#davesdailychallenge (160): Learn To Take The Hits. I remember it like it was yesterday. In the fall of 2004 I sat in a circle surrounded by my fellow Marines listening to a Lieutenant Colonel, who led the Marine Corps’ Martial Arts School in Quantico, VA, introduce himself and what we were about to learn. “Marines” he calmly stated, “I am going to teach each and every one of you what it feels like to get punched in the face.” You can imagine the effect a statement like that would make on us. He continued “When I am done with you, you will no longer fear this event.” He was right. What he could have said, although he was a man of few words, and I would add he was listened to 100x more because of this fact, was that we would also learn how to take the literal, or metaphorical, hits and maintain our bearing and focus on what mattered. We would learn the role of “improvise, adapt, and overcome” in the context of personal survival. This Marine’s words have stayed with me the last 12 years. His lessons will no doubt stay with me for much longer. If you want to reach your goals, regardless of whether those goals are something as primal as survival or they are higher on Maslow’s pyramid dealing with an annual sales target, being a great spouse, raising children to be their best, or building extraordinary wealth, you will get hit. You will get punched straight in the mouth some times. What you do next is what really matters. Too often we use the setbacks we experience as an excuse to allow resistance to win. After we’ve experienced these setbacks we are inherently more open to that insidious voice. This is nothing new. I’ll bet you’ve heard this before. Ok fair enough…here’s the real challenge: practice being set back. Push yourself in your chosen pursuit to the point of failure and hardship and actively train yourself to take the hits and emerge stronger as a result. Make the setbacks a secret strength.