When striving to be the best we can be athletically, we need a plan. One of the obvious elements to this plan is the physical training. We are going to need programming that schedules practice of skills, strength building, and conditioning. A common error is not realizing new goals always require new character. We think our current state of character has adequate tools, that nothing about ourselves needs to be changed or adjusted. This is fatal, and it always leads to failure. If you want to reach a level of performance you have never had before, you need to accept the fact that you will need to develop more discipline, more grit, and more humility in order to learn the new curriculum and stick to it long enough to see results. You need to continuously evolve your character along with your physical abilities.
 
As Ben Bergeron says, “The mindset of a champion is not some innate character trait that you have or don’t have based on DNA, fate, or sheer dumb luck. This is good news for all of us. It means that, through deep and meaningful practice, we can all forge and sharpen the mindset of a champion and deploy it to improve everything that is important to us.” 
 
The definition of character we will be working with is simply the sum of character that make up you. One school of thought believes you are born with or without certain traits and that you can’t change that. I do not believe this. I think you are born naturally strong in some character traits and weak in others, but that all of them are severely underdeveloped at the start. Even your strengths can be enhanced. Many athletes make the mistake of exploiting their strengths for easy wins early in their career. They get used to winning without hard work. Inevitably, the competition gets tougher as they rise through the ranks and they start losing. The strong character traits they were born with are no longer good enough. Even their strengths need to improve along with their weaknesses. They must choose to work hard and improve or get weeded out. All traits are not fixed entities. Some may be difficult to improve, but all are malleable.
 
Ben Bergeron, again: “There is a lot of misunderstanding around what mental toughness is. Because of this, people struggle to practice and improve it. Most people think that mental toughness is something you’re born with— like blue eyes or freckles. Nothing could be further from the truth. We can condition our resolve for excellence or weakness, for resiliency or rigidity.” 
 
Let’s take a look at the trait/quality of grit. Grit is the ability to stick to the game plan in the face of what seems to be insurmountable odds. It’s possessing an indomitable spirit, failing over and over again and always getting back up, never accepting defeat.
 
As Teddy Roosevelt said, “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 again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming...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.”
 
While growing up, I was lucky enough to be given opportunities to develop grit. My grandpa was a farmer, and my dad grew up on the farm, so neither one was shy about using me for some child labor. Starting at a very young age, I also spent a lot of time in the weight room, wrestled, played football and baseball, and ran track to a decent degree of success. My 7th grade year in wrestling, I lost every match except one, but I didn’t quit. In the off season, I hit the weight room, wrestling clinics, and tournaments. The next year I lost only a single match. These sports taught me that if I persevered long enough and endured the varieties of pain, sooner or later I would win. After I graduated high school, I overestimated the level of grit I had achieved. I thought I was ready for any physical challenge. I was wrong, and this was a lesson taught to me by my drill sergeants.
 
After high school graduation, I played a season of college football and then went off to U.S. Army Basic Training. Before arriving at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, my goal was to show the drill sergeants how good I was, how fast, strong, and smart I had become. I was young and wildly overconfident, but I wanted to make them proud of me and graduate with the highest marks. Immediately after meeting these demons who would be my instructors, I adjusted my goal to ‘just survive.’
 
The drill sergeants were experts in instilling humility. One tactic was early morning PT. That’s physical training at 4:30 am. Before I could wipe the sleep out of my eyes, we would be on the road running a blistering fast five miles. We would never start out with a slow jog and warm up to a fast pace; we would go hot out the gates every time. The lactic acid would fill my legs within seconds of starting the run. I truly thought these drill sergeants were not human. They were hybrids. Part human, part horse. What shocked me was the level of pain that existed beyond anything I had experienced to date. I had completed wrestling matches and football games that left me on my back in the locker room, but somehow this was worse. We not only induced unbearable pain with these runs, but we stayed there and lived in it. This was when I learned we have to continue to evolve. Always move forward. Just when you think you are a badass, some old drill sergeants come along and give you a piece of humble pie. There is always someone out there who is better than you, who can teach you something.
 
