Becoming a Mentality Monster

Thomas Jacob

14 min readSep 25, 2020

A step by step guide to developing a powerful mind and achieving your goals.

What is a Mentality Monster?

I first heard of this term when it was used by Jürgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool Football Club to describe his incredible players.

Liverpool had won the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League — the most prestigious club competition in Europe. And during the next season, they were winning game after game in the Premier League. They went 44 games unbeaten. There were often matches where they would be losing in the beginning, only to make an incredible fight back and win. It was clear to me that this team was unlike any other.

They seemed to have a different, deadlier mindset from other teams.

So I started thinking more about what the coach meant when he described his team as Mentality Monsters.

Is it a gift? Is it something that only a few people have? Or is it possible that it can be developed?

Since I had spent almost two decades studying human psychology and peak performance, I decided to find out what being a mentality monster was all about.

The objective is to give you useful, precise information that can be immediately applied in your lives. Read the article (hopefully in one sitting) and then start working on the exercises.

We will be looking at developing six habits that can help you create a powerful mind.

There are things you can do every day that will strengthen your mind and help you achieve your goals. You can develop new ways of thinking if you practice the methods given.

You too can become a mentality monster!

Best of luck and have fun.

The first habit to develop is discipline.

Discipline impacts almost every area of your life (physical, mental, and emotional). A disciplined person has a mind that is resilient and strong, and one that is capable of setting difficult goals and achieving them.

So what does it mean to be disciplined?

A way to think about it is: Discipline is doing things that are good for you even if you don’t feel like doing them.

All of us feel lazy at times but those of us who are disciplined push ourselves when it matters most.

Discipline is not something that you are born with. It is something that can be developed. It is like a muscle. The more you train the muscle the stronger it gets.

Let’s develop your discipline muscle.

Okay, here is an exercise for you.

1) Please write down in a notebook what your level of discipline presently is on a scale from 1 to 10?

This will help you have an idea of your starting point. And over the coming days, weeks, and months, you can keep track of the improvements you are making.

2) Make a list of one thing you can do every day for the next week (that is seven things to do). These must be activities that you generally avoid or procrastinate about.

So what are things that you don’t enjoy doing, but will help you improve the quality of your life? For example, suppose you don’t really like reading. Now reading is something that can help you develop more knowledge and skills. So maybe one of your tasks on your list could be to read for one hour on Day 1.

Let’s say you want to improve your physical wellbeing. Maybe you always wanted to go for a morning jog but never did it. Plan it in your discipline calendar for Day 2.

Let’s assume you have thought of making a TikTok video. Maybe you have creative ideas and funny concepts that you want to share with the world, but you never took the necessary action. So on Day 3 schedule to make your TikTok video.

Write down for the next seven days the different things that you’ll be doing to create discipline.

Here is an example of what it should look like -

Make sure these tasks are small and easy to accomplish. Over the next few weeks you can slowly make the tasks harder, but for now, start with something simple.

It’s likely that right now your discipline muscle is weak. If you happen to go to a gym you will not lift the heaviest dumbbells on the first day, will you? You need to train your muscles to be able to do heavy lifts and hard pulls over time.

Start slowly and steadily till your mind gets used to the discipline demand.

The second concept that we will discuss is mind defense.

Think of what a nation’s military force does. The main purpose is to stop attacks or incursions into the country, whether it be on land, at sea, or in the air.

The mind is our greatest asset. We should be extremely careful not to allow poisonous ideas and negativity to come inside. We cannot let weeds grow in the garden of the mind.

Shouldn’t we then have a mental defense force?

In the modern world, we are surrounded by an extraordinary amount of negativity. As we allow the negativity to pour into our minds we become emotionally sick, often feeling bad without even knowing exactly why, and paralyzed with fear and anger.

So what are sources of poison that create negative feelings in us?

NEWS

You have to make sure that you consume less news.

And if you feel it’s essential to be kept aware of every little thing happening in the world, try to find news sources that want to inform you, not entertain you.

The purpose of news today is to startle you. Because unless its emotional people aren’t going to tune in.

