Mind Games
Novice’s Knowledge: The moment I turn from my vehicle, stare at the wilderness in front of me, and take my first steps into the mountains of Idaho, I want to be at a physical and mental peak. I expect to be confident that my mind and body are ready to take on the hunt. This post will explore the steps I have taken to get mentally prepared for this adventure.
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Legs and lung get elk. That simple five word statement says everything about the physical nature of this hunt. Add to that fact that the specific area I chose to pursue elk is notorious for being steep, rugged, and thick. A workup plan became a necessity.
Let’s begin at the weakest point. The place that is often overlooked and ignored but the place where the most effort should be given – the mind. There’s a point in every difficult endeavor where a quiet voice will start to become present. It may start out quiet, but as you move forward and the difficulty increases this quiet voice can turn to a dull roar or even to a full on screaming plea for you to stop, give up or bail on whatever difficult situation that you are facing. If you have never given into this voice, consider yourself lucky (and maybe a liar). While it can be defeating to lose to this pull of energy towards and easier path, having moments in your life where you break through and realize that your limits do not exist where you previously had assumed is liberating.
I am of the belief that the ability to ignore and break through the voice to give up is a skill and a trainable one at that. There is no doubt in my mind that at multiple points in this trip that voice will surface. Maybe I know it’s only a few miles back to my vehicle where I could warm up, or even just an hour ride into town for a full hot meal or a soft bed. I fully expect myself not to give in, but I want to be ready when the voice begins its bargaining process.
In today’s safe, comfortable and plush world it takes a surprising amount of effort to find challenges for yourself enough to rile up that voice in your head and practice your defense against its pull. I chose to split this mental training into two aspects which I call flexing and anchoring. Flexing are actions that I can personally take that challenge me enough and put me in a scenario where I must battle with the voice that wants to me to give up and seek ease and comfort. I call it flexing because I envision these situations as presenting me with an opportunity to flex my mental capacity and ultimately grow it to tolerate more in the future. It’s the mental equivalent of a workout. Anchoring activities are scenarios that I expose myself to that make me realize the capabilities of mankind in the most general of senses. My anchoring activities primarily come in written form. I look for stories of people that make me say, ‘well if they could do that, then I can do this’. I look for stories that are so intense and so vivid that when I am in situations where my mind may be screaming to bail that I can recall them as a source of inspiration for pushing through.
The desired outcome of these activities is to be able to stay calm in stressful situations. Whether those stresses arise from an encounter with a predator, a frigid night, pulling back on an elk, executing the meat extraction or getting lost in the wilderness. All these situations are made better when the mind can think clearly and you can recognize and move beyond the panicked voice in your head.
Activities that I use for flexing:
Meditation
Well this is awkward. This was supposed to be a post on mental fortitude and this blog is supposed to be about a badass, facial hair growing, testosterone inducing, macho manly trip. Yet meditation practice would be THE number one practice I would recommend for strengthening your mental capabilities that I have practiced. Meditation has a misconception of trying to achieve the goal of a perfectly peaceful mind. One where the ‘self’ melts away and the meditator goes floating into some psychedelic state of bliss where lines blur between reality and a higher conscious existence. While some folks may strive for that, it’s not why I recommend or practiced meditation.
The real desired outcome of a meditation practice is to pay attention to where your thoughts wander. It’s not to stop or silence those thoughts all together. When I stopped trying to achieve a perfectly peaceful and quiet mind and instead just noticed my thoughts I finally had breakthroughs in my practice. There are entire walls of books written on this subject, so the last thing I will say before explaining the how of meditation is to make your goal about thought recognition over thought silence. If you can recognize that your mind is panicked/stressed/worried in whatever situation you may find yourself in you are much further ahead of the person who gets carried away deeper by these states of mind.
