Mentality Archives - Spartan Christianity

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Many people become discouraged when they hit obstacles. But they would be much better off if they could learn to savor and celebrate those obstacles in their lives. Appreciate them for what they are – chances to build internal strength.

Those who learn to savor and celebrate obstacles are better equipped to achieve lasting success. They do not shy away from difficulties but confront them head-on with aggression, knowing that each obstacle conquered is a testament to their power.

Everyone knows how to think lofty thoughts and make big goals. But so often we hit one or two delays in our course of action then give up and quit. Instead, we should see these obstacles as gifts, celebrate, and push through them just slightly.

We celebrate because we know that when others hit these same obstacles, they quit. But when we hit those same obstacles, we press just a few steps farther.

In the relentless pursuit of our goals and dreams, obstacles often stand as formidable barriers along our path. It’s a shared human experience to encounter discomfort and adversity during this journey, and too often, people let these challenges deter them from continuing their pursuit. However, a better perspective is one that suggests using these obstacles as metrics of progress and strength.

When we encounter discomfort or adversity in any endeavor, it is a pivotal moment to get excited. Why? Because this is precisely the point where most individuals decide to quit.

They see the discomfort as a sign to turn back, abandon their goals, and settle for mediocrity. However, this is where the true opportunity lies. By shifting our mindset and viewing discomfort as an indicator of our progress, we can harness its power to propel us forward.

Every obstacle, and every moment of discomfort, is a milestone in our process of personal development. It’s a marker that signifies our growth and resilience. When we feel that resistance, it’s a signal that we are on the verge of breaking through to a higher level of achievement. By pushing ourselves just one percent beyond this point, we not only demonstrate our strength but also position ourselves significantly farther ahead than the majority of people who choose to quit.

With this perspective, obstacles cease to be hindrances; they become our allies and guides. They are the markers of our commitment, determination, and fortitude. They serve as proof that we are on the right path and that we are advancing toward our goals while most others falter. Instead of fearing discomfort, we should embrace it as a sign that we are on the cusp of something extraordinary.

By definition, you only have to be better than 50% of people in order to be better than most people in any given pursuit.

If 50% is the point of “being average” anything beyond that point is “above average”, just as anything below it is “below average”.

Now do not allow this to go to your head. You are not more valuable than others, you are simply farther ahead. And you have gotten farther than others have simply by not quitting as early as they do.

All the rewards and accomplishments that men receive lay beyond the point where the majority of the population gives up.

You need to fix in your mind a higher goal, however. You likely need to be farther than 75% of people in order to begin to reap the highly valuable rewards in life.

What are things that 75% of people are not willing to do?
What is the point where 75% of people have given up?

You may not be able to identify this point, but just try to assess it and get in the ballpark. If you can be one of the best 25 men in a group of 100, you are a man of value.

Use any obstacles you encounter as valuable resistance for growth – it is the mental exercise that will allow you to conquer future difficulties with ease, paradoxically.

Each obstacle you encounter is a chance to grow strong. It is a “life set”. You have sets of exercises that you complete in the gym against resistance to grow physically stronger. What you are facing during difficulty is a “life set”, during which you struggle against resistance in order to grow stronger. Greater power can be found in viewing these obstacles simply as resistance to overcome with the appropriate amount of effort.

And remember that you only need to give slightly more resistance to the obstacle than it gives you. Just like in the gym: in order to lift 100 pounds, you need to generate 101 pounds of force. If 100 pounds is pressing against you, you need to press up with 101 pounds in order to move the resistance in the opposite direction. While you are generating more force, there is no movement of the weight from 0-100 pounds of force. It is only once you exceed the force of the weight pressing down on you that it starts to move.

If you can change your life perspective and view obstacles the same way you view lifting weights, you will be infinitely more powerful. Because we look at resistance in the gym as the pathway to growth. Why not do the same with each and every obstacle we face? That is the method by which you make every obstacle a celebration.

Mentors – Find Examples of Greatness

You need mentors who you can model your behavior after. It will be hard to become great if your only mentors are your family and people in the church. You must expand your collection of inspirational men.

