Inside all of us lives a constant battle.  It is probably best surmised by an Cherokee Parable:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

As Firefighters we have this same internal battle going on.  Sometimes it’s just much more pronounced than those in other career choices.  In leadership, management, and character building scenarios the wolf is there.  In basic skills training, crew performance, tactical fitness and culture creation the wolf is there.  The wolf is also there in those life and death and high risk scenarios that sometimes occur on calls.  This is where our training with how to address the wolf really can make the difference.    

There are a lot of solid strategies to feed the “Good” wolf and in our opinion it all starts through recognition and awareness that this battle is occurring.  Being cognizant of the relationship of both wolves is paramount to being able to feed the correct wolf.  This may seem to be a simple concept but are you actually doing it?  If so are you doing it all the time or when it truly matters?  What wolf is initially the dominant one inside your head?  Once you determine the answers to these basic questions you can deploy positive mindset strategies that will set yourself up for success. 

Second, you can now intentionally work on exposing the battle of the Good wolf vs the Evil wolf. The simplest way to expose this tug of war?  You guessed it, Tactical Fitness.  One of our favorite tools to use currently is the Brute Force Sandbag. Training with an unstable load using multiple relevant movements will not only give you a physical benefit that will no doubt make you a better firefighter, but it will kickoff the Good vs Evil battle in between your ears quickly.  Recognize when the voice of self pity arrives, slow your breathing down, smile, and then CHOOSE to feed the Good wolf. 

Give these simple concepts a shot and take the wins, no matter how small, and build off of them slowly everyday. You’ll find that sometimes it’s easy to overcome and feed the Good wolf.  Other times you’ll only realize you’ve fed the Evil wolf until after the opportunity has long since passed.  That’s ok!  Recognizing you missed an opportunity is a huge step in achieving your mindset goals in the future.  Small disciplined actions lead to huge long term gains.