Ever since I was a young boy, I always admired the NAVY SEALS.
Not for the guns, the killing, or the special missions…
I admired them for their mentality, training, and discipline.
I don't think there's another brotherhood who pushes their minds, bodies, and spirits further than the SEALs do.
And it's not by accident or “sheer God-given talent” that these men are so badass and powerful.
The SEAL mindset, or “SEAL-isms” as I call them, supercharge their perspectives, beliefs, and behaviors.
In this short article, you and I are going to look at 5 of the most powerful navy seal mindset secrets that we can apply into our lives to be more fit, successful, powerful, healthy, and manly.
Take these 5 Navy Seal Mindset Lessons to heart.
Mindset is so powerful and important, it is at the very foundation of our weight loss pyramid, which you can learn more about by checking out our awesome article on Weight Loss For Men Over 40 (The Definitive 5-Step Guide)
Share them with your brothers and friends, because I believe these Navy Seal Mindset lessons can change your life like they did mine.
SEAL-ISM #1: Make your damn bed every single day.
Admiral Bill McRaven (U.S. Special Operations Command) is a 36-year SEAL who has been at the tip of the spear in the war on terror since 2001.
Admiral McRaven was asked to speak about his biggest life lessons he learned from the SEALs.
His immediate answer to his biggest SEAL lesson shocked everyone:
“If you want to change the world [and your life], start off by making your bed every day.”
Huh…? Make…my bed Admiral?
Now, there's a Navy Seal Mindset secret to Admiral McRaven's seemingly “odd” piece of advice…
The symbolic act of “making your bed” SETS THE TONE for your entire day. Making your bed creates an immediate sense of completion, organization, planning, and victory.
And I believe this Navy Seal Mindset is BOTH literal and symbolic.
It's NOT just about straightening sheets. It’s about creating early momentum in our days.
It's about intentionally cultivating the mentality of execution, focus, and completion that starts the minute we get up in the morning.
So, I have a few questions for you as this relates to your health…
Are you “making your bed” with your nutrition every morning?
Are you starting your morning off with the proper energizing and metabolism boosting nutrition?
…or are you eating generic B.S. carb-laden food that is setting your day up for fatigue, sloppiness, and failure?
Are you “making your bed” every Sunday with meal preparation?
Are you setting yourself up for eating success during the week by ENSURING that you have healthy foods in the refrigerator throughout the week?
…or are you living meal-by-meal – unsure what you'll be eating for lunch and dinner – eating out at restaurants and taking no control or responsibility over your nutrition?
Are you “making your bed” every week with your workouts by scheduling them ahead of time?
Are you starting your week off with a killer workout? One that is planned, structured, and extremely time-efficient?
…or do you only get to the gym “when you have the time” or “when you feel motivated enough?”
Here's the Hard Fact: we're always living EVERY area of our lives with either a made-bed or a messy one…
And when it comes to success with our health and fitness, there may be no more important lesson than “making our damn beds” every day.
Thank you, Admiral McRaven for this 1st Navy Seal Mindset. Now to #2…
SEAL-ISM #2: Live and stay in your 3-foot-world.
It's pitch black. The perfect evening for a night raid on a suspected terrorist compound.
You kick down the side door. And your SEAL teammate slides a flash-bang grenade across the floor…
BOOOM! Smoke and piercing sound waves reverberate throughout the room.
Welcome to your 3-Foot-World: the LIFE-SPACE immediately within our reach in this very moment. The variables we can DIRECTLY touch and influence…
Not tomorrow. Not next week. RIGHT NOW.
Such a simple idea… right?
But, again, like “making our beds,” there's hidden power in this lesson…
Let’s deconstruct this Navy Seal Mindset a bit more to uncover these THREE (3) Subtle “3-Foot World” Lessons as I see it…
Lesson #1:”The Present Moment” Is The Safest Place To Be
For a Navy Seal…
- If you lose focus at this very moment, you die…
- If you daydream, you or your beloved teammates die…
This is NOW. We are here at this moment – and nowhere else.
