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Jeremy Hall knew his mission was on the verge of going to pieces.<\/p>\n
The year was 2003, and the Iraq War had just begun. Hall was a member of a secretive U.S. Army special operations unit nicknamed The Activity (think SEAL Team 6 but more secretive).<\/p>\n
And at that moment, he was in a bunker in the heart of Baghdad.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a team that was about to go out to a location and take out a high value target, but we had an equipment breakdown,\u201d recalled Hall. \u201cPeople started asking, \u2018Are these coordinates right?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when things got worse. \u201cA man went down. Then another,\u201d says Hall, whose job was to coordinate data from satellites and intercepted cell phone signals. \u201cPeople were getting shot at. Our base was getting mortared. You could hear gunshots and RPGs going off outside.\u201d Just when it seemed it couldn\u2019t get worse, one of Hall\u2019s colleagues experienced a migraine panic attack and Hall had to take over his duties:<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized I couldn\u2019t control the level of resources I had, but I can control my reaction to this because these people are relying on me. I said, ‘I\u2019m going to be a rock right now.’\u201d<\/p>\n
With a variety of Special Forces commandos depending on his team — \u201cGreen Berets, Delta Force, combat patrollers, that sort of thing\u201d — Hall knew there was no other option but to make the best of the situation. \u201cWe just stayed firm and focused on what we were doing and our adrenaline kicked in once we made the decision to stay calm.\u201d Ultimately, the team executed the operation without any more casualties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been easy to say, \u2018Oh crap we don\u2019t have our normal tools,\u2019\u201d says Hall. Instead, he asked himself, \u201cHow can I make the best out of this scenario — what can I do in actionable steps to achieve our goal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if you\u2019re lucky enough to never be in a situation as stressful as what Hall faced, you will face situations which will test your mental toughness. It\u2019s a part of life.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s losing your job, or your business going under, or losing a loved one, life is filled with stressful situations. These are times when your mental strength will be challenged and your resilience tested. As a husband, as a father, or simply as a man, we are often expected to be mentally tough, yet we often don\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n
AoM has previously covered different dimensions of the topic of mental toughness, writing about how to strengthen willpower<\/a>, how to tap into hidden wells of strength<\/a>, and how to cultivate your mental toughness<\/a> through small discomforts and positive thinking.<\/p>\n In this post I want to share four exercises<\/strong> that are inspired by the stories of brave men who have endured the hardships of war that can help any man strengthen his mental toughness.<\/p>\n You may never be caught in a firefight on a foreign battlefield, engage in a Special Forces operation, or lead men into battle on hostile grounds. My goal here is to teach you a few tips from those who have experienced these challenges, so that you can have greater mental toughness in your own personal and professional life.<\/p>\n And if you follow all of these tips, then the next time you meet a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL, you can say, \u201cHey, I\u2019m just as mentally tough as you!\u201d (No, seriously, do not do that.)<\/p>\n You may be wondering at this point: what is<\/em> mental toughness, after all? \u201cMuch of mental toughness is simply attitude and self esteem,\u201d writes Stewart Smith, a former Navy SEAL and author of The Complete Guide to Navy SEAL Fitness<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI am of the personal belief that through tough physical training, proper mindset, and a high level of maturity that mental toughness is born.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, mental toughness comes from a combination of factors rather than any single one. Here are four strategies that can help you achieve that rare combination.<\/p>\n Jon Paulson was just 19 years old when he enlisted in the Marines. He spent six months training at Camp Pendleton in San Diego in 1964-1965. \u201cThe training is very, very rigorous,\u201d says Paulson. \u201cYou do things over and over and over again and you become good at it. And being good at something gives you confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n That training gave Paulson crucial confidence, which he would need a few months later, when, in July 1965, he was deployed as part of the second wave of Marines to enter South Vietnam. He was in charge of a platoon of 40 men, and was just 22 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number one objective in the Marines is to complete the mission; the second is to protect the men in the platoon,\u201d says Paulson. \u201cSo the mission supersedes the safety of the men. As a platoon leader, you know you\u2019re going to have to send a squad directly into the line of fire, but you have to do that to accomplish the greater mission.\u201d<\/p>\n When making those kinds of calls, you absolutely must project confidence, he says. \u201cEven if you\u2019re leading just four people, you have to have confidence — and have to have the confidence of those three men in your command,\u201d says Paulson.<\/p>\n The same principle which works for the Marines — aggressive training to increase confidence — can be applied in the civilian world. \u201cIf you get up and speak a lot then you get better at it and you will get more confident,\u201d says Paulson.<\/p>\n Exercise:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Paulson was trained for confidence by the U.S. Marines. But you can train yourself to be confident as well.<\/p>\n It starts with steady and deliberate practice<\/a>, and continually testing yourself to live on the edge of failure.<\/p>\n LaRae Quy, the author of Secrets of a Strong Mind<\/em><\/a>, suggests a strategy to increase your confidence by overcoming smaller failures. The goal is to help you become more confident in the face of larger challenges. Create a \u201cpetri dish\u201d in your life, writes Quy, \u201ca little area in which [you\u2019re] not succeeding.\u201d This could mean learning a musical instrument or a new sport or studying a new language<\/a>.<\/p>\n By challenging yourself on a daily basis with a skill you are not fully mastering, \u201cyou develop greater confidence in your skills and training and avoid greater meltdowns when the larger failures do occur,\u201d says Quy.<\/p>\n My grandfather\u2019s \u201cdiploma\u201d from completing 35 bombing missions as part of the 390th Bomb Group during WWII.<\/p><\/div>\n Often the simplest form of mental toughness is simply to tell yourself, \u201cIt\u2019s my job.\u201d<\/p>\n My grandfather was a B-17 pilot in Europe during WWII, flying bombing missions out of England over German cities.<\/p>\n In May of 1945 he was on a bombing mission over Nuremberg when they were attacked by German fighters and \u201cgot the hell shot out of them,\u201d my father said later.<\/p>\n After the war, my grandfather was stationed as an air rescue pilot at an air base in Narsasauwak (now spelled Narsarsuaq), Greenland — an area renowned for its heavy fog.<\/p>\n One day, two airplanes were flying in together from overseas and the fog layer was so low you couldn\u2019t see the surrounding mountains. The planes had limited working instruments and had little chance of landing without assistance.<\/p>\n The base commanders \u201cbasically said they can crash land on the ice cap and we\u2019ll try to save them,\u201d recalled my father. \u201cDad and his crew volunteered to fly up and help the two planes land.\u201d<\/p>\n My grandfather flew above the cloud layer, and using what he knew about the mountain range, had each plane follow him through the fog directly to the runway so they could land. My grandfather received an air medal for the rescue.<\/p>\n I asked my father why he thought my grandfather volunteered to go up. \u201cIt was a sense of duty,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was his job. He was a pilot and that\u2019s what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n4 Exercises for Strengthening Your Mental Toughness<\/span><\/h3>\n
1. Train Yourself to Increase Your Confidence<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n2. Embrace Your Sense of Duty<\/h3>\n
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