Ever notice how in the movies, personal transformations always happen in montages?

When Rocky realizes he needs to toughen up, the film cuts to a five minute mash up of Sylvester Stallone lifting farm equipment and running a daily marathon.

I love Rocky, but I hate montages, because they sell people a horrible lie about success.

Let's imagine you are Rocky, or an equivalent character. Your path to success looks like this:

You are faced with an obstacle you cannot overcome. You enter a short, intense period of training. You become strong enough to overcome it.

Do you see the problem?

In this scenario, you only "work hard" for a short window--just long enough to gather the strength for one obstacle.

You're training your mind for a short-term win. That's what low-level performers do.

What do top performers do? They condition their mind every day for long-term success.

Mental conditioning is a daily practice. It's about developing mental strength day-in and day-out, keeping your mind in top shape, and maintaining a level of mental fortitude that allows you to take on any challenge.

What does this look like in the real world?

1. Why Olympians fail as Navy SEALs

When you think of Navy SEALs, you think of the grueling physical training they go through. There's an entire fitness program called "SEALFIT" that has become incredibly popular.

Isn't it odd then that many of the first people to wash out of SEAL training are former athletes?

Former SEAL Howard Wasden talks about it in his memoir SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper. He remembers being a smaller guy with no real athletic background, going up against "race horses"--triathletes, college athletes, etc.--and how he outperformed all of them.

He wasn't stronger. He wasn't faster. Instead, he had the quality Navy SEALs most rely on.

He was mentally tough because he mentally conditioned.

He visualized his success constantly, and instilled in himself a will to win that refused to give in the face of adversity.

The point of "Hell Week," the intense training week where potential SEALs are pushed far beyond any reasonable extreme, is that it breaks you no matter how physically strong you are.

You can only succeed if you're even more mentally strong, and have done the mental conditioning to overcome the punishment. Those are not the people with the biggest guns, but those who condition their minds daily.

2. Why Michael Phelps' hardest workouts happen in bed

Part of being as successful as Michael Phelps is that every single aspect of your training will be analyzed.

If you like, you are one Google search away from copying Phelps' exact:

Diet

Exercise plan

Cupping therapy regimen (No, really)

But Phelps' most important key to success comes down to mental conditioning.

His life-long coach, Bill Bowman, has given Michael the same homework every night since Phelps was a teenager: "Go home and put in the video tape."

The video tape isn't actually a VHS. It's a visualization Phelps has in his mind of him swimming the perfect race. Every day, when he goes to sleep and when he wakes up, Phelps visualizes every stroke of a perfect race.

How does that help him? According to his coach:

"If you were to ask Michael what's going on in his head before the competition, he would say he's not really thinking about anything. But that's not right. It's more like his habits had taken over. The actual race was just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and was nothing but victories. Winning became a natural extension."

He'd conditioned his mind for victory with a daily practice that spanned decades, and now he is the most decorated Olympian of all time.

3. Ray Dalio's secret to success isn't his quant

Ray Dalio has been cited many times as the most successful hedge fund manager of all time.

What does he cite as the biggest influence on his success?

Daily meditation.

Ray is a transcendental meditation fanatic, and he uses it to train himself daily to be calm in the face of stress, and to be analytical and authentic in his decision making. He refers to it as being "centered," which he describes as:

"Being 'centered' is that state in which your emotions are not hijacking you. The ability to think clearly, put things in their right place and have perspective: That's what I mean by 'centered.'"

And it's clearly working. His hedge fund BridgeWater Associates manages over $150 billion.

Start Conditioning Your Mind Today

Mental conditioning is a constant practice that does not change regardless of the obstacles in your way.

It may seem daunting to you, but you can get started very simply today by answering these two questions:

What is it you want? Do you want to be immune to stress? Do you want to be able to slip into a flow state on demand? Pick something that's important to you and your goals.

What can you do to condition for it? Daily visualizations like Phelps, or transcendental meditation like Dalio--it doesn't matter. It only matters that you pick what you need. At the very least I suggest downloading the app, Headspace, and starting with a short meditation practice.