Studies find that up to 96 percent of individuals experience dissociation during the training—the fog of war. It’s about making the right choice under stress, uncertainty, and fatigue—this requires emotional control. Compounding our confusion, we’ve resorted to tying toughness to masculinity and an ethos of machismo.

It is written in a straightforward, down-to-earth manner that should have no trouble holding even the finicky reader's attention. But Magness then redefines toughness in this way, “Real toughness is experiencing discomfort, or distress, leaning in, paying attention and creating space to take thoughtful action. This section focuses on training our brain to create space so that when we encounter difficult situations we can stay in the present and focus on what is really happening and not respond to an exaggerated perception of reality. It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality.Doubts are often the brain’s way of alerting us that our expectations are overstepping our capabilities. The kind of toughness that chooses to accept reality, coexists inside of grit and grace, and that is framed fully in the uniqueness of each individual.

It protects from physical or psychological threat, such as shielding our ego from the bruise of failing a job interview. If you set an unrealistic goal – say, doing a hundred push-ups a day when you’re not in shape – and you fail to meet that goal, you have to lower the bar. The topics range from capacity, training, focus, mindfulness, emotion, thoughts, feelings, framing, inner voices, etc.

The ideas presented will move you away from “tough it out” and into tuning into your body and mind to make the hard decisions. The title suggested that the author would be discussing both how people get resilience wrong, and the ‘surprising science’ of real toughness. A lot of stories trying to explain his points on the book, but everything had a reason and helps you digest the true meaning of Do Hard Things. The book highlights stories of inspiring young people who achieved impressive feats despite their age. It fails in sport, where athletes who fall for the old model play out of fear, leading to worse performance.

In each section of the book there are “Toughness Maxim’s”, which are the quotes that you could use to summarize the sections. We want our perception of the difficulty of a challenge and our ability to handle it to be realistic and overlap. I might be biased because as a runner and someone who works in mental health this book was somehow extremely relevant to both aspects of my life. We tell our sons and daughters to “man up” or, in much cruder terms that are heard on playing fields across the country, “stop being a pussy. There are several parts of his book that I marked that I would like to go back to and spend more time with so that I can fully appreciate all the insights this book has to offer.I find mental toughness and the ‘harden up’ mentality so unhelpful and feels rather outdated when it is actually mental flexibility that helps athletes thrive in both performance and wellbeing. The biggest downside of the tough guy macho man boss, coach, or parent is that their attitude breeds fragile humans.

She is a chartered psychologist working with those in sport, on the stage and in business to help them overcome their barriers to success so they can achieve their goals. There are also summaries at the end of every chapter, to help the reader reinforce what has just been covered. If you’re honest with yourself, and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, what you’re capable of and what might scare you, then you can come to terms with what you’re facing and deal with it. I found this book recommended amongst your usual strand of life improvement, self-help social media and podcasts.

I have already been able to use a lot of this book in my work with clients and in my own life and I really appreciate that about any kind of self-helpy book. Each chapter is chocked-full of interesting anecdotes (some personal, in-the-trenches experience), and the latest scientific discourse packaged in an engaging and digestible way.