Do Hard Things

Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness

Steve Magness

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780063098619
• eBook ISBN: 9780063098633
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Careers
• Index: Biological Sciences

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness beautifully and persuasively reimagines our understanding of toughness. This is a must-read for parents and coaches and anyone else looking to prepare for life's biggest challenges."—Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers and host of the Revisionist History podcast

From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.

Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us.

Steve Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body – how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength. He offers four core pillars to cultivate such resilience: 

• Pillar 1: Ditch the Façade, Embrace Reality
• Pillar 2: Listen to Your Body
• Pillar 3: Respond, Instead of React 
• Pillar 4: Transcend Discomfort   

Smart and wise all at once, Magness flips the script on what it means to be resilient. Drawing from mindfulness, military case studies, sports psychology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, he provides a roadmap for navigating life’s challenges and achieving high performance that makes us happier, more successful, and, ultimately, better people.

Index

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Aarhus University, 196

Abbey, Tom, 194–96

Abusive leadership style, 229–31, 238–40

Bryant’s version, 23–28, 31, 34, 124, 174

Knight’s version, 3–5, 9, 12, 15, 22

Acceptance, 70, 174–75, 184–85, 226, 252, 268

Adams State University, 78

Adaptive flexible strategy, 217–20, 222

Adrenaline, 47–49, 122

Adrenaline junkies, 45, 196–97

Adrift (Callahan), 141–42

Adversity, 3, 12, 14, 28–29, 34, 35, 96, 194, 226

coping strategies for. See Coping strategies

Affective inertia, 169–70

“Affective primacy,” 119

Affirmations, 155–56

Air Force, U.S., SERE program, 30–32, 33

Airplane pilots, 200, 201

flight instrument panel analogy, 118–19, 122–23, 130–31

Alabama Crimson Tide, 24

Alexithymia, 115–16, 123

Ali, Muhammad, 145

Altered Traits (Davidson), 169

“Always compete,” 14

Alzheimer’s disease, 98–99

Ambivalent Parent, the, 148

American Thoracic Society, 20

Amnesia, 29

Amygdala, 45–46, 93–94, 133, 165–67, 169, 187–88, 246–47

Anderson-Kaapa, Drevan, 50–53

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), 118–19

Antonovsky, Aaron, 261

Anxiety, 36, 44, 107, 123, 124, 128, 137, 158, 211, 246, 262–63

brain and, 93–94, 103, 167–68, 205, 219

Capilano Suspension Bridge experiment, 121–22

confidence and, 63, 84

course-correcting for, 57

discomfort and, 15, 35, 36, 38

family dinners for, 250

nuance exercises for, 134–36

reading the signals, 131, 137, 155

rumination and, 213, 214, 215

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, 199

steady mind and, 166–69, 180, 186

training to control, 104–5, 106–7, 186, 189, 205

Apathy, 36, 86, 88–91, 98–99, 101, 111–12, 244, 259

Appelbaum, Mark, 217–18

Apple, 231

Appraisal, 34, 46–50, 53, 57. See also Reappraisal

reading the signals, 128–34, 136

threat of death and, 43–46

Appropriate goals, 54–55

Army, U.S.

Human Dimension Strategy, 34

SERE program, 30–32

stress response and cortisol, 92–93

Arnold, Katie, 210–12

Aron, Arthur, 121–23, 185

Arousal control, 32, 122–23, 129–30

Arrogance and insecurity, 72–77

Artists, 58, 164, 254

Assembly line approach to teaching, 99–100

Association, 199–200, 204, 217, 218, 222

Ataraxia, 191

Attention control, 32. See also Zooming in; Zooming out

clutch state, 224–25

emotion regulation and, 205–6, 212–13, 219

exercises, 182–83

Auschwitz concentration camp, 90–91

Authenticity, 54–55, 247

Authoritarian control, 10–11, 15, 34, 87

Knight’s version of toughness, 3–5, 9, 12, 15, 22

parenting style, 6–7, 10–11, 12

Autonomous motivation, 234–37

Autonomy, 14, 88, 91, 99, 103, 104, 236

science of choice and, 95–99

Autonomy-supportive environments, 240–43

Avoidance, 60, 72, 174–75, 181, 187, 262–63, 264

Avoidance learnin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: How We Got Toughness Wrong and Where to Go
• The First Pillar of Toughness: Ditch the Facade, Embrace Reality
• The Second Pillar of Toughness: Listen to Your Body
• The Third Pillar of Toughness: Respond Instead of React
• The Fourth Pillar of Toughness: Transcend Discomfort
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Advance Praise for Do Hard Things
• Also by Steve Magness
• Copyright
• About the Publisher