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another”
Proverbs 27:17

“And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
2 Timothy 2:2

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.”
Proverbs 1:5

You will almost never reach the majority of your goals by yourself. Every man who was ever great at his craft started by apprenticing under a master of that same craft. He would study and learn from someone who had lived a full life and had hundreds of practical lessons to pass along to him.

Many men think they can be good enough at a craft by teaching themselves, but this is not so.

Very few men are self-taught masters. Men are also confused about what it means to be self-taught. If you are learning math from a book, you are not self taught, the book is your teacher. If you are not taking guitar lessons but you learn by watching videos online or reading articles and books, you are not self-taught. With your ego you tell everyone that you have “taught yourself”, but you have learned your skill from other men.

To be truly self-taught means you extracted unknown knowledge from the ether. For example, the first person to show that you can calculate an unknown length of one side of a triangle by knowing the length of the other two sides was self-taught because he uncovered the underlying principles on new knowledge. By himself he learned what was not previously known, and was therefore self-taught. Another example would be a man who learns how to tie sailing knots by himself with no book. I understand that this is an extreme definition of “self-taught”, but you are reading this because you are an extremist.

The internet has put dozens of mentors at our fingertips.

So even when we cannot find good role models within the church, that does not excuse us from finding them elsewhere. We can find men from every walk of life who are doing everything that we want to do with our own lives. We can virtually model our life after theirs and live the way we believe is correct.

Your father is not enough of a mentor, you will not learn enough from him. The men in your family are not enough for you to learn many of the most important lessons and skills of life. You cannot limit your mentors to those in your church and immediate family. What you need are men who are living impressive lives, are masters at a craft or who are intelligent. You likely do not have many of those kinds of men in your family. In fact, you rarely have those men in your church.

You need to go outside the church to find mentors.

These men are going to help you improve your life on a non-spiritual level. So for this reason you need to go outside the church to find them. There are very few men in the church who are living impressive lives. Most men have used the Bible to try to justify their lack of ambition and subsequent lack of wealth or any manner of an impressive life. Get some mentors.

If you find mentors in the church, you need a large number of them. Do not limit yourself to just a few people. You must diversify your motivation portfolio.

Mantra

You are who you spend time with.

Application

Use the internet to find masters of whatever craft you want to improve at. There are plenty of good mentors online, and you have to pick the ones that best fall in line with the direction your life is taking. You need to be active in your learning and in the ways you gain knowledge about your career path or skill. Throughout the world there are thousands of mentors for music, leadership, training, building, public speaking, thinking and infinitely more topics.

There is no reason why anyone cannot become a master at any craft they want to in the modern world. And there is also no excuse for ignorance or lack of experience in any field. There are endless lessons and lectures online on any subject matter you could possibly think of. The internet has taken away every excuse from man as to why he is not successful or at least skilled in his personal endeavors.

If we truly are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, we need to start spending time with different people.

There is no reason to hang out with losers and to waste our time. We have been given every possible opportunity to improve ourselves, so let us not squander it by allowing the influences of weak men to shift us towards mediocrity.

Unfortunately this is what commonly happens in the church. Very few men in the church are great at anything. Many christian men call themselves righteous because they are not successful. “I’m a good Christian because I’m poor”, or “I’m not a part of those upper class people who think they are better than everyone”. You mean those upper class people who fund the country you live in? How do you know they think they are better than everyone? Could it be that you simply hate them because they have more material possessions than you? That seems like a silly thing to hate someone over.

You do not want to spend time with people who are of that mentality. They can only drag you down, and you are trying to be excellent at something. So get mentors outside the church.

First, decide what skill you want to develop.

Once you know that, you can single out the best men in the world at that craft and learn from them from whatever resources are available. If they have books, lectures or podcasts you can learn from those. Otherwise you can simply learn from observing those mentors in their element. There is no reason why we cannot learn from anyone we want to.

Get some mentors outside the church.

Learn from men who are great.

Model yourself after the best.

Imitate the masters.

Gain immeasurable skill.

