the tiger does not spot him (freeze). His survival instincts will kick in and his brain will prompt him to get out of the situation by one of those three methods. In this situation, assuming he's going to survive, it is likely our caveman will subconsciously think, 'You're not strong enough to kill the tiger. It can easily out run you. So stay still, do nothing, and hope it has not seen you!'

Now it could be argued that the caveman's thoughts are negative (he's told himself that he's slow and weak). However, in that extreme situation his negative thinking saved his life! The sabre-toothed tiger posed a very real threat and had our caveman felt positive about the situation, and not responded to the threat, he could easily have been killed.

Our caveman's first instinct would be to freeze. Had the tiger spotted our caveman and moved towards him, we would hope that the caveman's instincts would now tell him to run. And should running not be possible, he will have no other option but to fight the beast. In all three scenarios, the overriding thought is likely to be, 'You need to get out of this situation. and fast!'

Let's say that a week or so after our caveman successfully avoided the sabre-toothed tiger, he inadvertently strolls near to the location of his close shave. Upon recognising the area, he will feel fear and his brain will discourage him from entering that area. He is very likely to think, 'Don't go any further! If you enter this area bad things could happen. You should quickly turn around and head back the way you came!'

As we've already discussed, for our survival it is very important that we avoid threatening situations and that is why the flight, fight or freeze response feels so unpleasant. If it felt good, we'd all endanger ourselves all the time! When confronted with a risk, our brains set off that negative feeling and the negative thoughts quickly follow in order to encourage us to avoid that risk now and in the future.

We can all agree that being attacked by a wild beast, shot at, physically attacked or being in a building which is on fire are all very real threats to our lives and hence our brains are doing the right thing by encouraging us to get out of that situation in the correct way (flight, fight or freeze). Our brains would also be quite correct in discouraging us from getting into that situation in the first place (negative and discouraging thoughts).

Returning to the perceived threat of the job interview, how relevant is flight, fight or freeze? You could run out of the office screaming (flight), punch the interviewer (fight), or just stay totally silent and motionless throughout the interview (freeze)! I think the likely response would be, 'Don't call us; we'll call you . but first we're phoning security!'

Joking aside, we can see that our primitive survival mechanism is not appropriate for this situation. However, because our brains are unable to differentiate between real and perceived threats, our subconscious still treats the situation as a life-threatening event and invokes the associated response.

Our stone-age brain has not had time to evolve to meet the needs of the modern world. Whilst it is certainly very useful and effective for real life-threatening situations, it overreacts and is overcautious for many of the situations we face in the twenty-first century. By way of example, let's say that you've been asked to give a speech at a social event. This situation is definitely not life-threatening. The worst that can happen is you give a poor speech, you get embarrassed, and some of your friends may make fun of you. However, the threat of making a fool of yourself and being the butt of a few jokes is treated by the brain as a threat to your life! The wholly unpleasant sensation of flight, fight or freeze is evoked and negative thoughts try to persuade you to avoid this 'threatening' situation. You may really want to give the speech, but your stone-age survival response may be able to prevent you from doing so.

So far we have seen that our survival response, although life-saving in the correct situation, can be incorrectly triggered whenever you find yourself in a situation that your brain considers to be threatening. When triggered, our survival response invokes unpleasant feelings, and negative and discouraging thoughts. These feelings and thoughts will need to be dealt with if we are to undertake the task that triggered them. We have previously defined these inappropriate thoughts as mental resistance.

These discouraging thoughts can be pretty convincing and appear in many guises (mental resistance can be pretty sneaky!). Look again at the list on page 15. If we look a little closer at the underlying cause of all the thoughts listed, we can see that all those thoughts really originate from the fact that your survival mechanism considers the task you are about to attempt to be some kind of threat and it would rather you avoided the situation altogether! Now that's OK if the situation is truly life-threatening, but what if the situation, although a little intimidating, is a task we need to undertake in order to achieve the things we want from life?