The news media has realized that to grab your attention in the modern world where there is so much competition (social media, streaming platforms, etc.), they have to terrify you or enrage you. If it bleeds, it reads.

So if you keep consuming news your mind is going to be filled with incredible negativity about the world. This is going to influence your emotional states and the quality of your mind.

Unhappiness is a state of mind. Often it is not so much what is happening in the external world rather our reaction to it.

Bad things are happening in the world but at the same time, there are lots of amazing things going on also. But the news media is not going to focus much on love and beauty and kindness.

So for a happy life and a strong mind — drastically reduce your consumption of news.

BAD COMPANY

Reduce time with negative friends.

We all have friends who tend to find the worst in people and situations. For example, you might have an idea to start a business or try your hand at painting. They’ll be the first people to tell you –

“Oh, it won’t work.”

“You don’t have it in you.”

“Don’t bother trying.”

These are people who love to indulge in gossip, find faults with others, and complain.

The more time we spend with people like this the more our mind weakens.

So guard yourself against negative friends. This doesn’t mean that you suddenly end your friendships. Just make sure that you decrease the time you’re spending with them.

Negative influences may not only come from the news and negative people. The life situations we are in, childhood traumas, and bad experiences all play a part in impacting how we feel about ourselves.

We may develop a belief that things will never get better.

So how can you stop yourself from indulging in negative thinking? There is a very simple exercise for this. Anytime you notice a negative thought pass by (something that triggers anger, sadness, or hate) immediately STOP it. Distract yourself by thinking instantly of the opposite of what you thought (a positive thought).

This might seem quite difficult at first because so much of our thinking is unconscious. We are not aware of our thoughts unless we make it a practice to watch our mind.

Once you get into the habit of stopping negative thoughts there will be a shift in how you feel. The anxiety and anger you may have been feeling reduce considerably.

As you practice this over the next few weeks you will notice that you have started to feel happier. You will be in a more relaxed, powerful, and peaceful state.

After you have created a mental defense for your mind, move on to the next habit.

1)For the next seven days — go on a news diet. Don’t spend time reading/watching news for more than 15 minutes a day. Ideally, just scan the headlines and nothing more.

2) Write down a list of the people in your life you think are negative.

3) For the next seven days — reduce the time you will be spending with them.

4) For the next seven days — STOP negative thoughts 3 times a day and immediately replace it with a positive thought.

Embrace your past failures.

Think back to when you were a kid. Life seemed so different, didn’t it?

You didn’t have many worries. You were always excited and full of energy. Little things seemed so much fun. You couldn’t wait to go cycling with your friends. Christmas presents were euphoric. You were super excited when dad came back from an out of town trip.

Even if you were sad about something it used to be for a short period, and then you were back living life to the fullest.

Do you feel like that now?

What happens as a person grows older?

Adults carry the weight of responsibilities and seem to be mostly in a state of stress or unhappiness.

On our shoulders is the burden of accumulated failures. The little (or big) failures and rejections that we’ve had all our lives have got collected in our minds and now we carry it around everywhere with us.

It’s time to put this incredible burden down.

Unburden yourself.

Failure is only really a failure if you don’t learn anything from it. All successful people in history had to overcome massive failures before they succeeded.

1) Think about the 10 biggest failures of your life. Write it down on a piece of paper.

Maybe you wanted to get into a certain college and you could not do it. Maybe you were in love with a classmate and she never loved you back. Go back in time. Reflect a little. Then write down the failures.

2) What did you learn from it? Write down for each failure you have ever had — what the learning experience was. Every failure is a great learning opportunity. Ultimately life is about growing. And growth comes from painful experiences.

3) Make a promise to yourself that from now on whenever you think of your failures you are going to make sure that you also focus on all the learning that came out of it.

The fourth habit to develop a strong mind is breathing.

Sounds a little strange? You must be wondering what breathing has to do with becoming a mentality monster. After all, all of us breathe.

Conscious breathing is a fast way to control how you feel.

So let’s say you are feeling down, almost immediately, you can change your emotional state by using various breathing techniques. Controlled breathing can also help in greatly increasing health and well-being.

