Why you must train your body to train your mind

Change your actions to change your mind

Your inner monologue isn’t building your life. Your life is building your inner monologue.

You don’t build a positive life by blocking out negative thoughts. You block out negative thoughts by creating a positive life.

This idea runs contrary to commonly accepted wisdom passed around by everyone, from manifestation coaches to best-selling authors to professional athletes, who insist that your life merely reflects your thoughts. I used to believe this wholeheartedly.

But experience and evidence have shown me something different: your thoughts aren’t creating your life - your life is creating your thoughts.

I’m not saying that we should ignore our mental landscape. In this era of constant negative news that triggers fear and anger, monitoring our thought patterns for destructive tendencies is crucial. But rather than trying to think our way into a better life, the evidence suggests we need to act our way into better thoughts.

Let’s look at three compelling areas of research that demonstrate this principle:

Exercise is our most powerful intervention, outperforming medication and therapy. A landmark 2016 meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, reviewing over 25 years of research, found that regular exercise was comparable to antidepressant medication for mild to moderate depression, with some studies showing superior long-term outcomes.

Participants in supervised exercise programs showed a remarkable 40-50% reduction in depressive symptoms compared to control groups.

Speaking of exercise interventions, I recently discovered something powerful for maintaining my training schedule while dealing with a sleep-deprived reality. As many of you know, I’m juggling writing, training for my return to boxing, and navigating my toddler’s sleep regression.

​Morning Would, created by a firefighter who understands the demands of performing under sleep deprivation, has been a game-changer. The comprehensive blend of nootropics, amino acids, and electrolytes has made a noticeable difference in my energy levels and training quality, especially during those rough mornings after being up all night.

What impressed me most was how it supports both mental clarity for writing and physical performance for boxing – exactly what I need when life demands everything at once. Plus, it tastes good, which is rare in this category of supplements.

Although Morning Would is a sponsor, I love this product so much that I asked them if they’d be interested in sponsoring some content. I don’t make many guarantees, but this can easily replace your morning coffee and improve your performance in the gym at the same time.

​If you pick up a bottle here and use the discount code “ED10,” you’ll get 10% off your order.

While it won’t make you more attractive, it will make you more intelligent and focused in the gym, inevitably making you more confident and look better.

Research on physical appearance and self-image shows fascinating results. A comprehensive 2020 study in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery followed 550 cosmetic surgery patients over five years and found that 87% reported sustained improvements in self-esteem, with these benefits remaining stable even years after the procedures.

While it’s not necessary to undergo something as drastic as plastic surgery or liposuction to change the outcome of your life, the evidence is that changing your physical appearance has dramatic effects on your life. Those effects are rooted in the self-confidence you develop as a result of feeling better about yourself.

And look, I’m not saying that your appearance is the root of all confidence, but it plays a tremendous role in how you feel about yourself.

The confidence that a person builds in themselves from training is different. That confidence is earned, and it persists throughout life. Again, this is not bro-science psychobabble.

Many studies have tracked the correlation between self-esteem and physical habits. For instance, a 2023 study at Eastern Washington University found that students who engaged in regular physical activity scored significantly higher on confidence than their less active peers.

And I’m going to nerd out here on the numbers for a quick paragraph. This result wasn’t just chance – the correlation was statistically significant (p=0.035), meaning there was only a 3.5% probability that this relationship occurred by random chance. To put it another way, we can be 96.5% confident that there’s a real connection between regular exercise (training) and higher self-confidence levels.

Third, this improved self-esteem translates into measurable life outcomes. Meta-analyses by Orth & Robins (2022) show that individuals with higher self-esteem consistently achieve better results across multiple domains - from educational attainment to income to relationship satisfaction.

These effects persist even when controlling for socioeconomic status, intelligence, and gender. Trzesniewski et al. (2006) found these benefits emerging in adolescence and extending well into adulthood.

Your first thought might be that researchers have the relationship direction wrong—it’s not that people with high self-esteem have better outcomes, but rather that people who are better looking have better outcomes in life (more attractive people tend to earn more and have more opportunities for romantic relationships).

While this plays a part, natural physical beauty is not the only place a person derives confidence from—especially if they’re self-conscious about themselves, as many teenagers are.

But here’s the key: you don’t need surgery or medication to achieve these benefits. You can get there by training your body. And I emphasize “training” - not just working out. While any exercise will improve your health and appearance, training provides something extra: objective progress metrics.

Become the person who does the thing you want to do

When I first stepped into the boxing gym, I described myself as “not really a fighter.” But something shifted as I put in the rounds on the heavy bag, mastered my combinations, and gradually developed my technique.

It wasn’t just my physical conditioning improving - my entire self-image transformed. By the time I had my first amateur bout, I wasn’t just someone who had completed a boxing match - I had become a boxer.

This transformation illustrates what psychologists call self-perception theory: we develop our beliefs about ourselves by observing our behavior, much like how we form impressions of others by watching what they do.

Rather than our actions flowing from pre-existing attitudes, we often create our self-concept by looking at our actions and concluding, “I must be this kind of person because this is what I do.”

In high school, I stared at math problems like they were written in hieroglyphics. I failed most of my math classes, and technically, I didn’t even graduate from high school. I tried to learn a few more times after I graduated, but I failed every time—until my fourth try.

By then, I had transformed my identity from a guy who never fought to a full-fledged national champion boxer. I figured that if I did this with my body, I could also do it with my mind.

So, I started practicing math the way I practiced boxing. I did every practice problem, checked out every library book, and watched every lecture I could find—and I refused to move on until I understood each concept. I wasn’t just trying to pass math class—I was trying to become a “math person” who faced equations with curiosity instead of fear.

By the time I was tackling quantum mechanics and deriving electromagnetic field equations in my physics degree, I wasn’t just solving complex math problems. I had become someone who saw the universe’s deepest mysteries expressed in mathematical poetry.

The scared kid who once thought they were “bad at math” had transformed into a physicist who could navigate multiple dimensions of calculus as naturally as walking.

Training creates a powerful feedback loop between actions and identity. When you consistently show up, even when motivation fails, you begin to see yourself as someone who honors commitments.

When you hit new personal records, you accumulate evidence of your capacity for growth. Reaching these objective metrics isn’t just keeping track of your physical progress—it’s building a new narrative about who you are.

Compare two people who want to become more disciplined. The first spend time visualizing success, reciting affirmations, and waiting to “feel ready.” The second starts waking up at 5 AM to train, regardless of how they feel.

The first person remains in the realm of intentions, while the second becomes more disciplined through their actions. Over time, the second person doesn’t need to convince themselves they’re disciplined - their actions have already proven it.

Waiting to “feel ready” or trying to perfect your mindset before taking action is backward. The mindset you want will emerge naturally from consistent action. Your brain updates your self-image to match what you actually do, not what you think about doing.

While traditional therapeutic approaches and positive thinking have their place, they work best when combined with action. You don’t need to think yourself into a new person—you need to act yourself into new thoughts. Your actions will change your environment, which will change how others react to you, and those reactions will transform how you see yourself.

The path to lasting change isn’t through your thoughts - it’s through your actions. Start there, and let your mindset catch up.