The logical, more evolved part of your brain knows that speaking in public is not a real threat (embarrassment never killed anyone). However, the survival-based primitive brain is convinced that public speaking is a genuine danger! How does the whole brain make sense of this conflict? The answer is through compromise. The logical part of your brain can't accept 'this is a real threat!' as a believable reason not to do something. However 'You're not talented enough!' could be plausible. It does not have to be true; it just needs to be plausible! The logical part of your brain has a 'reason' not to attempt the task and the survival mechanism is happy because you're now not doing the threatening activity! Your brain has conspired to talk you out of attempting the task (mental resistance has triumphed!).

As we established in chapter one, mental resistance is any negative thought, feeling or belief that stands between you and your goals. Whilst mental resistance can prevent us from attempting to achieve our goals, it is the process of removing and reducing that same mental resistance that makes us capable of achieving them. Everything you want in life lies on the other side of mental resistance. If we want to grow, we need to face up to mental resistance and move beyond it. As we'll see as we progress through this book, the actual process of dealing with mental resistance will bring many benefits! So how do we approach mental resistance? And how do we get past it?

Returning to our example of a speech at a social event, let's say that you've spoken in public many times before and have a good track record of delivering amusing, moving and entertaining speeches. Is the survival response likely to be set off in this situation? No, because you won't perceive the situation as any kind of threat. Your subconscious won't try to talk you out of it and is more likely to actively encourage what it knows from experience will be a rewarding situation. There will be no mental resistance.

From this example, we can see that the level of mental resistance experienced will be directly proportional to the level of the perceived threat. To reduce the level of mental resistance we need to reduce the level of the perceived threat. So how do we do that?

There are three ways to reduce the perceived threat and the associated mental resistance:

Way 1: Don't attempt the threatening activity!

This way is undoubtedly the easiest. If you listen to the inappropriate survival response and decide not to attempt the activity, you avoid the threat. There is no longer any risk and you won't experience any mental resistance. However, whilst this is undoubtedly the most popular method it does have the major drawback of guaranteeing that you'll never achieve your goals. Also, if you decide later that perhaps you'd been a little hasty and you'd like to attempt that activity again, the threat level could be even greater (you've had a failure that could be used to justify the perceived threat) and, therefore, the mental resistance would also be greater. This method only works if we never try to advance ourselves.

Way 2: Compromise your goals.

Let's say that you wanted to be the national champion of your chosen sport. You qualify for the national championships, get the entry form for the event and then the survival mechanism kicks in, 'There will be some really good people at this event and they could make you look pretty stupid in front of a very large crowd! You really shouldn't enter it.' Rather than enter, you decide to permanently aim low and only enter local tournaments. There may still be a perceived threat at these local events, and therefore a small amount of mental resistance. However, in this lower threat environment it will be much smaller than the perceived threat and mental resistance experienced if you had continued to pursue your goal of being national champion.

By compromising our goals, we reduce the threat and therefore the mental resistance experienced, but only if we permanently stay at that lower level. The instant we reach for our true goal, mental resistance will return.

Way 3: Become mentally stronger so that you can overcome the mental resistance.

In the last chapter we defined mental strength as the ability to overcome mental resistance and cause things to happen. Being mentally strong will allow us to overcome the mental resistance caused by a perceived threat. Despite the fact that the activity may intimidate us, we have sufficient mental strength to attempt that activity regardless.

Through overriding the mental resistance and attempting the activity, we will gain experience. The next time we attempt that activity, we will have experience of it, we will have learned a few lessons, and therefore the perceived risk will not be as great. Our survival mechanism now knows from experience that the activity has been successfully confronted in the past and therefore its response will be more moderate. The more experience we have of an activity, the less threatening it becomes.

The key to reducing the perceived threat level, is having the mental strength to overcome the mental resistance induced by the activity and therefore gain experience of that activity. So how do we make ourselves mentally stronger?

