What is Mental Athleticism™️? Part Three. The art of mastering your internal world.

Part 3 of the Mental Athleticism series is here—and we’re going inside your head.

Because you can meal prep, hydrate, and hit your workouts… but if your thoughts are absolute garbage, none of it sticks.

This episode is all about self-command—learning how to filter the noise, challenge the bullshit, and stop letting every passing thought run the show.

We break it down simply:

• Thoughts aren’t facts—they’re guesses. Start testing them.
• Thoughts turn into stories, and stories shape identity—so choose one that actually moves you forward.
• Feelings are data, not directions—meaning you don’t need to feel ready to act.

Mental Athleticism isn’t just about vision and execution—it’s about cleaning up your internal world so your actions actually align.

If you’re done being dragged around by your own mind, press play.

Want more?

Subscribe to The B Word newsletter, check out upcoming IRL events, and try the B10 Challenge for a 10-day intro to Mental Athleticism.

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Question of the day: What junk thought are you ready to retire?

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Part Three

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, you beautiful badass. Badass. Badass. Welcome to the Carrie Croft Show. Welcome back, everybody. School is back in session. And when I say school, I mean the school of mental athleticism. Hopefully, by now you've listened to episode one and two in this what the hell is mental athleticism series that we're creating. I'm trying to make it fast and easy for you. Each pod here is probably going to be 20 minutes max. So if you haven't gone and listened to episode one and two in the what is mental athleticism series, I highly recommend you start with part one. Because today, friends, is for the advanced players. This is part three. We're still keeping it 10,000-foot view, right? We're talking high-level what is mental athleticism? What does it mean to be a mental athlete? The first episode, we talked about anchoring to your big vision. We talked about me first, invest in your inner circle, build your empire, and improve the atmosphere. So hopefully that sat somewhere on the back of your little, your little mind. It's been sprouting, maybe growing a little bit. Maybe you even like jotted some things down, which would be amazing too. But that is what part one of this series is about the mentally athletic person can anchor to their big vision. And then in part two, we talk about the opposite of that, which is when you're mentally athletic, you have the ability to relentlessly execute all of those daily, mundane, unsexy, nobody sees actions. And again, that's where most people are gonna fall right off the cliff. Like, remember the prices, right? And they had that little Yodler where he he would like go up the cliff and then he'd just fall right off. That is what I want you to think about when you think about relentless execution, because hardly anybody does it consistently. Because it's, you know, I mean, to put it plainly, it's kind of sucks sometimes. It's a lonely path for people. And so today, friends, I am going to enlighten you with part three of mental athleticism, which is what we like to call self-command. When you think about being mentally athletic, okay, you anchor to your big vision, you relentlessly execute your daily goals. That's awesome. But then how can I help you to grab on to like, how do I do that? Part three and four, I think that's gonna draw basically like we've drawn the outline here in black and white. And I think part three and four, you're gonna take your crayons out and we're gonna draw it and color it in for you so you can actually see the big picture. So I'd like to call this self-command. And what does that mean? How do you set up and operate your internal world? And because we know I love a good analogy and I'm all about visualization, we are going to open up this little episode with a little bit of a story to create a little bit of a visual for you. Close your eyes. Not if you're driving, don't close your eyes. So you know this person. Maybe this person is actually even you. The alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. No, should I get up? Should I not get up? They just get up. First thing they do, a big glass of water, maybe some lemon and a splash of electrolytes. They move their body. Maybe it's a lift, a run, or maybe even a spin class. And then after that comes breakfast. Not random, not whatever's in the pantry. Something intentional, obviously. Maybe it's scrambled eggs, avocado, sourdough toast if you're getting real crazy, berries on the side, perhaps, protein, healthy fats, nutrients. And then lunch comes along. Rolled chicken salad, olive oil, quinoa. Again, very methodical. There's nothing random about it. You're not just grabbing something through a drive-thru. You know, you have a snack, it's Greek yogurt. Maybe you already have this planned out in your refrigerator with a certain number of almonds. And then dinner is very specific around your nutrition goals. You want to get a good macro mix. Point of it is that when you are thinking about your physical body, when you're thinking about fueling yourself from that perspective, we're extremely dialed in. Like it's very specific around what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna move my body and I'm gonna eat X, Y, and Z. You're probably drinking water all day. Maybe you're skipping alcohol altogether because this person understands something very important. What you