How to increase your mental resilience, according to extreme athletes

If you want to perform at a high level, you’ll need to be resilient. The way to build this mental skill is by overcoming unexpected challenges that come your way. While we all experience roadblocks, you don’t have to wait for one to happen. High performers approach challenges differently, often inviting them in, says Polina Marinova Pompliano, author of Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways Of Thinking That Power The World’s Most Successful People.

“Being mentally resilient is the ability to endure pain for long periods of time,” she says. “The highest performers use mental frameworks that fundamentally change the way they see the world.”

Do Something Hard Every Day

Extreme athletes are some of the most resilient individuals among us, and their techniques can serve as a model for introducing more resilience into your life. For example, athletes at the top of their game often use elective hardship in their lives to better prepare for the tough moments in life that aren’t voluntary.

“When you’re an athlete, you create moments of pain and suffering in your day,” says Marinova Pomplian. “[Retired Navy SEAL] David Goggins calls this callusing your mind so that when life hits you across the head with something you’re not expecting, you are better able to handle it.”

The way to callus your mind is to do something that sucks every day, says Marinova Pompliano. For example, if you don’t want to go on a run, do it anyway. If you don’t want to clean your house, do it anyway.

You can also start small. If you’re uncomfortable with public speaking, force yourself into situations where you have to speak to a crowd, which could be three people. If you don’t like negotiation, find moments in your day where you can try to lower the price of something, such as buying an item on Facebook Marketplace.

“Small moments that aren’t consequential help you prove to yourself, ‘I did this small thing and didn’t die. Therefore, I’ll be okay,’” says Marinova Pompliano. “Every single time you do it, you introduce friction, which helps you in the big moments later in life. Putting tiny moments of hardship in your day shows that even as hard things come up, you will keep your promise to yourself, taking them on and overcoming them.”

Look Pain in the Face

Another way to build resilience is by personifying pain. Marinova Pompliano interviewed endurance athlete Courtney Dauwalter, who runs 100-mile races.

“She thinks about pain as an actual place she calls a ‘pain cave,’” says Marinova Pompliano. “She knows whenever she runs really long races, she’ll eventually reach the pain cave, and it’s going to be awful. She knows she’s not going to want to enter it, but she’s equally in control of when she leaves. She tells herself, ‘Once I’m in there, I’ll face in an ordinate amount of pain, and then I’ll emerge from the other side.”

Goggins personifies pain by calling it a “dark room.” He told Marinova Pompliano that he was once very insecure and would lie for validation. He pasted sticky notes around his bathroom mirror to remind him that he was going to go the whole day without lying for external validation. “He said, ‘You have to go into that dark room, face yourself, and say the truth about yourself,’” she says. “His sticky notes were reminders of the small actions he was going to do to overcome these faults. If you can go in the dark room and face yourself, you can come out the other side a different person. It’s a process of transformation.”

Reframe Hardships

It also helps to put moments of hardship in a positive light. Marinova Pompliano interviewed rock climber Tommy Caldwell, who looks at moments of pain as an adventure. “If you can reframe these moments, then you’re better able to cope and endure,” he told her. For Goggins, physical challenges help him feel good in his body, which then helps him feel good in his mind.

Mental toughness is a skill; it’s not something that you’re born with, says Marinova Pompliano. “It’s like a muscle that you exercise, so that you’re ready for the terrible moments that will inevitably happen,” she says. “Someone will pass away. You might lose your job. Horrible things happen. If you introduce voluntarily friction into your everyday life, you’re not as fragile when those big moments come. And you can rely on the fact that you have the skills to face that moment.”