Preparing for Special Operations Selection: Building the Body, Forging the Mind

If you’re preparing to enter the military—especially Special Operations—you’re probably asking yourself this question: How do I make it through without quitting like everyone else?

This same question applies to anything difficult: starting a business, getting married, having children, the list goes on and on.

Years ago, a young friend of mine decided on a major change. He set his mind toward becoming an Air Force Combat Controller, which meant the current standards he had for his life just weren’t going to cut it anymore. He asked me to prepare him to give him the best chance at success. And sometimes preparation looks a lot like suffering.

Physical Preparation: Earn the Right to Be There

Let’s get this out of the way first.

You must be physically prepared. Not “pretty fit.” Not “better than average.” Prepared.

That means you should be able to max your PT test, not barely pass it. Push-ups must be perfect. Lockout at the top. Chest to deck at the bottom. No shortcuts. Because nobody cares how many sloppy reps you can do when you’re fresh. They care what you can do when you’re exhausted and stressed.

Running matters. Road marching matters even more. Your feet are your wheels. If they fail, you fail. They need to be as tough as nails. Don’t destroy them all at once. You’ve got to build those necessary callouses ahead of time, but don’t just go out and smoke your feet.

Build them slowly, smartly through rucking and running, pushing a little further each and every time. I don’t want you out for weeks while you have to recover because you bloodied your feet into little nubs.

The basic elements of fitness remain. You must lift weights and strengthen your muscles, but don’t do anything that would get you hurt or put unnecessary strain on your joints. Prioritize functional fitness and movement and don’t get too crazy into the CrossFit stuff and potentially get hurt.

Train hard, but as I always say, train smart.

Mental Preparation: Get Comfortable Being Miserable

This is where most people fail.

Before I joined the military, I deliberately made my life harder—cold showers, food deprivation, sleep deprivation, and brutal workouts stacked on top of each other. I didn’t do this stuff because it was fun or from some sadistic need for self-infliction, but I understood that I needed to become friends with misery. I needed to be able to laugh through whatever the Army threw at me. I needed to truly embrace the suck.

Because, when misery becomes normal, it loses its power over you. The goal isn’t to avoid suffering. The goal is to function inside it. Because Selection doesn’t test how strong you are when things are going well. It tests whether you keep going when everything inside you is screaming to stop.

Five Mental Cheats That Keep You Moving Forward

The mind will always surrender before the body does. Your body is capable of miraculous feats, and every single time, without exception, it is the mind that holds us back. Let’s run through five “Cheats” to help you breakthrough that mental inhibitor.

1. Picture the Goal
Don’t think about the pain. Picture what you’re striving for. You want to be a Ranger? Tons of people want to be Rangers. What makes you think you can do it? You must visualize it. See it clearly. If you can’t see exactly what you’re suffering for, then the pain will win.

2. Go Somewhere Else

Pain will demand your attention, and you must ignore it. Rewatch your favorite movie in your head. Pray. Dwell on childhood memories. Go on a mental vacation, picture yourself at the beach or the mountains hiking or tracking wild game. Relive your honeymoon.

3. Anticipate the Second Wind

Your mind lies. It tells you you’re finished long before you actually are. Anticipate the return of your strength, muster it through a countdown, and imagine your reserves refilling.

4. Imagine the Cost of Failure

Who are you disappointing if you quit? Who pays the price for your weakness? You will live with that answer longer than you’ll live with this pain. Make it worse than it might really be. Sure, if you don’t make it through Selection, you might likely still have a long, respectable career in logistics or something, but come on! That’s not what you’re after! You must convince yourself that to fail is to die.

5. Get Furious at your Weakness

There’s a moment when you just must get angry. Angry with the people making you do this (even if that’s yourself), angry at the people that make the military job you’re after necessary, angry at your body for wanting to quit. This list too can go on and one. You’ve heard me talk of unleashing your inner rage monster.

When employing these “Cheats” you have to rotate through them in an unspecified order. Stack them. Keep your mind busy and keep your mind honest. It’ll lie to you, but you must be the master of your thoughts not let your thoughts be the master of you.

This is something deeper that I won’t touch on here, but something for you to consider: there is your flesh and your spirit. Your flesh lies to you, but your spirit contains all your hopes, dream, ambitions, and will.

Which one are you going to feed, and which one are you going to listen to?

What Selection Is Really Looking For

Selection doesn’t care how impressive you are when you’re fresh. They will take you past your breaking point on purpose. Then they’ll watch for who keeps trying? Whose will won’t break?

That’s the filter. That’s what separates those who make it and those who go home.
They’re after mental toughness, and if you don’t have it, you must build it.

I’ve been there, wiggling on the ground, unable to do a single push-up, screamed at while drowning in my own sweat. They weren’t testing my strength. They were testing whether I would keep trying for that one, single push-up when there was nothing left to give.

Prepare yourself accordingly.

Remember, Train Hard. Train Smart. And decide now—long before the pain shows up—that quitting is not one of your options.