put in your body, it affects the way you perform. Seems intuitive, right? So they're careful about fuel. They want energy, they want endurance, strength, clarity, performance, and the list goes on. But then that same day, the same exact person will sit there and mentally consume junk thoughts, like, and not limited to, by the way, I'm not good enough. I'm so behind. Everyone else has it figured out. I always screw things up. I can't handle this. And they won't just think that once, they'll snack on those thoughts all day long. Junk thoughts. They'll replay it, reinforce it, and basically let it run like a playlist in the back of their brain. And the irony of that is incredible to me. We will obsess over the junk that we put into our bodies, but then be completely careless about the junk thoughts we put into our mind. And then we wonder why there's no confidence. We feel mentally exhausted. And mental athleticism is where you start to take control of what you're thinking, of your habits, of the stories that you're telling yourself. Because all of that stuff adds up. Everything going on in your internal world, like this wild super highway that nobody can see. It's wild. I mean, the shit that goes on between your two ears during the day should be studied. So if you don't step away, acknowledge, observe, organize it, then you're just basically reacting to life. And that is not what the mental athlete does. The mental athlete happens to life. That's what the mental athlete does. Best belief. So self-command is what we call it. Not letting every single thought that you have run the show. So important. When you have self-command, you can decide what gets believed and what gets challenged. It's not just like every single thought flowing through the super highway is legit and we're going to give it life. We're going to challenge it. We're going to examine it and become more mentally athletic around what stays and what goes. You know, you can think of it like, you know, if you were like at an assembly line in like a produce factory or a place like that they're looking at all the apples they're going to put in the bags and like they're staring at them. And the ones that are like bruised or rotten or whatever, there's somebody always eyeing all that as they're going through this little assembly line. You pull them out, you pluck them. You don't just let everything through by default. There I go again with that damn visual. It's like I can't survive without a visualization. And we're going to go over just a couple of these things in the self-command kind of pillar today at a high level. There's a lot to dig deep on, but again, for the interest of just kind of this is like the 101 class, right? So I don't want to go too far into the weeds with you, but I do want to kind of breeze over some of the topics that are within self-command, which is like number one, thoughts are not facts, y'all. Have you really sat down to think about that? You know how many thoughts your brain produces every single day? Some are helpful, some are neutral, and some are absolute garbage, garbage, fear-based thoughts, comparison thoughts, old stories from years ago. They're old stories from years ago. And just like you wouldn't eat every single thing, every single piece of junk food that comes your way, you also should not react and consume every single junk thought that sort of floats through the abyss here. We gotta get discerning. Second, thoughts become stories. Obvious. And here's why this matters so much. Stories become identity. Identity basically tracks your behavior, and your behavior becomes your life. So if the story that's running in your head all the time is like, oh, I'm so overwhelmed, I have so much going on, join the club. But if you let that play, if you let that record play in the background at the dance, guess what's gonna happen? You procrastinate, you avoid shit, you shrink down. We're not here for that. But if the story becomes I can handle hard things, right? So like we're we're overwhelmed. Like it's kind of assumed, yeah, we're overwhelmed. I can handle hard things, I can do hard things, uncomfortable things, right? If that becomes a story, as opposed to, uh, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so busy. I'm you know, it's like, no, I can handle my shit. I can handle my shit and be overwhelmed. And when you think that way, everything shifts. And your behavior changes, the way you carry yourself changes. You know, that that is sort of the power of self-command. You're deciding which story gets to live in your mind. We're not just accepting stories from the past, you know, like I don't know who needs to hear this, but things that happened to you in the past and stories that have happened in the past, they don't have to define you. They don't have to be this end-all be a horrible, big, ugly monster you have to stare down all the time. You get to decide which story lives here. So another one, emotional discipline. When you're mentally athletic, you still feel shit, fear, doubt, frustration, disappointment. You don't suppress your emotions, but you don't let your emotions drive the car. That's the difference. You understand that the emotion is info, it's data. I'm feeling this way, this is giving me information, and it's not a command. So you can feel fear and still act in spite of being afraid. You can feel doubt and still move forward. That's self-command in my world, in the mental athleticism definition, that's self-command. So here's a question that I want you to take away today, and I would like for it to sit again rent-free right in the back of your head. What