How to Build an Iron Mind

Building an iron mind is not easy. But it is not difficult either. It requires taking a small step each day. Focus on the small step first; not the cliff in front of us. It is like doing push ups. Doing 100 seems impossible, but doing one push up one hundred times is feasible. We just need to do one each day! Focus on today and stay strong!

 

Check this out. Michael Singer, author of "The Untethered Soul" is one of the greatest masters in this area.

 

"Willpower is your ability to make sure you do the right thing" (Check out "Willpower: the Owner's Manual" by Frank Martela.) Here are a few recipes, which I have adapted liberally, to build an Iron Mind based on insights from this book:

1) Stay Positive. Never feel sorry for yourself or disappointed if you fail. Negative thoughts will drain you of energy. If you fall, you get back up. Period. No whining about it, no crying, no words about how miserable you are feeling.

2) The More you believe in yourself and your willpower, the easier it will become to fight urges. But overconfidence generates complacency. Lack of humility ends up in failure.

3) Willpower is like a muscle, it can get tired quickly. Through habits you can avoid temptations when you are most vulnerable. Build routines that get internalized and memorized so that they require no effort and offer you protection. Habits allow the mind to take action effortlessly, protecting your reservoir of willpower for moments when you will most need it.

4) Concentrate your willpower on the battles that matter. If you fight an urge to eat a bit of chocolate late at night, for example, you are using part of your willpower reservoir. And so, better to build a habit in your routines that says "no sugar, or no food after a certain hour". There is obviously nothing wrong with eating chocolate if that is what you want to do. The point is that you cannot sustain an effort to succeed against multiple urges that come at the same time. We may want to be trained by YODA and become JEDIs but in reality we are still human and prone to failure if we do not prepare well.

5) The tougher the challenge, the more tools are needed. Design your life with routines and habits that minimize the use of willpower. Your willpower will be stronger or weaker depending on the choices you make regarding your lifestyle.

Sorry, there are no Jedi/Yoda mind tricks to build an iron mind and develop willpower. You have to approach this as an athlete would approach a competition: "make sure that you are well-rested, have eaten properly, and have eliminated all other willpower-draining activities from your day".

Hope this is useful.

 

Here are some tips on how to build mental toughness with a short mental workout. Jason Selk is a bit of a guru in this area and has worked with many sport teams and business leaders.

 

To Build an Iron Mind, we need to follow a systematic approach. Here's a short video that will prove incredibly helpful. If you like it, try reading "You are not your Brain". This approach is extremely useful to deal with any form of compulsive behavior.

 

Some other thoughts to help build an Iron Mind (and I use this simply as a metaphor):

1) Live a balanced life style (family, work, physical, spiritual).
2) Fearlessness. Take risks (not addictive ones of course).
3) Keep grace under pressure. When stressful circumstances arise, think about what will happen in 5 years, not 5 minutes. Maintain a sense of perspective.
4) Work Hard. Nothing is easy.
5) Persistence.- Winston Churchill's only words at a commencement ceremony: "Never, never, never give up"

 

"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our own thoughts" (Charles Darwin)

Pursue whatever is TRUE, whatever is RIGHT, whatever is PURE, whatever is LOVELY, whatever is of good REPUTE. If there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8).

 

Very simple and very powerful

 

FallenToLearnHumility: Thanks for your comments. I am glad you found this page useful. I like your name. Humility is crucial. It means that we accept that we cannot do this alone, that we are accountable to others and that we may fail, but we will always get up and move on. Stay strong!

 

Here's another critical question: "how will you measure your life?" Imagine you are about to die, or you are already dead, and someone (could be yourself) asks about the value of your life. How will you measure it? It obviously depends on the choices you make along the way. Here's a lecture from a highly respected professor. Human lives, like corporations, reap what they sow in a number of small, seemingly insignificant steps. But in the end, small decisions add up and determine the value of our existence, measured by ourselves or others. We can make a difference if we do the next right thing!

 

Sometimes it is important to remind ourselves of not only what we can do, but also of what we should not do.

I came across the following quote: "The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it. I can resist everything except temptation" (Oscar Wilde). Very funny, but building an iron mind requires having a capacity to delay gratification and resist temptation. We know for a fact now that yielding to temptation provides only temporary relief. The urges will come back. Oscar Wilde's approach is a recipe for disaster. He was a genius in many respects. And he is incredibly funny, but he got this wrong...

 

Some ideas on how to make difficult decisions. They come from an old self-improvement journal I still keep. I do not recall where I read about this but I reproduce the ideas here as a reminder to myself on things to consider when confronting difficult choices. Clearly too many points, but some of them might be useful:

1) Consider whether or not you will be able to look proudly into the mirror.
2) Reflect on past difficult decisions and how you made them.
3) Meditate and listen to your instincts.
4) See how it affects the balance in your life.
5) Set aside time to give careful thought to the decision.
6) Who will it affect and what does my heart tell me?
7) Imagine having made the decision, will you get a sense of relief, even if accompanied by sadness?
8) Which choice is more fun? (comment: you can get it wrong if you emphasize this for compulsive reasons).
9) Make a patient effort and have confidence in yourself as decision-maker.
10) Let go of fear.
11) Ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? How likely is it? Can you deal with it?
12) Go with your instincts. Don't second-guess yourself.
13) Check your internal compass: How will you feel if you make the decision? How will you feel if you make the other?
14) If you have to talk yourself into something, it is a bad decision.
15) Listen to your heart. Is it good for me? Is it good for my family?
16) Think about how you will feel when you are 70 and look back at what you did with your life.
17) Align your actions with your life purpose and personal values.
18) Make the small decisions with your head, and the big ones with your heart.
19) People should not be forced to know things about themselves that they do not want to know.
20) Dealing with emotions requires patience.

 

Building an iron mind requires focus, reflection and optimism.