Mental Toughness

Light and Love

This episode is dedicated to Alex Zonio 11/13/88-9/14/2019

What is mental toughness & why do I think it’s so important to understand/have?

Whenever you’re doing something and your first instinct is to give up there’s a part of you, that you know well, that keeps you in the comfort zone & holds you back, allows you to give up, but there’s also this part of you, that you may not know as well, that knows you can.

Mental Toughness is digging deep for the part of you that knows you can and giving whatever you face your all, pushing past fear and comfort.

Zonio would always tell us mental toughness and always root us on even if it was just beer pong. We thought a lot of it came from being in the army and literally having to have mental toughness and breaking barriers without question or choice. Back then it was funny and annoying at times, but now I understand why it was one of his life mottos. Having the will to push past your limits is what is needed in order to survive and most other times, to grow.

We can only grow when we push past our perceived limits, our glass ceilings, our limiting beliefs, our log jams. Whatever you want to call it, growth is on the other side of doing something you’ve never done before.

About a year and a half into my journey of self discovery I finally started to understand what limiting beliefs are and how much they can take a toll on our growth. A lot of us tend to not think much of ourselves, for many reasons, but through my journey I learned the only cheerleader that will be standing on the sidelines every time is YOU and you alone.

You have to know what your fears are, what your beliefs about yourself are and where they come from and whether or not they’re really true or they are just that, beliefs. A lot of us have to see something in order to know it’s true and when you take a path less walked you don’t always have someone to turn to, you have to figure everything out yourself. It’s scary, it doesn’t make sense, but if you keep going you realize all you had to do was push, push past what you know and what you THINK you know.

Fear of the unknown holds us back, but on the other side of fear is freedom. It’s not easy to get to, but mental toughness is the segway. Knowing you can push past your boundaries and that the only result will be growth.

I want to close this out by saying mental toughness may sound machismo or masculine or insinuating that we should ignore our feelings, but that is never something I would promote. You should never ignore your feelings or push them aside or feel they are inferior. I wish I could tell Zonio that mental toughness can only get you so far during a rough time and it isn’t the answer to everything in life. I want to encourage anyone dealing with something they feel they cannot battle alone to reach out to someone whether it’s a friend/family or professional.