Strength in the Making

Bryan Carmichael
Nov 1, 2020
8 min read

Note: This is the first article of a new series I'm writing titled In the Making. I am currently writing a second article to this series about confidence, so if you enjoyed this article be sure to stay tuned for that and all future articles to come.

Introduction

We all desire for strength in one way or another. Whether it be physically, socially, psychologically or emotionally, strength is something of which we human beings value as a good quality.

However, goodness knows that strength isn't just plucked out of thin air. Strength is an attainment which is to be achieved through blood, sweat and tears, physically and figuratively. Here are some of the best ways in which you can maximise your outcome of developing strength as well as receiving all of its best benefits.

Developing Physical Strength

Physical strength is perhaps the first thing one thinks of when the word 'strong' is mentioned. This is due to its visibility to others as well as the environmental benefits it grants you.

While it isn’t necessarily the easiest strength to develop, it is the most straightforward - it’s just simple biology. Eating a healthy diet and plenty of exercise puts you on the right path towards getting stronger.

Healthy Diet

Specifically, going vegan or on other plant-based diets have been proven to have even bigger benefits in terms of physical strength, you can expend more energy and still last longer. In today’s day, all of the strongest weightlifters, bodybuilders and boxers all live on plant-based diets.

Another thing worth mentioning is that for a long time, people thought that fats were the biggest cause of obesity and health issues. However, recent studies have shown that it isn't the fats at all, but is instead the sugar that is the real culprit. Cutting down sugars, even if you replace them with extra fats, can help your diet improve drastically.

For more information, the documentaries The Game Changers and The Magic Pill are both good sources on the benefits of plant-based diets and cutting down on excess sugars.

Balanced Exercise

Moving on, the next factor in developing physical strength is exercise. Usually, when we think of building muscle and exercise, we think of lifting 500kg weights and other insane stunts faked on TV. However, there is a much simpler way to achieve this, and you actually don’t need much equipment to do it.

The best way to develop muscle is to do a series/circuit of fitness exercises for about five minutes an exercise, with one minute rests in between. There are two types of circuits you could try:

Focusing on a certain muscle group
All rounded fitness circuit

The first circuit, as mentioned above, is to select a bunch of exercises all targeted at developing one muscle area. Every exercise has benefits towards a specific muscle and by choosing exercises that all relate to a certain muscle group, it balances the rate of growth within the group, that way no sub-area of muscle is bigger than another.

One example of this kind of circuit is having one exercise focusing on the biceps, one exercise working on the triceps, etc. This can be named an arm muscle circuit.

The second circuit, as mentioned above, is to select a bunch of exercises all targeted at developing different muscle areas. By choosing this type of circuit, it balances the rate of growth between the different groups, that way no area of muscle is bigger than another.

One example of this kind of circuit is having one exercise from the arm circuit, one exercise from the upper leg circuit, one exercise from the core circuit, one exercise from the lower leg circuit, etc.

This is beneficial in the beginning and the end stages of your slow and steady muscle building process. Starting out with all of them gives you an idea of what you need to work more on in the beginning, that’s when you can switch to the specific muscle circuit. After working on that muscle group, move on to the next one. Once you’ve gone through all of them, do a few more of the overall exercises, and then repeat this whole process again for months.

Do not be discouraged if you don’t become ripped the day after you first started these exercises, it takes months to years to develop visible muscle, but if you consistently do these exercises, balance that with a healthy diet and additional casual exercise (walking, etc.), you’ll develop physical strength faster than you’ll think.

Developing Psychological Strength

The next and arguably most important form of strength is psychological strength. Psychological strength is useful in many different aspects of life. Because psychological strength can span out over many categories and could easily take up the space of a 500 page book, I will generalise it and condense it into three categories to make it easier to understand.

Challenges
Setbacks
Decisions

Challenges

The first area of psychological strength I will talk about developing is dealing with challenges. When faced with a challenge, the weak will cower, give up, surrender. Those who are mentally stronger can find ways through or around the problem.

One way to develop such a strength is to practice lateral thinking with puzzles, games and other exercises. What does lateral thinking have to do with challenge? Lateral thinking is finding the other angle, the opposite perspective, the not-so-obvious answer to a problem. By strengthening that, you will find that challenges hurled at you all of a sudden don’t become so problematic.

Setbacks

The second area of psychological strength I will discuss is dealing with setbacks. Imagine putting the finishing touches on a very important proposal for a company, which will pretty much guarantee your promotion next year, but all of a sudden you realise an error in the idea’s mechanism that renders the whole project useless.

You would for sure get fired if you brought it up to your bosses, seeing as it’s due to be presented the next day. You would for sure get fired if you left it and one of the others in the room attending the conference spots it and points it out. It doesn’t look pretty, and it looks like there is no way out.

Those who are mentally weak and are unable to think of solutions under pressure are usually the ones who end up taking the hit for such a mistake, either that or they aren’t the ones even selected to do the project in the first place.

