Mental Toughness Is Built Through Practice

Hat tip to Dr. Lisa Lewis, who recently wrote about using difficult exercises as an opportunity to recognize how tough and capable we are.

Her message immediately took me back to my kettlebell certifications. In particular, the snatch test.

The test of toughness, really.

One hundred kettlebell snatches in five minutes.

That’s the test.

It is absolutely doable. I trained for it. I kind of knew the pace I needed. LOL I kind of knew when to switch hands. I knew, physically, that I was capable of finishing it.

But it’s uncomfortable. You don’t get to it “fresh.” It’s done at the end of a grueling day

Which makes it even more of a mind fuck.

The nerves leading up to it are crazy. My brain started questioning everything.

What if I can’t keep the pace?

What if my grip gives out?

What if I fail in front of everyone?

What if I tear a callus?

I could talk myself out of my ability before I even picked up the kettlebell.

I think I have taken the snatch test three times. The last one was at a certification with Dan John.

Talk about being in a room with a legend. No pressure or anything.

But he made the entire experience feel comfortable. At least as comfortable as it could be, given the thing we were about to do.

He has a way of doing that. He just understands people really, really well. And he just has a way of bringing the calm into the chaos. Thanks Mr. John.

Another was with Andrea DuCane and Paul Britt.

That was the one I just wanted to get over with. I was so nervous.

Because, ummm, Andrea DuCane.

Seriously.

She gave me a lot of good tips that really helped.

I remember wanting to go first. It wasn’t because I felt fearless or especially confident. I just wanted to be done.

I didn’t want to stand around watching everyone else, letting the anticipation build and giving my brain more time to create reasons why I might not be able to do it.

So I went.

And I passed. And then I went and cheered everyone else on. It was so fun to be able to do that and not worry about having to take my turn.

But passing doesn’t mean it wasn’t mentally hard. It doesn’t mean I felt confident through all 100 reps.

It means I kept going while part of my brain was telling me I might not be able to.

I felt every single one of those 100 snatches. And I had to use the 16kg bell. 35 pounds. Not easy at all. Not sure that would even happen today.

Throughout the whole test, I had to keep that internal dialogue. I had to get myself through it.

You’ve got this.

Yes, you can.

Keep going.

Pace yourself.

Dig.

That is mental toughness.

I used to think mentally tough people were naturally wired differently. They didn’t get nervous. They didn’t doubt themselves. They enjoyed doing hard things and charged into them without hesitation.

That has not been my experience.

Mental toughness isn’t the absence of doubt.

It’s continuing while doubt is running its mouth.

It is being nervous and starting anyway.

It is feeling the burn, noticing my grip getting tired, and staying with the plan.

It is hearing, “This is too hard.” But then answering, “So what. You’re not fucking done yet. Keep moving.”

I didn’t suddenly become mentally tough when a certification was on the line.

I built it during all the smaller moments when I practiced staying instead of immediately escaping.

The final reps of a difficult set.

The workout I considered skipping.

The uncomfortable conversation I didn’t avoid.

The task I started before I felt completely ready.

The promise I kept after the excitement wore off.

Every time I remain present in discomfort and make an intentional decision instead of automatically looking for the exit, I get another rep.

That doesn’t mean ignoring pain, pushing through an injury, or proving my worth by suffering.

There is nothing mentally tough about being reckless.

It means learning the difference between something being unsafe and something simply being uncomfortable.

It means recognizing the difference between,  “I physically cannot continue.”

And, “I really, really do not want to continue.”

Those are not always the same thing.

The snatch test didn’t magically make me mentally tough. It gave me a place to practice it.

It showed me what my brain does when something feels intimidating.

It also showed me that I don’t have to believe every panicked thought it produces.

One hundred snatches.

Five minutes.

A whole lot of internal negotiation.

And one more piece of evidence that I can do difficult things, even while part of me is insisting that I can’t.

Mental toughness isn’t something I either have or I don’t.

It is something I have built through years of practice.

And it isn’t a one-and-done thing.

At all.

I don’t wait until I feel tough.

I do the hard thing, and that is how I become tough.

Then I keep going.

And I keep practicing.