Conduct yourself like men.

Master of Mind

The mind is the central command center for everything that will happen in your body.

“Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.”
Proverbs 4:25

“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 1:13

The Spartan Christian believes that the mind is separate from the brain. The mind is the source of consciousness while the brain is a physical manifestation of what man thinks is the source of thoughts. While the brain will be left on earth after death the mind and consciousness endure. The mind is not affected by the various chemicals that are released and absorbed by the brain. Unlike the brain, the mind is not a physical entity.

All emotions can be simplified to various brain chemicals.

Science believes it can link every emotion with a certain chemical or a combination of chemicals. These compounds influence or are controlled by the brain, the physical structure. The mind is above these chemicals and compounds, it can even control them through the application of thought, a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

The mind has the power to change the very chemistry of the brain and the body simply by altering the thoughts.

Simple but not easy.

The mind is the root of many problems, the majority of which are fabricated and are never realized. We allow ourselves to worry and be overcome by anxiety. We allow the body to be negatively affected by the mind. We entertain thoughts that drain our strength rather than thoughts that give us the mental edge. We have the ability to correct this, we simply have to overcome the initial friction.

The mind creates stress, anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, love, joy, gratitude and peace. Series of thoughts are linked together until they create these emotions and mindsets. In order to create good mental states and avoid negative ones, the correct thought sequences must be created while simultaneously destroying the negative sequences. If you can remove one step from the sequence of negative thoughts, you may be able to stop the entire emotion. If you can then interject a new thought you can translate the momentum from the negative mindset into the positive one. On these two foundational abilities rests the complete control of the mind.

Control the mind, or the mind will control you.

Application

The reason so many people have problems with their mental state is because they are unaware of it. The mind does not gravitate towards higher, nobler places of its own accord. The mind must be pushed to positive states by creating the correct thought environment. If you can master your mind, mastery of the body becomes easier.

By this point you should be an expert in the field of awareness. So as you know, the key to mental mastery always begins with awareness. How will you translate your thinking if you are not aware of the thoughts in your mind? You will not be able to.

Primary Objective I: Derail Negative Thinking.

If we can involuntarily “lose our train of thought”, then we absolutely can voluntarily derail our thinking if we apply effort. Human beings always want change to be painless and effortless. We must purge this thinking from our mind.

If you attempt to derail a train of thought but fail because it requires effort, do not give up. Shifting thought patterns will take focused effort, it will not come naturally because you have not practiced doing so for your entire life. The “Get in shape fast and easy” marketing strategy does not apply in real life, so why would it apply to our mental strength?

The train is derailed by first recognizing the thoughts and taking an objective, detached view of where those thoughts are taking you.

If your thinking is taking you directly to fear and anxiety, it must be averted. Become aware of the thought sequence that is in your mind and accept that it is irrational. Your thinking has no logic and no grounds and will likely never become realized in matters of fear and anxiety. Your fears almost never come true.

Upon this recognition, many individuals will find that they already derailed their train. For many people awareness alone is enough to correct the weak patterns of thought. This is why awareness is vitally important to any type of change.

The thoughts can also be derailed by switching the mind off completely. Note: this prevents you from creating positive mental states. But having no mental state is much better than having a weak, negative one.

If you are a man, you likely know how to switch your mind off unless you have some sort of disorder.

If you have a disorder, you should be a subject matter expert in it.

If you have a fear or anxiety disorder, you should be researching everything you possibly can about your enemy. You cannot defeat it without intelligence.

Lastly, get moving. You can flood your brain with chemical reinforcements if you will get up and train your body. Overcoming adversity and making progress are possible in the physical simulation that is exercise.

While training we are simulating adversity, simulating problems and challenges, and overcoming them in a controlled environment. The experience gained in simulation then transfers to life. The strong mental state you created in physical training then becomes a strong mental state in the real world.

You are already “in the zone” after training, so now it is that much easier to be in the zone in your regular life. There is no excuse to avoid training the body. The fact that training the body also trains the mind is an added bonus.

