Using the tool regularly reveals the secret about pain that allows you to master it:
pain is not absolute.
Your experience of pain changes relative to how you react to it. When you move toward it, pain shrinks. When you move away from it, pain grows. If you flee from it, pain pursues you like a monster in a dream. If you confront the monster, it goes away.
– The Tools
The book The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels is a great set of tactical ideas on psychological mastery of one’s own life. It discusses our mindset, and how we can, in very practical ways, influence our own thinking to be more productive and successful.
It’s a good book, and worth a read. I, of course, liked the chapter on the reversal of desire the best, as it deals with much of the same principles that I am interested in. Of course, in this passage (quoted above), the concept of pain is substituted for failure. In the end, though, the mindset for dealing with both discomfort/pain and for failure is vary similar:
Direct Engagement.
Whether we call it “mindset”, “grit”, or “leaning in”, turning to face our difficulties is in almost every scenario an effective strategy for personal development or growth. It isn’t easy, but learning to understand, learn from, and reclaim our failures can give us experiences and growth that we can’t get any other way.
If you’d like to learn more from the authors of The Tools, then you should check out their site. Here is a link directly to the page on The Reversal of Desire:
https://www.thetoolsbook.com/the-reversal-of-desire
Reclaiming Failure 