I’ve been redefining discipline since I was 16 years old.

Gymnastics gave me an eating disorder.

It also gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Discipline.

Both statements are true.

That’s what has made this word so fucking complicated for me.

Gymnastics and discipline. Life and discipline. Just the word discipline. I’ve always had a really hard time with it. 

It’s time to unpack why.  

It’s been no secret that I had an eating disorder in high school. I have written about it quite often. So let’s start there. 

I started gymnastics when I was 12 years old. I was a little older than most girls, but I fell in love with it immediately. I loved the challenge. I loved learning new skills. I loved that there was always something to work toward. It taught me how to practice, how to fall, how to get back up and how to keep showing up when something felt impossible. 

When I look back, I see that it laid the foundation for the work ethic I still have today. But somewhere along the way the rules changed. Or maybe I was finally old enough to notice them. Not at first, because at first I thought that was just the way things were. 

When I was 16 years old, I weighed 116 pounds. My coach told me I needed to lose ten. Even now thinking about that… so fucked up. Looking back, that’s where my relationship with my body started to change. At that time though I wasn’t thinking about body image. I wasn’t worried about fitting into smaller clothes. I was a teenager who wanted to be better at the sport of gymnastics. I wanted to please my coach. I wanted to be good. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to belong somewhere. 

So when an adult I respected told me I needed to lose weight, I believed him. I ordered the pink trifold diet from either Teen or Seventeen magazine. I honestly can’t remember which one. It doesn’t really matter. Diet culture was alive and well long before Instagram.

I didn’t become bulimic because I wanted to have an eating disorder. I think deep down I hoped I would become a better gymnast if I was smaller. I was strong AF even then. I could crank out pull-ups like crazy. 

So why did I need to be smaller? 

Eating disorders don’t always begin with vanity. Sometimes they begin with obedience. Sometimes they begin with trying to earn approval or belonging.

I remember trying not to eat. I remember the dark circles under my eyes and I remember how tired I was all.the.time. Yeah, my body had no fuel.

I recovered before I graduated from high school. My gymnastics career ended before my senior year. Another comment from a different coach solidified my decision. This coach kept telling me he could ensure I would be top ten in the state on bars. That was my favorite event. But that summer, before my senior year, a friend and I were at practice. He told us to get down on our backs and then added, “that’s probably your best position anyway.” He later apologized to my friend, but not to me. That was it. My gymnastics career ended before my senior year. Looking back, maybe that was the first time I chose myself over someone else’s opinion of me.

I really continued to struggle with body image for many years after that. The voice was always there, wondering if I was lean enough. The critical eye in the mirror. Believing that my body was the thing that stopped me from having success. Those thoughts don’t disappear just because the behaviors did. The eating disorder was in the rearview. The thinking wasn’t. 

But, here’s the irony. 

Gymnastics also gave me the discipline that has served me for the rest of my life. It taught me how to work. It taught me how to repeat something a thousand times until I got it right. It taught me how to stay with hard things and how to fail, but not quit. It taught me how to do what needed to be done, even when I didn’t feel like doing it. 

That discipline built my business. It built my coaching. It shaped my life. It shaped me. So yes, I have a complicated relationship with the word DISCIPLINE. 

For years, discipline wasn’t what I thought it was.

I thought discipline meant ignoring my body.

Ignoring hunger.

Ignoring exhaustion.

Ignoring emotions.

Pushing harder.

Eating less.

Never needing a break.

Never messing up.

But looking back, I realized none of that was discipline. 

I confused discipline with perfection and punishment. I confused it with earning my worth. 

I think that is super common with a lot of women. I see it every single day. Women tell me all the time they need “more discipline.” That’s still why the word makes me cringe.

What they usually mean is they think they need to eat less and be stricter and more rigid and more fucking perfect. That’s not discipline. 

Today, discipline means something completely different to me.

Real discipline is eating enough to fuel my body instead of seeing how little I can survive on. That one took me decades to believe.

It’s taking a rest day because my body needs recovery, not because I fucking “earned” it. 

It’s strength training because I want to be strong when I am 70 and beyond, not because I’m trying to erase what I ate yesterday. 

