How to Be Mentally Strong: 5 Battle-Tested Steps to Build Unshakable Resilience

Hi, I’m Gregg Swanson. Throughout my life, from climbing rock faces to building a massive sales territory, I’ve learned how crucial it is to keep pushing forward, even in the face of adversity.

After surviving an avalanche and spending 20+ years coaching others, I believe that true strength is built through both mental and physical resilience. I’m excited to help you find your own by learning how to be mentally strong!

Introduction: The Mind Game & How to Be Mentally Strong

You can be crushing it in business, hitting the gym five days a week, and still feel like you’re losing the battle inside your own head.

Maybe you’ve felt it: the mental drag. That low-key, constant pressure. You’re showing up for work, family, responsibilities—but there’s a quiet war happening behind your eyes. You’re grinding, but not growing. Pushing, but not progressing. You wonder, “What the hell is wrong with me? I should have this handled by now.”

Here’s the truth: It’s not your work ethic. It’s not your schedule. It’s not even your willpower.

It’s that no one ever taught you how to be mentally strong.

Mental strength isn’t just about “toughing it out.” It’s about rewiring the inner framework that drives your decisions, emotions, and reactions—especially under pressure. If you don’t take control of your mind, the world will do it for you. And that’s when burnout, self-doubt, and quiet misery creep in.

In this article, I’m going to give you a straight-up, actionable playbook for building real mental strength. Not the Instagram version. Not the motivational meme version. The tested-in-fire version that’s helped me climb literal mountains, walk on fire, and rebuild my life after divorce, surgeries, and near-death experiences. This is a powerful example of how to be mentally strong.

Let’s get into it.

Concept Breakdown: Why Mental Strength Stays Out of Reach

Most high-performing men have the wrong definition of mental strength. We confuse it with suppression—stuffing emotions, ignoring burnout, or pretending stress doesn’t get to us.

But real mental strength isn’t about being emotionless. It’s about being emotionally in control. It’s the ability to hold the line, stay centered, and respond instead of react—especially when shit hits the fan.

So why is it so hard to actually be mentally strong?

Because we’ve been conditioned for distraction, not discipline.

We scroll when we should reflect. We numb instead of confront. We chase more success hoping it’ll finally fix the way we feel inside.

Here’s the kicker: Your nervous system and subconscious are running the show. If you’ve wired in patterns of self-doubt, overthinking, or fear of failure, no amount of hustle will override them. You’ll just keep looping—different job, same stress. Different partner, same emotional triggers.

That’s why I teach men to train their minds like warriors. Using tools from NLP, shamanic traditions, and elite performance psychology, I help guys cut through the noise and rewire their inner operating system. This is a powerful example of how to be mentally strong.

The 4 C’s of Mental Toughness—Control, Commitment, Challenge, and Confidence—aren’t just motivational posters. They’re levers. When pulled the right way, they flip the switch from passive to powerful.

Let’s walk through exactly how to be mentally strong using a framework that sticks.

Action Plan: 5 Steps to Build True Mental Strength

Here’s your playbook—simple, powerful, and rooted in experience.

1. Own Your Inner State

You can’t change what you won’t own. Most men avoid sitting with their real emotions—shame, fear, doubt—because we think feeling them makes us weak.

Reality: avoidance is weakness. Ownership is power.

Try this: When you feel triggered, pause and ask, “What’s actually going on inside me right now?” Name it. Feel it. Then choose how you want to respond.

This isn’t soft. It’s surgical.

2. Break the Pattern Loop

Mental weakness shows up in patterns: procrastination, self-sabotage, emotional reactivity. These loops are unconscious until you interrupt them.

Tool: Use a physical pattern interrupt. Clap your hands. Stand up. Breathe deep through your nose and exhale slowly. Anchor your focus in your body.

This disrupts the automatic response and gives you the chance to choose a new one. This is one more way to practice how to be mentally strong.

3. Reframe the Battlefield

Your brain hates ambiguity. It wants clarity—even if that clarity is negative. So when life feels chaotic, your mind fills the gaps with worst-case scenarios.

How to be mentally strong here? Flip the narrative. Turn “Why is this happening to me?” into “What is this training me for?”

That’s not just mindset—it’s mental alchemy.

4. Install Warrior Triggers

Just like music can change your mood, rituals can shift your state. You need anchors—intentional triggers that lock in focus, courage, and clarity.

Examples:

• A cold shower in the morning to build resilience.
• A phrase you repeat before hard conversations (mine: “I breathe. I lead. I hold.”)
• A playlist that fires up your inner beast before workouts.

These rituals train your nervous system to show up strong on command. Rituals are a powerful part of how to be mentally strong.

5. Choose Growth Over Comfort—Daily

Mental strength isn’t built once—it’s reinforced daily through small, intentional challenges.

Ask yourself each morning: “What’s one thing I’m resisting today that I will face head-on?”

That might be making the uncomfortable call, setting a boundary, or saying no to something that drains you. Growth lives on the edge of discomfort.

When you make that choice daily, strength becomes your baseline.

Example Application: From Avalanche to Alignment

Let me make this personal.

Years ago, I was caught in a deadly avalanche on Mt. Rainier. One second, I was climbing toward the summit; the next, I was buried, choking on snow, not sure if I’d live through the next minute.

That moment didn’t just test my physical survival—it shattered my mental framework. After I got out, something inside me broke loose. The anxiety, the PTSD, the survivor’s guilt—it all hit me like a wave I didn’t know how to swim through.

But here’s where it flipped.

Instead of avoiding the pain, I decided to train through it. I used breathwork to regulate my nervous system. I worked with mentors to reframe the trauma. I walked on fire in a shamanic ceremony to prove to myself that fear didn’t own me anymore.

That experience taught me how to be mentally strong—not just in a crisis, but in everyday life.

Now, when challenges hit—divorce, business collapse, surgeries—I know the process. I don’t wait for the breakdown. I train for the breakthrough.

And that’s what I teach now: not how to avoid the avalanche, but how to survive it, reframe it, and come back stronger.

Ready to Get Your Mind and Life Back?

You’ve been carrying weight alone for too long.

If you’re ready to stop guessing, stop grinding without growth, and actually learn how to be mentally strong in a way that sticks—let’s go.

Click the above banner to book your free Breakthrough Call and get a customized game plan to reclaim control, clarity, and confidence.

No fluff. No pitch. Just straight coaching, straight results.