Making lemonade out of lemons.

We hear this phrase all the time when faced with a sucky situation.

Take the bad thing, the shit-pile you’ve been given, or perhaps even made for yourself, and make it into something better, something of value. The problem is, people often say this phrase and expect you to know how to make lemonade... they assume you have sugar, ice, something to cut the lemon with, but, what if you’ve never made lemonade before? You could probably figure out this simple task, right? But, what if you don’t have any of the tools either: the sugar, the knife, the glass?

The truth is, you can’t make lemonade with only lemons, and you can’t make any situation sweeter if you don’t have the tools to change your mindset or cope with the situation.

There are plenty of mental “tools” to stock up on if you can’t physically change your situation. Resiliency, confidence, ingenuity, ability to listen, gratefulness, being able to calm yourself; the list of mental habits and tools you can acquire is long and variable. We often learn these and many emotional skills as we grow up, if we’re lucky, and for athletes, we often learn to cultivate and refine these mental skills in relation to our sports. As a powerlifter, learning to cast out your fear of ‘big’ weight, have the grit to grind through a seemingly impossible lift, and gain the resiliency to come back after a fail, are all a part of working towards reaching your lifting goals. More importantly, with practice, these skills are some of the same tools you need to tackle life’s sucky situations.

Sometimes though, we forget these mental skills are muscles that need to be developed and frequently accessed for weaknesses. These are all mental tools that need to be continually worked on to handle heavier weight, push through a tough session, and to become a better lifter. If you don’t become aware of your skills and tools and actively practice them during everyday training sessions, and more importantly everyday inconveniences, you may not be able to apply them to larger experiences where they’ll be more detrimental.

We all have to wade through shit-piles at some point, maybe you’re in the middle of one right now! So, how are you going to make that shit work as fertilizer, or find a way to wade out of the pile? Take some time to think about your strengths and your weaknesses. Delve into what tools you have and be objective about how you’ve handled adversity in your life. Now is the time to take a mental inventory of what you’ve got in your tool kit, create some directions, and cultivate the skills you need to really make some delicious lemonade… or maybe make an amazing garden with all your fertilizer.