You Need to Be More Durable

Do not ask for an easy road, build the strength to endure a difficult one.

Jul 18, 2025

When I first moved to Austin to train, I was scared that my body was going to “break”.

I don’t really know what that means or what “breaking” was going to look like, but it was a real concern.

Training is hard down here, and I had dealt with injuries many times before in my career before moving here. I’ve dealt with back injuries, shoulder injuries, knee injuries, rib injuries, and more. Jiu-Jitsu is hard on the body.

But when I started training harder and pushing my body harder in a room where everyone was pushing as hard as they could, a funny thing happened.

I didn’t break.

I became more durable.

This is true in life as well. Your body and mind are as durable as you make them. Your durability is a product of your workload, your environment, and your mindset.

Today, we’re talking about overcoming fragility — on and off the mat.

The classic heartbreak story.

I hear stories all the time of people who invest in relationships and get cheated on or get their hearts broken.

They’re devastated.

Afterward, they usually decide that instead of blaming the person who betrayed them or themselves for ignoring the signs of dishonesty, they are going to blame trust itself. They think, “I didn’t get the love and intimacy I wanted from that person, so I am going to never try and get it from anyone, ever again”.

Hopefully, you can see how this is a flawed way of thinking.

It’s the equivalent of going into a Jiu-Jitsu gym and getting an injury and deciding that Jiu-Jitsu is the problem or the gym that you went to is the problem. It’s pointing fingers away from yourself.

It’s dispelling responsibility.

It’s like competing, losing, feeling sad, and then deciding that the competition itself is the reason you're unhappy, not the results.

If you want to truly reach a point of satisfaction and fulfillment, you need to fight this loser mentality with all of your heart.

Durability is the trait of heroes.

It is never the person who had an easy path where everything went according to plan who inspires us. Think about your favorite movies and books.

Storytellers love beating the shit out of their heroes.

You are the storyteller of your own life, and luckily, you don’t need to beat anything out of yourself. Life will do that for you.

You need to be ready to endure pain, discomfort, failure, and loss to reach the pinnacle of your hero’s journey.

Here are the 12 stages of the hero’s journey. This might help you understand a bit more what I’m talking about here:

Ordinary World
Call To Adventure
Refusal Of The Call
Meeting The Mentor
Crossing The Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach To The Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward (Seizing The Sword)
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return With The Elixir

I think most people are stuck on step 3, and they never get past it. Most real-life hero’s journeys end in the hero refusing to pick up the call.

The reason? There are many, but it comes down to fear. Most likely, fear of failure, pain, and suffering.

The only way you’re going to get through the journey is by being durable. By being tough.

Normally, I don’t like to be a proponent of “toxic masculinity” or any other political buzzwords at all, but I saw this t-shirt the other day from Westside Barbell that I really agree with.

It said, “Weak Things Break”.

They do.

Acknowledging complexity.

However, there’s a difference between durable and dumb.

There’s a difference between being weak and needing to take a break. In Jiu-Jitsu, injuries are real. In relationships, you probably shouldn’t go straight from a heartbreak to a new partner. I wouldn’t recommend bouncing from business failure to business failure without learning a few things.

But what you can’t allow is for your outcomes to damage your relationship with a whole endeavor, group of people, or ambition itself.

If Harry Potter spent all his time wallowing that his parents had been killed, he’d never have defeated Lord Voldemort. He’d be fragile, not the durable character who nearly died a hundred times in the story.

I can’t go out and compete and get armbarred in 20 seconds and decide that now I hate competing. That would be fragile. If you have a bad breakup and decide to never love again, you’re fragile.

Train yourself to be anti-fragile.

How do you do this?

Strength train
Practice mindfulness
Journal
Set goals and work hard to achieve them
Be resilient to failure

If your relationship with something is determined by the outcome of one experience you had with it, you probably were never that invested anyway. You were never that durable.

We all enjoy feeling good and having good things happen to us.

What defines us are the moments where we are tested.

Closing Thoughts

In Jiu-Jitsu training, we train in specific ways to become more durable.

I work from bad positions every day to improve my escapes, become aware of my limits, and get comfortable being uncomfortable. I do strength training as well. All of this is done not just so I can be stronger and more violent, but so I can endure more.

The more you can endure, the more you can learn. The more you can learn, the more you can do.

In the rest of your life, you are supposed to be durable as well. You’re supposed to train yourself to withstand more of what life throws at you.

I’m not going to be that grumpy guy who says that everyone in this generation is soft, but most of our lifestyles are not making us tougher.

This isn’t just toughness so that you can say you’re tough, it’s toughness so that you can experience the full realm of the human experience.

But you need to train this skill. You need to write, you need to have conversations, you need to be mindful, and you need to explore.

You need to be more durable.

The Grappler's Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world's #1 Jiu-Jitsu education podcast!

This week's guest was Atos HQ standout Rosie Miller. Here are 5 of her best tips from the chat:

💡 "It's cool to be a try-hard hobbyist." You don't need to be a pro to train with intensity and purpose—your journey is valid on your terms.
🧭 Align training with your values. Jiu-Jitsu is more sustainable and fulfilling when it's rooted in who you are, not who you think you should be.
🔄 Your goals can change over time. Let your relationship with Jiu-Jitsu evolve with your life. That's how you stick with it for decades.
🧠 Track self-talk and set personal goals. Measuring your progress by your own metrics—not just win/loss outcomes—builds resilience and motivation.
🫂 Everyone feels like an impostor sometimes. Even high-level athletes struggle. You're not alone, and your feelings don't define your worth.

🎧 To hear the full conversation, listen to Rosie on the BJJ Mental Models podcast.

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