And “The Now” is almost always the safest place for all of us to be – not just for SEALs.|
The past and future can be death-traps.
Now, when it comes to our health and fitness, IT DOES NOT MATTER what you did in the past with your eating and exercise that has landed you in this very position with your body and life.
All that matters is the POWER you and I have right now to make a change, to make a commitment, and to start fresh.
…by simply focusing on the 3-feet in front of us right now.
Lesson #2: Cultivate a Stoic Mindset In Our “3-Foot World”
The Greek Stoics preached the concept that “we must always acknowledge the controllable and uncontrollable variables in our lives.”
We can’t control how fast the weight and belly fat comes off…
But we can control what we put in our mouth tonight.
We can’t control how old we are…
But we can control how we THINK about and RELATE TO “our age.”
We can’t always control our job schedules or the time we have for exercise…
But we can ALWAYS control how much effort we put into our workouts once we're in the thick of it.
There may be 100+ things we cannot control in any given situation…
That doesn't matter.
We must solely focus on the 1-5 things we can control.
Controllable variables are our situational leverage points; those are the areas where we can effect change – with our health, relationships, finances, stress levels, and success.
Lesson #3: ACTION is our lifeblood.
The only way to change the SCOPE of our current “3-Foot-World” is to take a few steps forward…
- …to kick open the next door…
- …to spot your teammate around that blind corner…
- …to call in for reinforcements…
We CAN CHOOSE to sit around our entire lives hoping, waiting, and wishing for our bodies to change…
We can feel frustrated, depressed, and pity for our current state of health…
We can remain STUCK in place…
- …or we can eat a healthier dinner tonight…
- …or we can get our ass to the gym tomorrow morning to exercise…
- …or we can get set up on a proven program for men like FF30X that guarantees our success…
Action trumps everything. Period.
SEAL-ISM #3: Never, ever ring the bell.
In SEAL training, if you want to quit, you must “ring a bell.”
Once you've rung the bell, that's it. It's over. The pain stops. You're finished.
And in the midst of the unthinkably brutal training these guys go through, I can only imagine that ringing that bell is absolutely tempting for the weak-shit that lives inside each of us.
Ringing the bell is ESPECIALLY tempting when we THINK we’re spent…
- When we’re tired after work, so we don’t want to workout…
- When we’re not seeing the weight come off, so we want to throw in the towel…
- When we get stuck at strength plateaus, so we say “I guess I'm just too old to be strong again…”
The Hard Fact: The bells in our lives don’t ring themselves. We choose to ring them.
And, in every moment, we can also choose NOT TO ring the bell – in spite of every hardship. That's a core reason that makes Navy SEALs so elite – they choose NOT TO ring their bells – on a daily basis.
That's their Navy Seal Mindset. It's a constant mental battle that they win.
Choosing to NEVER ring the bell is also what makes us elite too – in any goal – be that weight loss, improving our finances, enhancing our relationships.
“Don't EVER, EVER ring the bell.” – Admiral McRaven
SEAL-ISM #4: Major in the BASICS.
The Seals are trained to do THREE (3) things better than anybody else in the world…
“Shoot. Move. Communicate.”
That’s it. They master these fundamentals… over and over… and over… for 16+ hours per day.
In countless scenarios…from countless angles… they shoot, move, and communicate.
Now, there are BASICS for any endeavor – whether that's becoming a SEAL or becoming the fittest version of yourself at any age.
As it applies to health – our BASICS: “Nutrition. Exercise. Mindset.”
Those are our fundamentals. Those also happen to be the variables we can control inside our “3-Foot Worlds.”
With Nutrition – we MAJOR in a simple and sustainable meal plan.
Not another fad diet. Not some complicated, fancy meal plan. Not a restrictive super-low carb approach.
We keep things simple and deadly consistent focusing on high-quality unprocessed foods we enjoy eating. This is the successful approach, and it's why guys who start our famous “Fit Father No Think Meal Plan” that's included in our FF30X program have such massive success.
