Mindset Monday: To Be the Best, Fall in Love with the Process

Let’s talk about falling in love.

It’s Mindset Monday, and if you want to set yourself on the path to greatness, there’s one paramount thing you need to do: fall in love with the process.

Mastery doesn’t come immediately. Do you want to become elite in your field? Then you have to do more than just tolerate discomfort, failure, and hard things. You have to love the hard.

Be passionate enough about your goal that you embrace the grit and sweat. Get fired up when you make mistakes or get knocked down, because each setback means you tried something challenging and learned from it. Falling down teaches you not only how to rise again, but how to stay on your feet and, eventually, soar.

You will feel embarrassed. You will feel fear. GOOD. It means you care. It means you expect more from yourself. Combined with your love for your field, this is the highest-octane fuel for the consistent, relentless practice that leads to elite performance and continuous improvement.

There will be—and should be—tough aspects you may hate. But that’s where discipline kicks in. Mike Tyson said, “Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it. And that’s what you have to do to be the best.”

Neuroscience backs this up. Every time you do hard things, even tasks you dislike, you’re strengthening the mid-cingulate cortex (MCC), the brain area that helps us manage motivation, make decisions, and handle both pain and reward. It’s your mental Grit muscle, crucial for discipline and excellence.

To grow that MCC Grit muscle, engage in practices that build focus, resilience, and controlled responses to challenges. Here are some key high-performance strategies to strengthen your elite athlete mindset:

Mindfulness and Meditation

Regular mindfulness trains the MCC to manage discomfort and focus, boosting resilience over time.

Set and Achieve Small Goals

Achieving small goals builds the MCC’s ability to tackle bigger challenges.

Physical Exercise

Exercise, especially high-intensity training, enhances MCC resilience by handling controlled stress, making you better at handling mental stress. That’s right: physical stress makes you better at enduring and excelling under mental stress.

Challenge and Rest Cycles

Balance challenges with recovery. This cycle strengthens the MCC, building sustainable discipline. When you tackle challenging tasks, it's critical to give yourself recovery periods. This oscillation between challenge and rest helps the MCC grow stronger in managing effort and recovery, building a balanced, sustainable approach to discipline.

Positive Self-Talk

Motivating self-talk helps the MCC manage stress and stay focused on goals under pressure. The brain believes what you tell it, so tell it you are strong, capable, powerful, and successful.

Each of these practices strengthens the MCC and fosters a resilient, high-performance mindset geared for excellence.

So fall in love with the process of becoming great, especially when it involves doing hard things you hate. That’s how you’ll become the best.