Keep Moving Forward
by- Josh Bryant
Josh Bryant–Determination Mindset!
Determination Mindset
Get in your car, hit the gas, and keep your eyes glued to the rearview mirror. Pretty soon, the ambulance driver will be hitting the gas, too. You’re going to crash. The same thing happens in life when you keep focusing on past mistakes, missed opportunities, and disappointments while ignoring what’s in front of you.
You’re still replaying the conversation from five years ago when you lost a business opportunity to a competitor. Meanwhile, he’s riding around in a big old Cadillac, smoking fifty-dollar cigars, and hasn’t thought about you in years. There’s an old saying that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Spending today stewing over yesterday works about as well.
The rearview mirror has a purpose. Check it, get the information you need, and put your eyes back on the road. Here are five ways to do that.
1. Take the Lesson Without Reopening the Wound
Maybe instead of hitting the gym, you’ve been hitting the International House of Pancakes. Your only consistent training partner is a waitress named Miss Thelma who’s pushing 350, calls you “baby,” and introduces you as “the bodybuilder” while delivering your third stack. Maybe instead of reflecting on a bad decision, you’ve declared war on your liver. Or maybe you took a legitimate shot at something important and failed. At least you were in the damn game. Either way, take responsibility and decide what changes next.
Calling yourself an idiot for five more years won’t recover the money, repair the relationship, or give you back the time. You’re also not going to make that free throw you missed when your team got knocked out of the playoffs senior year. Examining the mistake can help you prepare better. Replaying it daily gives an old disappointment another opportunity to interfere with your life.
In training, continually aggravating an injury can keep it from healing. You can do something similar with regret: keep picking at the same wound until thinking about it becomes a routine. Take the lesson seriously enough to change your behavior.
Action: Write down the mistake, its lesson, and one corrective action. Make the apology, change the habit, or schedule the work.
2. Choose Your Own Input
If every morning starts with scrolling, somebody else gets first crack at your attention. Advertisers want your money. Platforms want you to stick around. Your plans for the day aren’t their priority. If your feed keeps serving politics that drive you nuts, examine what you keep watching, clicking, and arguing about. You may be feeding the very thing you claim you want to escape.
Choose your own input. Pray. Read five useful pages. Listen to something educational during your commute. Give your mind material that helps you become better at something you care about. Five pages today probably won’t change your life, but five pages daily adds up to 1,825 pages a year.
Study consistently and apply what you learn. Reading about being a better father means more when you put the book down and spend time with your kids.
Action: Spend ten minutes reading, praying, or studying before opening social media tomorrow. Choose the material tonight.
Ready to put this mindset to work? Grab the Jailhouse Strong Successful Mindset Manual. Read it, apply it, and keep moving forward.
3. Stop Warming Up for a Miserable Day
Some people wake up searching for a grievance. The coffee’s cold, the weather sucks, and somebody parked crooked. By breakfast, they’re acting like they survived a hostage situation. A small inconvenience becomes the opening argument for why everything is terrible, and they spend the rest of the day collecting evidence. The slow cashier and unanswered email both make the list.
You know people like this. You may occasionally be people like this. Complaining can become a familiar routine, and interrupting it takes attention. Notice when you’re turning an inconvenience into a prediction about your entire day. Cold coffee needs reheating. It doesn’t require a declaration that your life is cursed.
Give the morning some direction before the first irritation arrives. Identify what needs your attention and what you can influence. Prepare for bad weather, leave earlier for traffic, or have the conversation you’ve been avoiding. Put that energy toward a response that improves your situation.
Action: Before checking the news, write down your most important task and one thing you appreciate. When something irritates you, ask, “What can I do about this?”
4. Watch the Labels You Attach to Yourself
This is one of the biggest problems I see working with people. They make a mistake, then turn it into an identity: “I’m lazy.” “I always choke.” “I have no discipline.” Now they’ve given tomorrow’s bad decision an excuse before tomorrow arrives. I’ve done it myself.
I used to miss third-attempt deadlifts and explain it the same way: “I’m tired at the end of the meet.” After a while, I expected it. Third attempts were just something I missed. Then I started training strongman with Odd Haugen and increased my work capacity. At first, I had to make myself do the extra work. Eventually, I got through five events at Strongest Man in America, only missing one lift on a technicality, and felt like I could’ve run around the building afterward.
At my next powerlifting meet, I pulled 810 on my third attempt and was pissed I didn’t get a fourth. Funny how that changed when I changed my preparation. I’d been treating missed thirds like a personal characteristic when I had a work-capacity problem I could address.
Pay attention to the difference. “I have no discipline” leaves you with a label. “I skip my walk when I sit down after work” identifies a problem you can do something about.
Action: Write down one negative label you use regularly. Replace it with a specific description of the behavior or preparation that needs work.
5. Keep the Appointment When the Mood Changes
Once you know what needs work, make an appointment to work on it. “I need to be more present” is vague. “My phone stays off the dinner table” tells you exactly what to do. “I should exercise” leaves plenty of room for negotiation. “I walk for twenty minutes immediately after work” gives you a commitment you can keep.
Expect your mood to change. Tonight, tomorrow’s walk sounds great. Tomorrow, you’ll be tired, the couch will look comfortable, and you’ll remember something urgent you need to watch. Decide ahead of time how you’ll handle that moment: walking shoes by the door, phone in your pocket, walk before sitting down.
Make the commitment realistic, then practice following through without waiting to feel enthusiastic. If you miss it, return at the next scheduled opportunity. One broken appointment doesn’t justify abandoning the calendar.
Action: Pick one promise for the next seven days. Write down when and where you’ll do it, anticipate the most likely excuse, and decide how you’ll respond.
You’ve spent enough time studying what went wrong. Give yourself an assignment that changes what happens next. Pick the mistake. Take the lesson. Schedule the action. Tomorrow, keep that appointment.
Give me three days a week. Build physical strength and practice the mental discipline of showing up and doing the work. Get the program here.
