A.I. Counselor argues that remembering past struggles builds resilience. Law students who took breaks or worked before law school burned out less than those who went straight through. David Goggins calls this the "cookie jar" method: recall past victories when facing obstacles.
Hope you're well. Today. I want to talk to you about remembering your struggles. So I went to a pretty cutthroat law school in which grades and curves and all those things drove a lot of people to the edge of madness. But I always was struck by those who kept their calm, their cool, and their focus, even during the crazy times of final exams. And it came pretty apparent pretty quickly. These people, these calm, cool, collected people were those individuals who took time off between undergraduate years and law school. I saw that a lot of them were former military guys and girls. There were people who had families. They were people who had experienced the world. And those that fell apart during final exams, by and large, were people who went straight from undergrad to law school. So there was no real world break for them. It was a complete marathon from elementary school, middle school, high school, college, to law school. But those who took time between undergrad and law school were able to keep things in perspective. An examination did not rattle them. The concern about studying an ungodly amount of hours was child's play to them. And it struck me that that's so true in so many areas of our lives, that if we've been through struggles, it allows us to keep perspective. And it's something that I've used over my lifetime to always keep perspective by recognizing the struggles that we've overcome in the past, that there's this opportunity to look back and say, you know, I can get through this because look what I got over before. Look at the mountains that I've climbed and. And allows you to push through hard times. I heard this story recently, or captured perfectly by the former Navy SEAL David Goggins. He called it his cookie jar. He said anything that he ever came in his life, he put it in a cookie jar in his mind so that when he was facing some struggles in his life, he'd reach into this cookie jar and be like, oh, yeah, look at this childhood I overcome. Look at these troubles that I was able to. To get past. So for you, don't forget your struggles. Do not put those behind you. Keep them fresh, so that when you're facing some kind of challenge, you can remind yourself you're tougher than this. You can get past this. You can not only survive, but you'll thrive during these times of strife. All right, so for you, what is that? Keep it front and center. Keep it ready, so that when something's pushing back on you, you can push back harder with the obstacles and struggles that you've overcome in your past. Challenge for yourself. Challenge for myself. Go out there every single day, remember your struggles and seize your legacy.
