14 Sep Mental Jewels: Less Whining, More Winning

Mental Jewels: Training For you Brain. Mike Rashid and the Alpha Crew like to have more than just big muscles... Life is about more than that. You guys know we love the saying "A word to the wise is sufficient" so we are only going to tell you once...

Nothing Worse Than A Whiner

My God, there is nothing worse in life than listening to someone whine about their life. I understand there is a time and a place to discuss your problems, hardships, and all the things you are going through in life... But if you aren't going to do anything about it just shut up. This is doubly true when it comes to whining about anything involving the iron game. I thought we did this shit to get Strong as fuck, Alpha as Fuck, and to improve ourselves. Nothing is as opposite to those principles as whining like a little kid not getting their way.

Ladies Is Alpha Too

There is especially true with training and dieting. These are not life problems, these are activities you willingly subject yourself to because you believe they enhance your life. No one cares if you are hungry on the diet you willingly chose to be on. Did your spouse suddenly reveal they are leaving you at the same time you got laid off from your job? Okay, that's some real shit to talk about... But being hungry for the 90 minutes until your next meal? I cant even begin to describe how grating that is to hear coming from someones mouth who is supposedly "mentally strong enough" to do what the general population can't get done.

Only Good Things Happen To Me

So many events that happen in life can be positive or negative based solely on how you look at them. Even in the "worst case scenario" I described above where you are getting divorced while losing your job, a winning attitude is one that looks at both of those things as something that will impact your life positive eventually. This is not to say that these will not be hard, painful events that without any negatives or down sides... But you could choose to look at the divorce as your spouse allowing you to live a life that is not stuck in a failed relationship and giving you a shot to be in one with someone who cares for you as you deserve. Losing your job could be viewed as a new opportunity to find your true passion, or maybe it was the incentive you needed to move or start over some place new.

Only Good Things

Again, these things will be hard and they will hurt quite a bit, but as with almost everything in life worth having, if it is hard and it hurts those are typically the events that shape us as people the most and are the memories we will hold onto the most into the future.

I'm sure all of us have those events in our lives where it seemed like the end of the world at the time, but when we reflect on them a year later we are thankful they happened, and couldn't imagine our lives any different, and we certainly wouldn't go back in time to make sure it didn't happen.

We believe in this philosophy so much here at the Alpha Academy we made an apparel line out of it so we can remind ourselves of the message throughout the day and week.

Reflect On Adversity

A "mental training" exercise I like to do is remind myself of the hardest times of my life and about how they did, in fact, not break me, but rather I came out of the other side even stronger than before.

It empowers me to know that there were times where I felt it was all over, my life was changed for the worse, and there was nothing that could be done about it... But then I did do something about it. Not only that but I wouldn't go back and change anything if I could.

Doing these exercises lets me breeze through hard times that happen in the future. If anything I look forward to them now, knowing that rich rewards await me on the other side. Just like a deadlift or squats can be a real bitch while you are doing it, when you get through the other side you are better for having done it. Not doing them is not an option. 

So this weeks exercise is to reflect back on the hard times, the bad times, and the times you thought your life was over. Reflect on the situation, what you did, how you reacted. Reflect on where you are now. Look toward the future and realize that if you encounter another life changing event in the future that you can handle it and you will be better for having done so.