Someone who is stronger in this area would instead drop everything and grind out this issue by morning, even if it means he has to step out of the meeting for ten minutes to grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria due to sleep deprivation.

These types of people are the ones who end up succeeding the most in their jobs, their relationships and most of general life. They are able to put in the hard work and persevere to the end to get the job done.

How do we develop this? Taking charge of project issues in a group is a good start, thinking of the different angles mentioned above to solving said problem. Perseverance is something that could totally be gone through in a separate article so I won’t touch on it much, but essentially, improving perseverance, commitment and hard work are all contributions towards developing mental strength.

Decisions

Chocolate or vanilla?

On the spot, go.

This is just one question that falls under the category of pressured decision making. Other choices such as ‘split or steal’ (Money Balls), ‘buy or auction’ (Monopoly) and ‘Nike or Adidas’ (sportswear) all enforce a choice known with consequences known as opportunity cost, where by choosing one, you lose the opportunity to choose the other.

Those who are mentally weaker often struggle with such decisions and in some cases be torn over them for long periods of time. It can start to mess with their thinking structures and general judgement, ultimately leading indecisiveness that detriments themselves and the people around them.

How can we avoid this? The best way is to avoid these two thinking habits when making a decision:

Overthinking the scenarios
Regretting the decision made

Overthinking situations can lead to making the decision based on scenarios that are very unlikely to happen.

For example, with the decision of an average person buying a MacBook Pro versus a MacBook Air:

It’s so much cheaper to buy an Air…

BUT the Pro has a better processor, what if I want to run various search engines and heavy programs at once?

The Air has a better colour display…

BUT the Pro can display complex graphics better, what if I want to edit 4K videos on Final Cut Pro?

This guy is very unlikely to edit 4K video on Final Cut Pro, but the mere idea and possibility of doing so is making him doubt himself when he shouldn’t be. He would be totally happy with an Air, but his overthinking is causing him to lean towards the heavier, more expensive machine, with extra features that he most likely won’t even use.

The second habit to avoid when making a decision is regretting the decision you made and contemplating about what might have happened if he had chosen the other option.

Regret is natural, and it definitely shouldn’t be something shut out of your life completely, that would just be unhealthy. However, when it comes to relatively small decisions that impact virtually nothing, regret isn’t something to spend sleepless nights bugging yourself about.

For example, with the decision of an average person eating Indian over a decent steak:

Oh my tongue, stomach and butthole are on fire right now! I do wish I had eaten steak instead.

Why didn’t I eat the steak?

Why was I so foolish to go for the more vibrant spice over a juicy steak?

What is wrong with me?

What is wrong with my life?

Where has existence taken me?

Et cetera.

By the end of it, you’re wondering about things totally unrelated to the decision you just made, and you’re all the worser for it.

With all of this in mind, let me make something clear. This only applies to decisions that don’t affect anybody around you. When it comes to making bigger decisions that could decide the fate of a company or social group or relationship, it is totally okay to take time and weigh up all the possibilities and qualities to each decision, but even then, don’t kill yourself over it.

Developing Social/Emotional Strength

Developing social strength is arguably the hardest one to develop, as feelings are hard to change significantly after puberty. This is exactly what is measured by in EQ (Emotional Quotient).

Unfortunately part of developing this strength is essentially timing and luck. You have to be born with the ability to make connections and understand related concepts extremely well in order to be effective in emotional issues. It is also best to develop this during puberty years where you start to mature and become more responsive to actions around you.

A large key to being emotionally strong is being able to understand the situation around you and being able to spot the optimal outcomes of the actions affecting the situation, which is not only extremely hard to be taught, but also only perfected by a small percentage of human beings who do possess such a skill.

However, there are a few things that can be done to enhance what you already know.

If somebody is having troubles with something, be patient and understanding with them. Offer them support and comfort towards getting through said trouble.
If somebody is feeling sad or emotionally distressed, calming them down in different ways is another way to help make the situation better.
If somebody is contemplating suicide or other forms of self harm, attempt to talk them out of it, taking their mind off the issue causing the want for self harm, OR taking advantage of the powers of coupling, prevent them from accessing their method of self harm and pray that they will just give in to your efforts.
If there is a moment of uncertainty at any point, contacting someone who is better equipped to handle such an issue than you are is always a viable option.

For more information on coupling (mentioned during point three of ‘developing social/emotional strength’), please see my other article, Which Events are Linked? - An Explanation of Coupling and the Linking of Motives and Events.

Conclusion

Strength is useful in many areas of life, and is an extremely important quality to have. While some are easier to develop than others, all are vitally important to positively affecting your own wellbeing, and others’ wellbeings around you.

With large amounts of violence, crime and suffering in the world today, we need these strong people to be doing the right thing more than ever, not only helping those in need, but also educating more and more people to do the right thing and be more like them.

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