What are you telling yourself all day long?  Positive thoughts or negative ones?  All of us are inherently negative.  It’s how we are built.  Negativity leads to survival and has been passed down from our ancestors who had to be on high alert when they left the cave so they didn’t get eaten by a sabertooth tiger.

Photo by Levi Ventura on Unsplash

Starting to realize that we are predisposed to being negative is a huge step in the success of us pushing past perceived limits and achieving high level goals.  The internal voice is present 100% of the day.  This certainly isn’t limited to a firefighter safety and survival situation or when we are pushing extra hard during a tactical fitness regiment.

Take for example your internal voice when you are planning the next firefighter training session for your crew.  For most of us excitement initially kicks off the planning session.  We’re looking forward to pushing the crew to achieve a more solid foundation of basic skills, pushing their comfort zones, and increasing their confidence on the fireground.  Then most of the time the internal voice shows up and starts to throw negativity our way.  “What are they going to think?” “How am I going to combat their negative feedback?” “We really need this training but maybe we should push this off another month?”  On and on it goes.  This happens whether we have a good hard charging crew or whether we are literally trying to drag our crew out onto the training ground.

Start to tune into your inner voice in all times of the day.  Once we get good at realizing that we are in fact having an internal conversation, we can then start to change our mindset and influence or actions by thwarting the negativity that lives in our head.

Click here for 3 keys to help develop firefighter mental toughness.