I had a crisis on my hands. I needed to swallow my pride and develop new character on the fly. I had to increase my level of grit immediately. I was not physically trained to complete those runs with any type of efficiency. Every single run required the down payment of my soul. To my disbelief, the level of grit that got me by in wrestling and football was not sufficient. There had to be a change. An upgrade. If I was not willing to make a change mentally, which meant I had to redefine my acceptable excuses for quitting, I would fail. This was a critical point in the self-talk I used to address the pain during those runs. It went something like this, “This hurts bad. I’m not ready to keep up with these guys. I need more conditioning first. But my legs are still moving. That’s all that matters. Ignore the pain, the knots in your Achilles, the fire in your calves, the cramps in your spleen, the nausea and feeling of suffocation. Keep taking strides until you collapse.” With this conversation I was able to separate the pain from the movement. I realized one did not affect the other, that tremendous amounts of discomfort does not cause you to stop moving. True failure is much further down the road after the pain begins. Pain does not have to be the signal to stop. For the record, I succeeded and graduated with a perfect score on the physical training test. My two-mile run time improved from 15:30 to 12:15!
 
There are always critical moments within these new quests where we have to decide to change. These are the moments that will send you spiraling backwards in your life’s trajectory if you fail to adapt and improve. In basic training, that moment was when, despite all my preparation, I was still not mentally or physically strong enough to run with the drill sergeants.
 
Deciding whether to keep going is always unimaginably difficult. All character traits are stubborn. They are cemented in. This is good and bad. They’re good because we work hard to develop them. Thank God they don’t disappear overnight. They’re bad because it is absolutely terrifying for anyone to step outside the known into the unknown in any situation, at any time. Unfortunately, this is why there will always be much pain involved in making this type of change. This mental trap pops up every time I teach a new technique. The athlete will always say, “That is weird. I don’t like it.” Without external pressure, the athlete would gladly continue using the inferior technique long after it stopped yielding results, merely because it was comfortable. Depending on your goals, comfortable may not be good enough.
 
Look within and find weaknesses that are holding you back. Identify the external problem and prepare the corresponding internal tool. The external problem could be lacking skill in your snatch technique. The internal problem could be you are low on conscientiousness. (Check out the big five personality traits for more on this.) You do not film yourself and study the video. You do not research possible solutions to the errors you see in the video. You do not listen to your coach. You do not have the patience to push through endless sessions of monotonous practice. These sessions are not fun or sexy and will easily weed out the less committed.
 
How are you going to upgrade your mental game? By simply choosing to display a character trait on the surface even though it is not completely integrated within yourself, also known as “fake it till you make it.”
 
One of three things will happen:
1. Nothing. You fail the attempt to develop the new skill and trait, which leaves you right where you started.
2. You get the win or master the new skill, but still do not own the character trait.
3. You get the win or master the new skill, and you now possess full control of the new character trait.
 
Say you are only halfway through a grueling training routine and you are out of patience, and you have had enough, you cannot remain in the facility for another minute. But you make the choice to shut up, stay, and do the work. It is true, on the inside you were not patient, you were losing your mind, but on the outside, all looked calm, and you finished the session and garnished the training adaptations of a patient individual. Next time your patience should last longer. You will focus better and produce a better training stimulus.
 
When is this going to happen? Now. Every time you have the opportunity to improve your character you are going to take it. Whenever you feel like quitting and the training is not complete, take that opportunity to train your mental toughness. Never miss these opportunities. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 minutes or 10 seconds left on the clock. That time is priceless the moment your mind or body tells you to stop. Don’t stop, the results you will receive from here are the elite adaptations you are looking for. This applies to conditioning, strength, and skill practice. Each training element can play its own mental game on you. They can put you in their own special mental hell. Practice will try your patience. Strength training will test your tenacity. Conditioning will test your resolve. Each will make you lose your mind if you cave in. Each has its own special pain. If the pain kicks in and the work is not done, finish the work on the legs of your heart and soul.
  
Operating at your limits is your new modus operandi. You cannot evolve if you are always winning. Try new things and lose as much as you can tolerate. The losses tell you where your character flaws are. I am talking about loss in all its forms. Missed reps. Failed PR attempts. Missed shots. Blocked takedowns. Tap outs. Missed tackles. Lost games, matches and championships. Champions are willing to lose. They just don’t see the losses as failure. They learn, adapt and try again until they win. Do not abandon what you know. Keep one foot firmly on the ground you have already taken and keep one foot in the unknown.