With Exercise – we MAJOR in time-efficient, scheduled workouts.
Not another fad exercise routine. Not some complicated workout where you're jumping in front of your TV for hours per day like P90X.
We focus exclusively on the most efficient, proven bang-for-your-buck exercises in the form of brief high-intensity workouts that you can do at home or at the gym like our “Big 5 Strength Routine” and our “R8X Fat Loss Ignition: workouts included in the FF30X 30-Day Program.
With Mindset – we major in the mental game to keep ourselves motivated.
Getting healthy is NOT an overnight endeavor. It takes time. It takes grit. It takes resilience. It takes consistency.
And the beautiful news is you already have all the grit and resilience you need. The SEALs have all those things too.
It's OUR JOB to get into that mental power on a regular basis to stay motivated and consistent.
And, listen, in ANY CHALLENGE – be that surviving SEAL training or completing a body transformation – our individual motivation weakens at times…
That's precisely why it's so important to surround ourselves with coaches and brothers who support our STRONG MINDSET to get us back on track.
And that brings us perfectly to our final Navy Seal Mindset lesson…
SEAL-ISM #5: The SEALs are a Brotherhood. There are no 1-man armies.
The SEALs are a TEAM comprised of skilled individuals. Every man is doing his job excellently.
You are doing your job, and you know the man on your right is doing his. Everyone trusts in the team.
There's a famous Navy Seal Mindset saying, “Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.”
Powerful stuff that has a TON of application to our health goals.
Are you attempting to improve your body as a 1-man team?
Are you trying to run a solo-project with your fat loss mission?
The Hard Fact: You will never be as powerful and successful on your own – as you COULD BE with a band of brothers who have your back.
That's why in FF30X, we have the brotherhood component. We are all guys committing to TAKING FULL CONTROL of our health in 30-days. We are going through this journey of excellence together.
And I want to be on YOUR TEAM. I want to have your back.
>>> Learn more and join us here in the proven FF30X Brotherhood <<
The 30-Second Navy Seal Mindset Summary:
1. “Make your bed – every damn morning.”
This is the philosophy of STARTING YOUR DAY – in any endeavor with success, focus, and completion – whether that's straightening your sheets of making a proper fat-burning breakfast.
2. “Live and stay in your 3-foot world.”
This is the LIFE-SPACE right in front of us – comprised of the variables WE CAN CONTROL and take action on. When it comes to our health, we focus on our nutrition RIGHT NOW. What are we putting on our plates tonight? When it comes to our exercise, we focus on what we can do RIGHT NOW. Are we putting in 100% of our effort?
3. “Never ring the bell.”
Every moment, we have the choice to either “ring the bell” and quit… or resist the temptation and build our strength. SEALS are SEALS because they refuse the ring the bell – despite battling temptation on a daily basis.
For us to be elite with our health, relationships, and finance – we too need to RESIST that bell. Always and forever.
4. “Major in the BASICS.”
There is so much temptation to get “fancy and complicated” with things. The SEALS do 3-things better than anybody in the world: move, shoot, and communicate. Those are their fundamentals.
Our fundamentals for vibrant health and body transformation are nutrition, exercise, and mindset. We must master those basics. Everything else is secondary.
5. “The SEALs are a Brotherhood; there are NO 1-Man Armies.”
“Individuals play the game; teams beat the odds.” To succeed at the fastest and highest level of any endeavor, we need teams. To get into the best damn shape of your life – at any age – you need a team.
We'd love to be on your team. Send us an email at [email protected].
Cheers. I hope you benefitted from these 5 Navy Seal Mindset lessons.
P.P.S. If you're new to the Fit Father Project, we publish 1 new article just like this EVERY SUNDAY – that covers important topics for us guys (like eating, exercise, vitality, supplementation, & even a bit of “warfare”).
You can click this link here to subscribe to the mailing list and receive a free 1-day Meal Plan too as your “welcome to the brotherhood gift.”
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