Primary Objective II: Generate Positive Thinking. Once you are aware of the thought, you can derail it by instantly replacing it with a different thought. This can be done simply by analyzing your situation and distilling the pros from it. This is the “Good” method promoted by Retired Navy Seal Jocko Willink in his text, “Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual”. Something terrible happens? Good. Your character improves. Stressed because you might not get the new job? Good. You have time to make a better resume and strengthen your weak faith.

The mind can also be shifted to something different by forcing a new train of thought onto the same rails as the negative train. Convert your mind to a subject that you are excited about, one that will benefit you later on down the road and your mindset will change.

You can focus on what inspires growth or on what promotes fear. Fear can inspire growth, but wallowing in fear never led to any type of progress.

Focus on your career goals, family goals and personal goals. Start adding to those goals and make them difficult for you to achieve. You will never be more proud of yourself than when you accomplish something extremely difficult. By focusing on goals instead of fear, you create a productive train of thought. Control your mind. Generate wisdom. Win your mental wars.

Mental Nutrition

“No man grew his character scrolling around in instagram”

Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Romans 12:2 – “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Colossians 3:2 – “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

What you allow in your mind will define you in life. Everything you allow into your mind will develop the way you think. Whatever consumes your regular thoughts determines what you are.

The man who watches the news in the morning and evening and reads it throughout the day becomes an outrage addict and depressed about the state of the world. That man will almost never develop a positive mindset as a result of consuming politics.

He built that mentality through what he fed his mind.

The man who fills his thoughts with social media becomes a man who never lives his own life and who wallows in an inferiority complex. The man who fills his mind with “junk food” will develop the corresponding level of mental fitness. He will be fat and lazy in mind even if his flesh is in decent shape. (Which usually will not happen because an out of shape mind almost never produces a fit physical body).

Whatever we are thinking about is what we are becoming. It follows that the man who takes in positive mental nutrition is a man who becomes a more respectable, successful and mentally fit individual. The man who fills his mind with positive stories and anecdotes of success or motivational speeches about perseverance and work ethic is a man who will eventually embody those characteristics.

The mental nutrition accumulates in its effect just as physical nutrition accumulates over time.

No one instance of positive or negative mental nutrition will change you for better or worse, results are always gained over the long term. These results usually are not seen until they compile into a mass. No single donut results in morbid obesity. No single meal of grilled chicken and broccoli will transform you if you already are grossly out of shape. For this reason you must commit to a long term mental diet of positive thoughts. You cannot put the negativity of the world into your mind constantly and expect to be any better than the world. You are what you think, therefore control your thoughts, and control what goes into your mind, because that determines what you think about. This is the foundation for success.

Mantra

You are what you think.

Application

Start a habit of consuming a positive visual diet every day. Cut back on the visual garbage foods that you enjoy eating. Staying up to date with the state of the country is fine, but becoming increasingly depressed and negative as a result of watching the news for hours a day is not good.

Replace the time you would normally spend consuming rubbish with a positive diet of strong thoughts. The internet has put dozens of mentors, positive thinkers and motivational speakers at our fingertips. Do not waste the extremely valuable resources that we have been given.

You have free access to all the positive material you could ever consume in a lifetime and much more. You are certainly more likely to hear something that would change your thinking and therefore change your life through a positive speaker or mentor than you are to hear it through the local news station. Just type “motivational speech” into your search bar and you will have millions of results.

You need to listen to at least one of these a day. You also need to reduce your consumption of social media and other assorted mental feces. Men do not waste their lives away scrolling through the lives of other people. You must have the strength of mind to reject these common trappings of life.

Control what goes into your mind and you will have a much easier time controlling your thoughts.

Through the positive mental diet you control the soil of the mind from which the fruits of correct thinking will grow. No man improved himself through facebook. No man grew his character scrolling around on instagram. No great man was developed through the daily consumption of the local news.

Men improve from strong thinking and from learning from other men. You can improve your life or waste your life through what the internet has to offer. So learn and grow like a man. Improve yourself. Do not misapply the virtue of contentment to your character. Feed the mind with the thoughts of a champion. Conduct yourselves like men