{"id":119335,"date":"2020-08-31T10:53:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T15:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=119335"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:07:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:07:39","slug":"get-mentally-tougher-more-resilient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/get-mentally-tougher-more-resilient\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #640: Weird and Wonderful Ways to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When people start on a self-development journey, they&#8217;ll sometimes create a bucket list &#8212; all the things, all the typically exciting and pleasurable&nbsp;things, they hope to do before they die. My guest started his own self-improvement journey very differently, by creating an anti-bucket list consisting of things he didn&#8217;t want to do, and embarking on a &#8220;year of adversity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His name is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benaldridge.com\/overview-1\">Ben Aldridge<\/a> and he&#8217;s the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1786783428?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=stucosuccess-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1786783428\"><em>How to Be Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable: 43 Weird &amp; Wonderful Ways to Build a Strong, Resilient&nbsp;Mindset<\/em><\/a>. Ben and I begin our conversation with how his struggle with debilitating panic attacks inspired him to study philosophical and psychological ideas on how to fight back against his anxiety, what he learned that can benefit anyone looking to be more resilient, and how he was particularly&nbsp;inspired by the Stoic idea of intentionally practicing adversity to prepare for adversity. We then talk about the project Ben set for himself of embarking on a year of mental, physical, and skill-based challenges designed to push himself outside his comfort zone, how he decided what kinds of challenges to do, and how doing hard things changed him. From there we get into the specific challenges Ben completed, from taking cold showers to learning Japanese, and what they taught him about self-discipline, facing your fears, and the human potential for growth. We end our conversation with the ways he&#8217;s continued to push himself after the year of challenges was through, even in the midst of the pandemic lockdown, including climbing Mt. Everest from inside his house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When people start on a self-development journey, they&#8217;ll sometimes create a bucket list &#8212; all the things, all the typically exciting and pleasurable&nbsp;things, they hope to do before they die. My guest started his own self-improvement journey very differently, by creating an anti-bucket list consisting of things he didn&#8217;t want to do, and embarking on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":195187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/640-1-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/640-1-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/640-1-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/640-1-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/640-1-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Get Mentally Tougher and More Resilient | Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My guest on this podcast started his self-improvement journey by creating an anti-bucket list consisting of things he didn&#039;t want to do.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/get-mentally-tougher-more-resilient\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #640: Weird and Wonderful Ways to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My guest on this podcast started his self-improvement journey by creating an anti-bucket 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