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MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ENDURANCE HOW TO REACH YOUR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PEAK

' Tough times never last, tough people do! ' - Robert Schuller 'YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK' is a well-known phrase but, like many familiar phrases, it deserves closer scrunity. While the mind controls the physical body in a direct way through the will, the mind itself is divided into the conscious and the subconscious. The SUBCONSCIOUS stores influences that may have been picked up since childhood, and these influences can affect an individual's CONSCIOUS assessment of their ability to overcome obstacles. Facing Fears FEAR of the unknown is natural, but many people populate this unknown with imaginary scenes that are unlikely ever to take place, thus increasing their irrational fear. COURAGE is in proportion to the fear that some challenge arouses in a particular person. Many fears are understandable; others are somewhat irrational. By overcoming the fear, however,courage and confidence are born. Courageous people, therefore, are not people who have an absence of fear, but they are people who have learned to overcome fear. Many lasting stories of courage imply endurance and tenacity as part of the deal - it is not just a question of turning up and being there, you have to last the course. Usually you only last the course if your mental fitness is not only equal, but also superior to your physical fitness. Those people who surpass even this level of achievement, however, have something else: they have spiritual or subconscious foundations to take them beyond what conscious mental reasoning or grit would deem possible. Roman Guardini described COURAGE as: ' ...the confidence required for living with a view to the future, for acting, building, assuming responsibilities, and forming ties. For in spite of our precautions, the future is in each case the unknown. But living means advancing into this unknown region, which may lie before us like a chaos into which we must venture. ' Decide on a Goal To decide on a goal may seem like the easy part, but for many people it is not. To decide on one goal may mean discarding many others, all of which hold their own potential, and therefore it can be a painful and difficult thing to do. Great achievers, however, demonstrate a single-minded ability to focus on theit goals, and once the decision has been made obstacles seem to fall before the force of their determination. Somebody who carries an alternative option in their backpacks, on the other hand, is more likely to turn away from their first choice of goal when the going gets tough. Realistic Goals You have to ask youself whether or not the goal is realistic. The South Pole may be too far for you; the summit of Everest too high. If you set an ambitious and ultimately anachievable goal, the results will be negative and will damage your confidence. It is better to set realistic goals, or staging posts on the way to achieving a larger goal. By setting intermediate goals and focusing exclusively on achieving them, an oversized goal can be made manageable. This approach has the added benefits of building your confidence. By nusing this technique, you can overcome the negative effects of an oversized goal, which can seem overwhelming when viewed in its entirety. Focus Focus essentially means the concentration of all your mental and physical powers on a particular event or task. Focus and Concentration, therefore, are often the basic ingredients of achievement. The opposite of focus is Distraction, which can be brought on by a whole host of worries and preoccupations. The human mind is surprisingly ill adept at focusing on two things at once. One aid to focus is getting into the habit of living in the present. Distracting worries are often caused by regrets about the past or forebodings about the future. To achieve focus you need to forget about the past (you cannot do anything about it anyway) and take care not to anticipate the future. The mind's ability to focus can be enhanced through training. Certain forms of meditation are a good way to achieve this, as meditation involves clearing the mind of distractions and focusing on a particular word or mantra. If meditation is performed regularly, the mind should be clearer and easier to focus during day-to-day activities and when called upon to perform exceptional tasks. Focus is really about living fully in the present moment and not alowing other considerations - other people's performances, expectations or jealousies - to interfere with what you are doing. It is about you and the task or duty of the present moment. Anxiety and worry are best dispelled by simply getting on with what needs to be done and, as progress is made, that very progress tends to disprove the discouraging worry.

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