3 Keys to Being Mentally Strong

David Blaine shows us how to prepare, train, and be patient in order to be mentally strong.

David Blaine's website provided this image.

David Blaine leaped off a crane and onto a 22-inch-wide platform on May 22, 2002. He was now standing on a pillar 100 feet above the cold, hard concrete of New York City, with no protection in case he fell.

He stayed there for 35 hours. There was no food, no water, and he couldn't sleep for the sake of his life. 50,000 people had gathered to witness him jump into a large pile of cardboard boxes by the time the performance ended. Vertigo, as Blaine termed the extravaganza, is my favourite of his stunts, but it's just one of many death-defying accomplishments on his resume.

He was buried alive in a plastic box for seven days in 1999. He was imprisoned in ice for two and a half days the next year. He also grabbed a bullet with his lips, held his breath for 17 minutes, and dangled for 44 days above the Thames, ingesting just water.

David Blaine has spent his entire life pursuing a single goal: to bring magic to the masses. In his pursuit of this goal, he has gone to various extremes, defying and even cheating death on several occasions. Fortunately, most of us will never have to take such risks in order to realise our ambitions. His sheer determination, on the other hand, is admirable.

The best magic trick by David Blaine isn't on tape. It's not that he can swim with sharks or survive lightning, but rather that he has superhuman mental strength. That's the kind of illusion that's worth replicating, because it's not an illusion at all.

Life is a never-ending quest to realise your full potential. Mental fortitude will assist you in closing the distance. I looked through a lot of papers, videos, and conversations with David Blaine to figure out how he came up with this personality trait. I was left with three components after putting all of the patterns together.

The three keys to becoming mentally powerful are as follows.

Preparation

"If you don't prepare, you're planning to fail," goes the saying. Preparation is just a commitment to do your best — and part of doing your best is recognising that the challenge doesn't begin when the clock strikes zero. The task begins right now and continues indefinitely.

David has a tremendous work ethic, yet the most of his work has been done in his head throughout the years. "Our brains should be sent forth in advance to meet any issues," Seneca said, "and we should contemplate, not what is likely to happen, but what is possible." This is mental forethought.

David's mother died as he was holding her. Imagine how broken he must have been in so many ways. He emerged with an empowered mindset after a hard struggle: "I have nothing to lose and everything to gain." The majority of us are fortunate. We will not experience such significant changes in our life. But we all have possessions that we fear may be taken away from us at some point. We're all afraid of losing those we care about. The only way to prevent our dread of loss from paralysing us is to let go before the loss occurs. The Zen master declares, "The cup has already broken."

To balance the sturdy foundation of rock bottom, the belief that arbitrary milestones represent everything is located across the aisle from "have nothing to lose." Keep your goals close to your heart – and slice them into smaller, more manageable parts. David developed his own superstition during his 44-day fast: if he could make it to 22 days, he'd be alright. He concentrated on the next half of the journey once he arrived. He reduced his objective to 5.5 days after 11 days, and so on. You will things into reality by pretending you've already lost everything while refusing to give up even an inch of your irrational desires.

Finally, preparing entails imagining and confronting your worst fears before to encountering them. Reframing is one approach to accomplish this. David, of all things, was terrified of bugs. When he was lying in his tent in Africa one night, surrounded by loud, frightening one-and-a-half-ton hippos, the cockroaches seemed to become his best buddies. Of course, there's a difference between an actual confrontation and one you've imagined, but even if the interaction is entirely in your head, it'll help you prepare for the real thing. "Of course it's happening inside your head, Harry," Dumbledore once said, "but why on earth does that mean it's not real?" When your brain reaches a breaking point, when you're dealing with hallucinations and illusions, as well as all kinds of doubts and negative ideas, your subconscious will unleash all of your worst fears on you. When that time arrives, you already have to know they’re not genuine. That's what it means to be ready.

Training

"Only when the tide runs out do you learn who's swimming nude," Warren Buffett believes it takes a bear market to expose who's really a good investor. Training is a type of preparation in which you hone your abilities rather than your thoughts, because skills are what will allow you to navigate life successfully while you're in the thick of it.

Creativity is our strongest trait as humans. Our most powerful and dangerous quality is imagination. However, if we learn to use it correctly, we can manage everything. David spent time in prison as a child for jumping a subway turnstile. He barely had a few minutes after entering the cell block before getting his ass kicked because he was fragile and thin. Instead of providing entertainment for bored inmates, David decided to use his magic to help them. He persuaded one inmate, then another, and so on. He eventually persuaded everyone to have a good time and enjoy their time — until he left. You must exercise your imagination every day if you want to rely on it when your life is on the line. It doesn't matter how you write, sing, talk, or think about it; you never know when that day will arrive, and you'll have to be ready.

You'll need something more in addition to creative abilities to be able to use them in high-stress situations: You must maintain your composure. Calmness is also a skill that can be learned. David practised blacking out under water, as Navy SEALs do, for his world record of holding his breath for 17 minutes. Consider how terrifying it must be to realise you're losing consciousness for the first time in a pool. But, like with everything, you grow accustomed to it. Humans are machines that adapt to their surroundings. David was also friends with sharks. Of course, there isn't a cage. Don't only practise hard if you want to be cool when things get rough. Make the most of your practise time by putting yourself in the most difficult situations possible.

Patience

Unless you're an athlete, consider endurance to be a synonym for patience. "Infinite patience creates immediate results," Wayne Dyer said. It's not that your desired outcome will appear on your doorstep; it's that having the unshakeable faith that you'll realise your ambition when you're ready gives you peace of mind.

Why shouldn't you have such assurance, in my opinion? The majority of us do not engage in physical activity. Because our labour is done in our heads, we rarely run out of energy to get things done or wait for results. We don't have enough patience. We'd have to stay in our chairs a bit longer, sleep another night, and get up again. "If a guy has nothing to eat, fasting is the most clever thing he can do," Hermann Hesse writes in Siddhartha, David's favourite novel. In the same way, if our lives aren't turning out the way we want them to, the most wise thing we can do is do our bit and then wait. We'll get there if we keep doing that. Why shouldn't we do it?

Siddhartha is the story of a man who chooses to live in poverty in order to find enlightenment, and both the main theme and the book's various episodes hint to an unexpected enhancer of patience: curiosity. We should be inquisitive about tolerating our condition because, for the most part, we experience little bodily discomfort in our quest for self-actualization. What happens if we add another episode to the mix? What would be the consequences of that? David was unfazed as he saw his mother battle illness. It taught him that adversity may have purpose. However, in order to find it, you must first question what's on the other side. What is it that makes you want to put up with it? The basic Buddhist message is that suffering is caused by a desire for or a resistance to change. There will be no suffering if you're curious about where change leads, even if it's painful.

Humility is a surprise second component of patience. Consider the following example to demonstrate my point: Arrogance is the result of impatience. Why? Because impatient presupposes that you've already failed. It's too late, you've missed the boat, you're not quite where you need to be - but who are you to say? It's never too early to say. Perhaps you've already sparked the fire that will lead to your breakthrough achievement. All you have to do now is give the globe a little more time. Even when they believe they have already failed, the humble person waits. Oprah Winfrey broadcasted David's breath-holding attempt live in a one-hour show. David knew he wasn't going to make it after eight minutes. But, as always, he chose to wait in order to deliver magic to the people. He waited even when he was afraid he was having a heart attack. When the medical team finally hauled him out of the sea, he had held his breath for the longest time in human history. This isn't to argue that you should "risk your life lightly." To put it another way, if you're going to fail, keep going. That is the source of true endurance.