I recently read a book called Chosen Suffering by Ohio State Wrestling Coach Tom Ryan.  There was a strong message around putting yourself through hard things in life to become elite, he defined it as chosen suffering. The other message in the book is the concept of unchosen suffering, which are the hardships in life that happen to you that are unexpected. Where the life you thought you pictured in your mind and envisioned for yourself completely shatters.

I want to talk about the two, Chosen vs Unchosen Suffering.

CHOSEN SUFFERING

If you want to become the best version of yourself, you have to put yourself through challenges ON PURPOSE to become better. If you believe there is more inside you, and you want to evolve into your future self you have to consistently take actions towards change. Change is difficult on purpose. Your brain wants you to stay safe and comfortable. So, doing something different will be hard, but you have to continue to think new thoughts to create new actions. Who is the ideal version of you? Who do you picture when you picture the best version of you? What thoughts do they think? What feelings do they feel? What actions do they take? What results do they have?

To become your future self, you have to think the thoughts of your future self in the present. The actions you take along the way, day in and day out, will just catch up and manifest. Continue to think how your future self would think and your results will follow. You will have to continue to put yourself through trials on purpose to grow stronger. Think about going to the gym and lifting weights. It’s the same thing you have to do with your mind. You go to lift the weights to become stronger. You have to challenge yourself to think different thoughts that change you to get stronger. How long before you see results after lifting? The next day? No, you have to push yourself for weeks, months, years to see change. Same thing with your MINDSET. When you want to give into your brains thoughts of “let’s not do that, it’s uncomfortable” “let’s hit the snooze so we can sleep more” “we don’t have to do that, it’s too hard” you have to overcome those every day and push yourself to think POSITIVE. Think the thoughts of who you envision your future self to be, and put the actions in every day to become that person.

UNCHOSEN SUFFERING

Life will throw unimaginable circumstances at you. Things you don’t wish upon your worst enemy. Things completely out of your control that will show you that your ideal life no longer exists. The unchosen suffering that strips you down to the core and shows you what you are truly capable of in this human life. And we get to choose how we come out of this type of suffering.

You have to ask yourself the following question. “Who do I want to be when faced with unchosen suffering and who do I WANT to be when it’s done?” When you ask yourself how you want to deal with adversity, you take the power away from the chaos and bring it back home to your MIND. Although you cannot control the unchosen suffering, you CAN control how you decide to think about it and how to show up. 

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it.”

There is no happy without unhappy, there is no joy without suffering, there is no comfortable without uncomfortable. If you want to change your life for the better, you have to have chosen suffering. If you have experienced unchosen suffering along with chosen suffering, you have the tools to be elite. Change your mindset and change your life.

If you enjoy these Mindset Messages and think of someone you know that might benefit from receiving these emails. I highly encourage you to forward these messages to spread the mindset wealth!