You'll remember that on a number of occasions I've said that mental resistance is needed if we are to make progress. And although certain aspects of mental resistance are negative, contrary to much of prevailing thought, we need that negativity in order to make progress. There are some positive aspects to negative thoughts!

One of the positive aspects of mental resistance is the fact that it only appears when you're about to attempt something your survival mechanism perceives as risky. If you were to live your life exactly as you do now, and never attempt anything new, your survival mechanism is unlikely to ever be triggered. The appearance of mental resistance is a good indicator that you're about to do something quite special. Every time you take a step towards achieving the things you want in your life, mental resistance will be in front of you encouraging you to turn back! This means that we can use mental resistance as a guide to which way to go. Just head towards the mental resistance and you're more likely to be on the path to all the things you want!

Now this news may be discouraging for some. We all know that mental resistance does not feel nice, and perhaps some of you were hoping this book would give you a way to avoid those feelings. Sorry to disappoint you, but those feelings will always be there as long as you're doing things to improve the quality of your life. There is no such thing as effortless and discomfort-free progress! Experiencing mental resistance, although unpleasant, means that your life is about to get better! We do, of course, need to get past that resistance in order to walk the path towards our ideal life, and as we've already covered, we need mental strength to do that.

To develop physical strength, we need some form of physical resistance to overcome. As a keen weightlifter since my teens, I know that to get stronger I need to lift weights that cause me some discomfort. By attempting to overcome that physical resistance and the associated discomfort, my body will adapt and become physically stronger. Our minds work in a similar way.

To become mentally stronger, we need a mental resistance to overcome. The great thing is that mental resistance automatically appears whenever we head towards our goals! The negative thoughts and mental resistance that appear when we move towards our goals will actually help to give us the mental strength needed to achieve those goals! How cool is that! The fact that mental resistance can also make us stronger is another one of its positive attributes.

It is important to understand that anything that requires strength also has the ability to develop strength. Lifting weights requires physical strength, and lifting weights also has the ability to develop strength. Likewise, overcoming mental resistance requires mental strength, and overcoming mental resistance will develop mental strength!

This may seem like a bit of a paradox at first: we need mental strength to overcome mental resistance but we need mental resistance in order to develop mental strength! However, it only seems paradoxical because we have not yet covered exactly how we make use of mental resistance in order to develop the strength of our minds.

When developing physical strength, we need a structured and scientific training programme if we are to make progress in a safe and effective way. If you just ran into the nearest gym and started trying to lift the heaviest weights in the place, you are unlikely to get stronger and are very likely to injure yourself. You need to understand how to perform the various exercises and learn the key training principles that will allow you to make steady progress. It is exactly the same with mental strength. In chapter three we'll discuss the key 'training principle' that will allow you to develop your mental strength, overcome mental resistance, and make postitive and real progress towards all the things you want in life.

Not only does facing up to mental resistance have the capability to develop mental strength, the same process can also develop our talents! An increase in talent will also help us to achieve the things we want in life. We'll discuss how this works later on in this book. For now, it is enough to understand that although mental resistance can prevent us from attempting to change our situation, if we face up to that mental resistance it can be a positive force that will provide all the things we need to achieve our goals.

Before we move on, it is important to review some of the key points raised in this chapter:

Mental resistance appears whenever you are about to attempt something that your subconscious (rightly or wrongly) considers risky. Our primitive survival response is unable to differentiate between real life-threatening events and many of the perceived threats that we experience in the modern world. Our brains attempt to dissuade us from engaging in activities that are perceived as threats, even though engaging in those activities will improve the quality of our lives. This knowledge should therefore lead us to understand that experiencing mental resistance is a good indication that your life is about to improve, providing you don't turn back and have the mental strength to overcome that mental resistance. Although we need mental strength to overcome mental resistance, we also need mental resistance to develop mental strength. At this point, this may seem like a paradox, but only because we have yet to cover the details of the process, and we'll be covering the key principle of this process in the next chapter.

Read Introduction | Read Chapter 1

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