It’s tracking my food honestly instead of pretending the bites and licks and tastes don’t count. Newsflash, they sure do. 

That version of discipline doesn’t leave me exhausted.

It doesn’t make me hate my body.

It doesn’t require me to become someone I’m not.

It lets me build a life I actually enjoy living.

Perfection demands that you never fail. Discipline expects that you will and asks what you will do next. 

I don’t hate gymnastics. I don’t hate the coach who wanted me to lose weight. He was coaching in a culture that probably thought lighter meant better. The messages were loud, even then.

It doesn’t erase what happened for sure. I’ve had decades to think about what discipline really means. 

I think I’ve finally landed somewhere that feels honest. 

Discipline without self-respect becomes punishment. 

Discipline with self-respect becomes freedom. 

I still use the discipline gymnastics gave me. I just don’t use it against myself. And maybe that’s the greatest lesson I’ve learned. The sport that made me question my body eventually led me back to trusting myself. I will keep that perspective.  

And maybe that is why I’ve had such a complicated relationship with the word discipline.  

I’ve been redefining it since I was 16 years old.

The version I was being praised for was the version doing the most harm.

Today, discipline isn’t about becoming smaller.

It’s about becoming stronger.

It’s about keeping promises to myself.

It’s about taking care of my body instead of trying to conquer it.

Gymnastics taught me discipline.

Life taught me what that word was supposed to mean.

And today…

I think the two have finally started to make peace.

What Turning 62 Has Taught Me About Health

Today I turn 62.

Somewhere along the way I assumed that by this age I’d be wiser calmer and maybe even more motivated.

Like maybe one morning you wake up and suddenly it’s easy to do all the things that take care of your health.

Eat well.
Exercise.
Drink your water.
Go to bed on time.

Like motivation finally decides to show up and start pulling its weight.

Yeah, still waiting. Turns out motivation is flaky as hell. It shows up when it wants. It disappears when life gets busy. It ghosts you when you’re tired or stressed or annoyed or when you would rather do literally anything else. So no. Motivation didn’t suddenly appear today.

But something better did.

Consistency.

Health has always meant something a little deeper to me. If you follow me and have read my blog post, you know that my dad died of heart disease at 60 years old. I’m 62 now.

Which means I’ve already lived two years longer than he got.

That is not lost on me.

I think about that more than people probably realize.

Every year past that age feels like a reminder that none of this is guaranteed.

Not your health, not your time and not your ability to move your body and feel strong. That changes how you look at things. Health stops being about looking a certain way. It becomes about protecting the life you still get to live.

Somewhere along the way I stopped chasing smaller and chased stronger. Stronger legs. Stronger lungs. A stronger heart and a stronger mindset. Because strength changes everything. Strength means you can move through life without fear. It means independence. It means you’re not fragile. And the older I get, the more important that becomes.

Here’s the funny part though. People assume things go downhill as you get older. But if you keep showing up, that’s not always true. It doesn’t have to be true. In a lot of ways I’m actually getting better. Stronger. More capable. And a lot less interested in bullshit. After enough years you realize the answer never changes.

Lift weights. Move your body. Eat nutrient dense foods most of the time. Sleep. Hydrate. Reduce Stress. And keep repeating. It’s not exciting. It’s not trendy. But it works. It always has. Shout out for the boring basics. I’m fine being a basic bitch.

One thing I wish more women understood is that it’s not too late. Not art 40, 50, 60 and beyond. Your body will respond to what you repeatedly do. Give it strength and movement, nutrient dense food and enough rest and it will fight like hell to meet you there. The problem is most people quit too early. Or they keep waiting for that motivation. Still waiting on that one myself. LOL.

What actually works is a lot less glamorous. You show up. Even when you don’t feel like it. You do the boring basics. Then you wake up the next day and you do it again And again. It’s for the life haul. That’s the real magic.

My dad didn’t get the chance to turn 62. I did. So I’m not wasting the years I get. Every workout. Every ride. Every decision to take care of my health means a little more. I’m not chasing perfection. I’m just showing up. And after al these years one this is still true. Consistency ages better than motivation.

And aging is a privilege.