As for the how when it comes to meditation. Don’t worry about sitting cross-legged. Don’t worry about perfect posture. Don’t feel weird about doing it. I highly recommend downloading the Calm meditation app to use as a guide. Don’t go overboard either. Do 10 minutes of just sitting. That’s it. Sit down, shut your eyes and then just breath. Try to focus on your breath and just be an observer. Realize that this takes time to develop and you probably don’t feel like you’re making progress but you are, I promise. Once you have spent a few weeks doing this focused practice, work to bring that practice into everyday situations – this is where the learning really can get accelerated. You begin to realize that all your experiences are perceived and reacted upon due to your state of mind. Try to drop into this observation practice when you are encountering a situation that makes you uncomfortable. Ultimately, this was my goal by practicing. I am 100% certain I will face uncomfortable situation while in the field that will make me want to give up. I believe that by recognizing these thoughts are only generated by my mind that I will be able to acknowledge that, calm down, and then work forward.
Wake up early
This practice has been one of the more liberating experiences for me in my time consciously doing it. I found that I achieve two benefits from waking up early. The first is that it presents me with an opportunity to confront an uncomfortable situation every day. It’s way easier to stay in bed and sleep. Literally every morning I hear that voice in my head start rationalizing how today isn’t the day I need to be up early or it tries to convince me that it’s way too cold outside the covers. Then I get up despite it. This may sound ridiculous but it’s hard for me to do, and therefore worth doing because it forces me to recognize that voice and do something despite what it is saying. The secondary benefit that I have noticed is an immense feeling of satisfaction of putting a mark down in the ‘win’ column to start the day by taking the action.
This one is easy to put into practice. I picked a time in the morning that I thought was early. It was a time that I could get up from bed, do my morning routine and still be on time for work. Then I set my alarm for an hour before then and that’s when I get up. Added benefit – I have the free time in the morning to do my work out and work on these posts.
Sleep is important so don’t discount yourself that hour by going to bed at the same time. Alter your evening routine to match your new morning routine.
Fast
One of the easiest ways to get that voice in your head from a squeak to a thunderous roar is to be hungry. Being hangry is a totally acceptable adjective in our culture. Since Flexing is all about trying to turn that voice up that tells you to quit and then doing the exact opposite, going without food for a substantial time is the easiest way to challenge yourself.
I aim for a 24 hour fast once per week. I will eat dinner around 6-7 pm in the evening and not eat the following day until 6-7 pm for dinner. I have done this for a few months now and can attest that the voice gets quieter the more you practice it. The first time you do it you’ll probably be thinking about food most the day. The last fast I did I felt a small tug at 10 am and 1 pm for food and that was it. And calling it a tug is probably a huge overstatement.
Here is a good example of using the mental anchoring technique if you struggle with a fast. A man once went 382 days without eating. You can make it 24 hours.
Cold exposure
You know that feeling when you’re standing on a rock ledge 20 feet above the world’s largest freshwater lake that warms up to a blistering 55 degrees Fahrenheit at the peak of summer contemplating the plunge into the water you are about to perform? And then you finally just block out your mind and leap and it feels like every square inch of your body is being compressed by the cold like it’s under the forces of a collapsing star and you suddenly understand what it feels like to travel through a black hole and hit the event horizon so theoretical physicist can stop speculating and just dive into Lake Superior instead? Then the thrashing starts. The uncontrollable muscles that are seizing up and are flailing around while being controlled by a mind with only one thing on its mind to GET US THE HELL OUT OF THE WATER ASAP!!!
Cold water kind of sucks… at least for me. Even writing that paragraph out gave me the chills a little. Cold is a guarantee on this type of trip. May as well use the facts that I don’t necessarily like the cold coupled with that guarantee that I will face it to create another mental Flexing opportunity.
Generally, my cold exposure comes in the form of cold showers in the morning and evening. Again, this is an easy one to put into practice. Try starting at 50/50 between cold and hot water in regard to your taps. Then slowly, over the course of a few days, lower the amount of hot water and increase the amount of cold water. In a very surprisingly short amount of time a shower with 100% cold water will not feel that bad. There will always be those moments where I just absolutely do not want a cold shower, and the mental negotiations will begin. The good news is these are pretty easily snuffed out with the coldest shower possible.
In complete honesty, not every shower of mine is a cold shower. I’d say during the month leading up to the hunt that I’m at about 90% cold. A man’s gotta enjoy at least some time with the luffa.
The other way I expose myself to cold is on my morning walks with the pooch. In the months leading up to the end of September hunt, it will get surprising chilly in the mornings in Minnesota, especially while getting up an hour earlier than normal. On cold mornings, I will go on our walk at least one layer down of what I would normally wear. These mornings I sometimes opt for a warmer shower.
