mental. (repost from 11/21/10)

    “Mental Endurance”
    Part 3- The Stopping Point.

    Through hard work and commitment you have developed the capacity to push yourself to your personal point of reason. If you so desire, one of the next steps is pushing yourself past.

    “To” is admirable, respectable, and rare.
    “Past” is unenviable to most, unrelatable to even more, and almost extinct.

    Once we are suitably strong and skilled, our brains will often give up before our bodies. The stopping point for most is when the logical and digestible pep talks we give ourselves during hardship start taking on water. When comfort and reason stop being players in the game, the pep talk needed to finish it often needs to change.

    People that make the often uncomfortable progress into the deep water of whatever field they have chosen all have a mental game plan- something they tell themselves when all else has failed; a “place” they go to escape pain and anguish, or motivational situations, good or bad, that drive them past the stopping point.

    I draw on the worst physical, mental, or emotional experiences in my life and move forward with them in mind, confident in the fact that nothing in the near-term could even begin to rival the pain and misery they created and I have overcome.

    Others may utilize a different outlook.

    Experiment and find your path.
    Specific preparation and forethought will help you gain control over your own mental “stopping points”, and to hold them off longer and longer as time goes on.

    Doing so will allow you to stay on a path of physical and mental progress, not one of unrealized potential.