All through history breathing has being a tool for elite performance. The ancient warrior cultures, whether it be the Mongols or the Samurai, gave great importance to proper breathing. Even modern martial arts, which has derived from ancient fighting forms, stresses on mastering the breath as much as learning fighting skills.

A way to calculate your mental strength is by observing how fast you can get out of negative states. Do you spend seconds, minutes, hours, days, or even weeks in negative places?

There are various types of breathing techniques, from practices of yoga to the Wim Hof Method. We will start you off with a simple but effective way of breathing.

Our objective of using a breathing technique is to get you back to your Centre (your heart and your soul — a peaceful state of connectedness to everything). As you go through the day, accumulating stress and negative emotions, it is important to get back to your Centre as soon and as often as possible.

The longer you indulge in negative emotions and thoughts, the longer it will take you to accomplish your goals.

So the next time you feel yourself moving into a negative state change your breathing.

Breathe in slowly for 10 seconds.

Breathe out slowly for 10 seconds.

In the beginning, if you don’t have the practice, you might struggle to do a deep inhale, but by doing this exercise regularly, you can build up your breath capacity.

Over the next seven days spend 10 minutes a day:

Breathing in slowly for 10 seconds.

Breathing out slowly for 10 seconds.

The best time to do this exercise is when you have just woken up in the morning.

Move.

The way we use our body has a huge impact on how we feel. You can’t have a strong mind if you don’t have a strong body.

It is essential to do at least half an hour of exercise a day. The benefits of exercising are many. The neurochemicals that are released have a positive impact on our mood.

What else can you do apart from exercising to strengthen your mind?

Let’s say you force a smile on your face.

Try this exercise right now. Put a big smile on your face. Keep a timer on for two minutes and maintain that smile.

Once the two minutes are up, observe yourself.

How do you feel?

You feel pretty good, don’t you?

So even though you have not thought of anything different, the act of forcing a smile has signaled your brain to make you feel good.

No trigger in the environment made you feel a sense of happiness or peace, it was the ‘fake’ smile you just put on.

Think about how you can use this in your life.

What body movements and gestures can you create to feel great? Can you feel more confident if you stand up straight and hold your chin high? Absolutely.

What if you smile every day for five minutes in the morning? How will that make you feel? Wouldn’t that be a great way to start the day?

This is why laughter clubs work. There is a sense of well-being and happiness that a person gets if he laughs.

1) Make sure that you exercise every day for the next seven days. For at least 30 minutes a day do some form of exercise.

2) Develop a confident body language. Write down gestures and movements you can do that will give you confidence. Think of someone who is extremely confident (could be a movie or real-life person). Note down all aspects of their body language and replicate it in your life. Move the way they move. Sit and talk like them.

Now for the next seven days — apply this for at least half an hour a day.

The sixth habit is pouring positivity into your life.

All the previous steps, in essence, block out the negative energy of the world from flowing into your mind. But just blocking negativity and avoiding thoughts of failure and inadequacy is not enough to be successful.

You also need to fuel the mind with lots of positive thinking.

The best way to do this is to make sure that you start your day correctly.

Our mind is in a highly suggestible state when we wake up. You mustn’t focus on your problems first thing in the morning.

So what type of positivity can you put in your mind?

You can read personal growth books or articles on the internet about happiness and achievement. There are great content creators on YouTube who put out motivational thoughts.

I am listing some of my favorite thought leaders.

It is strange that in schools we are taught history, geography, and mathematics, but the most important things in life — how to be happy, how to build emotional resiliency, and how to be an achiever with high self-confidence is never touched on.

We have to teach these things to ourselves.

Start your day by spending at least 30 minutes listening to/reading about positivity.

As you make this a daily habit your subconscious starts to get a new messaging of optimism and possibility.

And if you do this long enough, if you develop this habit of putting positivity into your mind and studying successful people and their strategies, if you make this a lifetime study, then extraordinary things will happen to you. By feeding yourself this information repeatedly you will be creating new beliefs. You will start to have the confidence that you can do anything you want.