It’s easy to track physical gains. You can measure distance ran, time elapsed, repetitions, weight lifted, how much you weigh, how much you ate. The list can go on.

For mental gains, there isn’t much. I suppose you could measure amount you read, meditated, length of time focused without distractions, … and I’m not sure what else. Even if you track this (which I tried) it doesn’t seem too insightful. It’s nothing compared to being able to know that 1 year ago, I was able to lift X, and now I can lift X + Y. I began to think that there wasn’t a great way to measure mental fitness.

Until a thought popped up during my run. I’ve been training for a marathon and it has not been easy. I’ve been running between 5 and 6 kilometers for 5 days a week with a random longer run (<10 K). Today happened to be a longer run day and I was aiming for 12K. I hit a wall right around the 10K mark and I kept telling myself that I could get up to 12K. You can do it, you can do it.

It reminded me of work outs aiming for X sets with Y reps. On the last set of the last few reps, is when you’re close to your limit and pushing yourself. It’s here I found that we’re using not just our physical muscles, but also our mental muscle to push our bodies to finish the set.

This is the link between the physical and mental. It’s that voice in your head telling yourself to get to the end and your body, albeit screaming at you to stop, continues to go.

This is the work out for the brain muscle, will power, self-control, whatever you want to call it. The most gains, physically or mentally, happen when you are under the most strain. It’s when things are uncomfortable that our mind and body can learn and grow.

I have an Apple Watch and try to close my rings + get 10K steps every day. It’s easy to track these physical things. For mental reps, we should aim to push ourselves past the strain once a day. Training for the mind, I suppose. And the best part is, it’s now part of the physical exercise routine. Whenever you want to give in during your physical work out, flex your mental muscle, and fight through to the finish. That’s a rep and win for the mind.

Continue doing this and expand it to other parts of your life. For me, I’m trying to write everyday and it has been a struggle. Everyday is a fight. Every time my mind says no, but I push through and finish a day, I just exercised my brain muscle. As we apply this to more scenarios in our day to day, we strengthen our minds and start to upgrade ourselves in ways that our subconscious fought against. I think of it as reprogramming our subconscious to accept new beliefs. It’s how we’ll get comfortable being uncomfortable and learn that strain, whether physical or mental, is where the gains are.