junk thoughts are you constantly feeding yourself every day? Is it do you have and also do you have junk thoughts that are almost like your personality? Like you've made it your personality. And I know a couple of these people do. We all do. Junk thoughts that you're feeling, whether it's anxiety or overwhelm the busy guy, or you you make this whole thing your entire personality. Like, and it's okay. Like, there's no judgment here. If the first thing is to be aware of what's happening, that's the first step. So, my question again is what junk thoughts have you been feeding yourself lately? Is it a comparison spiral? Is it the like, I'm behind, I'm so busy narrative? The imposter story. And if it's junk, let's acknowledge it and then start building the muscle we need to build to stop consuming it by default. Wouldn't that be great? And we do that with awareness first. You have to be aware of anything first in order to change it, to create discipline around it, um, to create repetition around it. So, you know, take this first step. Use that little exercise. DM me and let me know. Email me. I love nothing more, nothing more than a mentally athletic newbie. I love it. I love hearing from you. And when you start to do all these things over and over again, and you start to take control and you anchor to your big vision, you execute relentlessly on the daily, you have self-command, environmental design. You know what happens? You stop being a passenger in your own life. And you start becoming the driver. And it sounds simple, man, but like, you know, so many people are just kind of like along for the ride, and they're like letting life happen to them. And I love nothing more than shifting that perspective. Like, instead of letting life happen to you, you happen to it. You happen to shit. And that is what the mental athlete does. Okay, that's a lot to bite off for today. We're done. We're done talking about that for today. Housekeeping things, things you need to know, news you can use in this whole uh wild universe we're building over here. Subscribe to the B-Word, please, if you haven't already. Subscribers get everything first. All the news that's happening funnels through the B-Word first. Every Friday it drops. You can subscribe to the B Word in my Instagram bio, basically. It's where you find it. Okay, next up, our in real life event series is happening. It is happening. This is where my growth edge is, by the way. I've already told you that. But just to remind you, this is where I'm teetering out of my comfort zone. I'm excited about it. The first in real life event is happening downstairs in this incredibly creative space at Seraph. We will have about 50 incredible women when it's all said and done, think vibes, low-key, kind of a cocoon, intimate space with just badass female energy. You'll see founders, you'll actually recognize a lot of people who you've seen on the show, artists, moms, just cool human beings. The goal for the event is to, you know, clearly have the live show. I think we're gonna live stream it too, which will be exciting. And I want everybody to feel something. I want you to learn something or get inspired by someone and just to really like walk away remembering what you're made of. If that, if if I could, if I could accomplish that one thing with this event, I want you to walk away remembering who the fuck you are and what you're made of and just full of badassery because that's what you deserve, and that's really what you are. So join us. We just put the general admission tickets on sale. There's only 25 general admission tickets available. So I will put that also in the show notes. B10, our second B10, which is our foray into mental athleticism, baby. The B10 challenge starts April 13th. It's on a Monday. It's 10 days with yours truly. And the goal for the B10 is to give you a taste, a very palatable, timed-out taste of mental athleticism. So it's a group challenge. We have a Slack channel, email. I send you videos constantly of, you know, the DOT system, the things that we're doing every single day. Um, there's some training wheels in there. That's what the DOT system is. It's basically a training wheel type system that we've created to get people used to doing reps every day in the mental, physical, organizational, relational, and spiritual bucket. It's a very simple but very effective system. It's a lot of fun, too, dare I say. So the B10 starts April 13th. Let me know if you're interested. You can send me a DM or you can also send me an email at carry at the Carriecroft Show.com, and I will make sure to get you on the wait list. So, as always, I appreciate you listening. It means more to me than you know that you actually take time to hit play and actually pick up what I'm putting down. So thank you so much for listening. If you get something out of this show, or if you're if you're getting something out of this world we're creating, please, I would say leave a review. Yes, I would love for you to leave a review, but that's basically selfish on my end. But still, if you want to leave a review, that's great. But more than that, please share this with someone. Everybody knows somebody who needs mental athleticism. So if you're hearing this, you're like, oh my gosh, my friend Tina from wherever Kashocton would love this. Send it to Tina from Coshockton. Give it to her. Don't hoard the awesomeness and badassery. Okay. Share it with a friend. And as always, please reach out to me on email, on DM, set up a 15-minute call with me. The link is in my bio. And I think that's it for today. That's a wrap. And until next time, keep moving, baby.