“The more you struggle, the further you’re gonna go and the stronger you’re going to get, it’s just the way the world works.”
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Schwarzenegger expressed his concerns that modern society is overprotecting its children, leading to the development of a “generation of wimps and weak people”.
Schwarzenegger emphasized the importance of mental resilience, which he believes is cultivated through experiencing struggle, failure, and discomfort.
He likened the development of the human mind to the growth of muscles, stating that just as muscles need resistance to grow, the mind needs challenges to develop strength.
“You can only strengthen your character and become a really strong person inside if you have resistance, if you fail, if you get up again and if you work hard.”
The former bodybuilder and action star warned that the trend of “over-babying” children—shielding them from any form of adversity—could have detrimental effects.
Promoting his new self-help book, Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, Schwarzenegger outlined his belief in the necessity of embracing discomfort to achieve personal growth.
“The more you struggle, the further you’re gonna go and the stronger you’re going to get, it’s just the way the world works.”
In his book and during his interviews, Schwarzenegger underscores the values of hard work, clear vision, and the ability to overcome failures.
“Anybody that tries to baby themselves, and pamper themselves and protect themselves — ‘Oh, I don’t want to feel bad, I don’t really want to go through any discomfort’ — It’s over!” Schwarzenegger continued. “You have to be able to struggle.”
He stressed that there are no shortcuts to success and that genuine growth comes from enduring and learning from tough experiences.
“Because the more you experience the things you really don’t like, the more you can grow and the tougher you can get, the more you can handle,” he said.
“It’s just that simple. So many young kids today have shied away from that. But you have to be attracted to that.”
“Don’t start creating a generation of wimps and weak people and stuff like that where we go and we’re concerned about, ‘How are you feeling today? Oh, I don’t want to hurt your feelings,’ and all that.”
He went on to say: “It’s nice to be considerate, yes. I totally agree with that. But let’s not overbaby the kids, and let’s not overbaby, kind of, the people.”
Related: Eric Kripke says final season of The Boys will be its own ‘version of the apocalypse’“Let’s go and teach kids to be tough, to go out and do sports, to study, to struggle, you know, to go through these kind of painful moments sometimes.”