Exercise
The physical workup routine that was put together to prepare for this trip will be an entire post on its own. I would like to point out that a large part of the benefit of my physical workup plan gave me mental wins as well. Numerous mornings I didn’t want to work out, so I did. During workouts, things get uncomfortable and my mind tells me to bail and I recognize my state of mind but then ignore it.
The one specific exercise that I would like to call out that became almost 90% mental, 10% physical training for me is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). For those unaware, BJJ is primarily a grappling combat sport with its foundations in body weight distribution, control and submission moves. While BJJ is an utterly fantastic physical workout I would like to give it special notice for what it brings in the form of a mental challenge. Having a full-grown man of an opponent that is trained to get you in a position to snap your shoulder, knee, elbow and ankle or just straight up choke you into unconsciousness is kind of intense.
BJJ is all about finding yourself in incredibly uncomfortable positions where you always have the choice to tap and give the match to your opponent. After about four months of training I discovered how valuable the mental lesson was that BJJ offered in knowing when to tap versus when to calm your mind down and work your way out of a seemingly bad situation. You must be able to think crystal clear while executing this for it to work. There’s no getting out with a mind that’s freaking out.
My personal recommendation if you’re wanting to train your mental grit would be to join a BJJ gym. It takes a few months to start feeling comfortable but a lifetime to master this sport. I spent 8 months training at my gym prior to the hunt and feel that it took four months to have any breakthrough on the mental side of the equation. Depending on how you decide to act at your gym or while grappling, BJJ can be a higher risk activity for injuries so be careful about how you are grappling prior to your trip. I chose to take time off before the hunt to avoid any shoulder injury on my string-pulling arm.
That’s a full summary of all the activities that I have done to try to grow my mental grit over the past few months to prepare for the challenges that this hunt will present to me. Now onto the anchoring practices. Again, my goal with anchoring is to expose myself to vivid tales of personal struggle and achievement. I wanted to have stories in my mind that I could pull up in times of struggle and convince myself that my situation is no worse than some other position another human being has found themselves in and thrived. Stories and inspiration that I have used for my Anchoring technique:
American Buffalo - In Search of a Lost Icon
The story of Steve Rinella hunting buffalo in Alaska. Steve almost downplays the sheer physical difficulties he encounters during this trip. Necessary read for anyone going into the deep backcountry. Steve also produces MeatEater TV series (currently on Netflix) and MeatEater Podcast which should be required material for any hunter.
The River of Doubt - Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey
Sinking into a natural state of depression following his failed 1912 campaign for a third term as President, Teddy Roosevelt decides to cure it by joining a crew charting an unknown river in the Brazilian Amazon. Too bad they packed like a bunch of rookies who were expecting a nice leisurely trip instead of dealing with rapids, disease, native tribes and poisonous everything in the jungle. The only reason Roosevelt did not die on this trek is because his son, who was along for the adventure, would not allow him to commit suicide because the rest of the team would be required to carry his body out with them to bring back to the US.
A story about Admiral Byrd back in the 30’s when everyone was trying to get as far north or south as technically possible. Byrd aims to spend the winter at the southernmost station and the guy ends up going it alone due to transportation issues and lack of supplies. Insanity ensues and just reading the descriptions of the freezing cold temperatures and its effects made me oddly more comfortable during a Minnesota winter and grateful to have weather above negative temperatures.
Jocko Podcast – all episodes but specifically Ep. 76 w/ Capt. Charlie Plumb
Jocko Willink was a Navy SEAL commander who now writes and produces an extremely popular and powerful podcast. I would recommend any of his stuff to get a good dose of becoming a mental strongman, but specifically this episode with Capt. Charlie Plumb is one worth saving and listening to again in the future. Capt. Plumb was shot down over Vietnam, captured and kept in a POW camp for six years. After hearing his story everything else is a cakewalk.
After making a focused effort on putting myself in uncomfortable situations, listening to my mind and reading about struggles for survival of other people it is my hope that I will can meet the mental challenges that this trip will present to me.
Thanks for reading and best of luck!
Kyle Zibrowski
