How to develop Mental Toughness.

Mental Toughness Defined

Mental toughness is the attitude that makes a successful person willing to do what it takes to get the job done. It takes more than relaxation, visualization, meditation and other quick fix self-improvement techniques to achieve success.  For the most part this is true and adopting the attitude of  "You don't have to like it you just have to do it" is at least at the beginning a substantial key to success in most areas. This may be a little simplistic but over all it is a working definition of mental toughness. 

As with many things in life, putting long term happiness over immediate gratification it the answer.  In the weight control area, is it better to eat a donut or a piece of fruit,  watch a mindless sitcom or jog 5 miles, read a document that will increase your technical expertise in your chosen field or check out the sports section, have a beer with your buds or help your child with her geography homework. Mental toughness is evaluating the current situation, and choosing a own long term good over a short term gain.

Benefits of Mental Toughness

Mental toughness helps  you raise the level of performance in all areas of life:

Steps to achieve Mental Toughness

You can apply methods from the military and from sports trainers to help you develop mental toughness.  People like to train to achieve their personal bests. Hits, strikeouts, baskets, distance, speed all represent these kind of goals.  People try to achieve these bests when they are ready, fresh and well prepared.  This is good but it does not always reflect the reality of life.  Mental toughness is demonstrated when someone needs to reach down and draw out efforts beyond they knew the had or at least wanted to give to achieve.

This is exemplified in the line from the Ranger Creed "I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be. One-hundred percent and then some. In training to achieve this it is important to occasionally train when fatigued or under less than ideal conditions.  This can be implemented by making a point to run a little farther (or faster) than planned, Complete additional reps when in the gym and fatigued from a workout. 

The point here is not to always train for peak performance but include in ones training opportunities to perform under less than ideal conditions.  Sometimes just to finish is to win.  It takes courage to do something hard when you are tired. but is more likely that if you will need to utilize your training it will be when you least expect it. This is true for less so for sports, (you will know the day of the race) than for life.

It is good to train to be comfortable working when tired, both in sports and in life.  The object is to get you to press on when the going is hard.  In business it could making one last sales call at the end of the day after your competition has gone home. It will give you a great advantage.

The opposite is true also.  Over time people can get complacent, they can give themselves permission to go home early or come in to the job late.  It can be the death of a career. Each time you exercise mental toughness it makes you stronger for the next time, each time you choose the easy way it makes it easier to do it again in the future.

How to train for mental toughness

It all begins with a sense of Personal awareness and accountability,
look back on the last day, where were you, what did you do.
Did your actions bring you closer to who you ultimately want to be?
You are, what you think.  You are what you.
Turning off the auto pilot and choosing your direction in life is the first step to mental toughness.

Personal Accountability is the basic element of all mental toughness.  It is the realization of the fact that everyone is personally responsible for their lives.  What you think and do determine for the most part where you end up.  I do not discount the dramatic and sometimes devastating effects that the random events of life present to people but I submit that anyone can choose their responses to the events of their life.

Goals (missions)

So where do you want to go?  The answer to this question is what determines success for you.  The realization that one is in control of their life allows them to choose where they want to end up. Weigh less, make more money, life in a mansion, help the poor,  build a better relationship with a family member. Pick one or all or something different, then write it down, you get to choose but remember that failing to choose is still making a choice.  Choosing is mentally toughness, failing to choose is personal weakness.

Planning

Discover the limits of human capacity (and your own) Read what others have done with regard to your goal. With very few exceptions if someone else has accomplished what you want to do then you be assured that you can also.  You will need to find out how they accomplished the task. Do the same things and you will expect to achieve the same results.

Break the goal apart,
How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time
Most things worth doing take a certain amount of time and effort.  It is easy to get distracted. Break the goal apart into separate tasks.  schedule them

Rehearsal and prepare to deal with the unexpected.

Expect change, how will you deal with what ever obstacles.
You can't control what nature and others do. Mental toughness is expecting that you will face obsticles and preparing yourself for them. You can also control your response to what happens.
see yourself succeeding against mental practice and physical practice help you suceed.

Action

Everything that has come before is useless unless you take action. Mental Toughness allows you to do that even if it is not easy. If you had to loose 20 pounds, assuming you weight  is relatively stable, you can accomplish it by walking 700 miles during a period when you did not  increase your calorie intake beyond normal.  But how do you walk 700 miles, probably not all at once but if you walk about 30 minutes a day 7 days a week for a year you will succeed.  

The first 2 to 3 weeks is an exercise in mental toughness.  The bed is so warm and comfortable, its an hour earlier than you usually wake and it might be cold or hot or raining, or snowing or whatever.  You just do it to borrow a slogan from Nike.  You don't have to like it, you just have to do it. After a few weeks it might even be tolerable, even fun.   

100% and Then Some

This phrase is part of the ranger creed.  Give what is expected (your 2 miles in this example) and then some. Maybe it is just walking another 100 feet, or block, or whatever.  maybe its jogging or running part of the way instead of walking. In business maybe it is attending extra training to keep yourself sharp or making extra sales calls, or dealing with problems that that you may wish would just go away.  What ever you do just give a little more than promised.  Eventually you may even get to like it or at least you may reap the benefits of the actions you never quite developed a liking for.  What does this attitude do to you, what if your employees  had this attitude at work what would you do to keep them, what if you consistently demonstrated this attitude, what would your boss be willing to do for you?

Feedback Loops

Feedback, is a force multiplier. What did I do right? What could I do better next time? What lessons have I learned from my execution of this step in the mission.  By learning from our experiences we grow.

Persistence and habit

A time may come when you have partially completed your goal.  The effort has been significant the rewards are tangible.  The temptation may be to stop here.  What determines if you go on to ultimate victory or just settle for a lesser prize.  Mental toughness says work the plan! Don't give up, don't settle.  If you have pushed yourself during training you may be tempted but you won't want to give up.  If you have been easy on yourself and let yourself slide in the past you may be willing to in the future.

The Value of a Team

Associate with winners, people who want to succeed themselves and want you to as well. Root for each other and hold each other accountable for taking the actions necessary to achieve your goals.  Team members can peer pressure to encourage you to succeed. You will do almost anything not to fail your team members even when you will no longer give effort for your own sake you will do it for them.  The team
will cheer on the individual members and all learn from each others successes and failures.

Summary of Mental Toughness Training

 

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