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Mental toughness is an invaluable trait for everyone.
Measuring mental toughness is difficult to do, there is no universal metric to measure just how strong you are mental. There is no sport dedicated to mental toughness, yet every sport requires it. In many ways, every sport is a contest of mental toughness. At the same time, it is something that can be built on, improved, and honed. Developing your mind walks hand in hand with developing your body, your career, and your life.
Always be Ready to Start, and Start Small
When you desire something, anything really, you need to be ready to start on the path to obtaining it. Starting can be one of the most difficult steps in a journey to fulfilling our goal. It is very easy to want something, it’s a lot harder to take that first step to get it. Part of mental toughness is always being ready to start. If your goal is to deadlift 1.5x your bodyweight by the end of the year you won’t get anywhere thinking about. Where you will succeed is going out there, loading a 100 pounds on the bar and lifting it.
Starting is important, but starting small is even more important. If you lay your goal on a scale of 1 to 100 it’s insane to think you’ll go from 1 to 100 overnight. Starting small means setting small goals and meeting those small goals. Break that scale into tens, and each is a small goal. Do you want to write a book? Set a goal for a chapter a week. Do you want to increase your bench x number of pounds? Divide that weight by 5 and set 5 small goals.
Every time you complete one these small goals you’ll see two things. First, results towards your overall goal. Secondly, you’ll develop the mental toughness that will keep pushing you toward that goal. Your mental toughness develops as you succeed and even more so when you fail. Missing one of those goals may happen, what you do when you fail is where you really build that mental fortitude. Do you keep trying? Or do you give up?
Tell Your Mind to Shut Up
Your biggest critic will likely always be yourself. How many times have you laid awake at night doubting yourself? Thinking of all the bad decisions you’ve ever made, and the bad decisions you could make? This is your mind coming after you, and you need to shut it down. It’s hard, especially at first, and it will feel cheesy and maybe as far as cringey, but you gotta shut it down. When your mind starts telling you-you can’t do it you have to tell it to shut up.
You need to work to replace those thoughts with those of strength and positivity. Thinking along the line of something like, “It’s just a combination of steel plates and a bar, nothing more nothing less.” You can’t let your mind own you. As you begin reversing negative thoughts into positive thoughts it will become a habit to just think positively. Conquering your internal doubts is an important aspect of mental toughness.
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Visualize Victory
What is your overall goal? Is it to run a mile in 6 minutes? Is it to write a book? Is it to complete a project for work? Identify the goal, and then actually visualize yourself completing the task. Visualize hitting that mile in 6 minutes, writing that book, and completing that project. Imagine how you will feel when you reach these goals. Sports psychologists will often use visualization techniques to enhance the performance of athletes. These techniques will have several positive effects and increase your mental toughness.
Visualizing victory gives you a giddy feeling of excitement and is great for your personal morale. You’ll be able to use that level of excitement to propel you onwards. The more vivid the visualization the greater effect it will have on your mind and your mental toughness. If you constantly visualize yourself succeeding while physically working towards a goal then there is no room for thoughts of failure.
Visualization will also allow you to compete at a higher level. Visualizing yourself succeeding in your goal, even when doing mundane tasks, will rewire your brain to succeed. When you then attempt the task you’ve been visualizing you’ll be better at it. The main enemy of mental toughness is thoughts of failure, visualizing victory flushes those thoughts.
Ask yourself Why?
Why is a big question? Why are you working towards a specific goal? Why do you want to write that book? It’s not just to finish a book I expect, but to get it published. A published book will change your life for the better. So why are you writing a book? Why do you want to run a 6-minute mile?
Use your answers as motivation. When you fail to reach a goal, and you will fail, remember why you are striving towards that goal. Your mental toughness will grow as you remember that motivation. Let it push towards greatness.
Just One More
When the above techniques just aren’t cutting it. When you have full-on writer’s block, when your arms and legs are tired and weak, when you are gasping for air during a run, just do one more. One being one more set, one more minute, one more sprint, one more paragraph. Push through the fatigue, compromise with failure, with just one more. When you’ve done just one more, do just one more again. Maybe do one more for the third time. If you keep doing one more you’ll come to the realization you can do more than you thought. You can save this for those times where you feel like you just can’t. Doing one more when you feel near failure will hone your mental strength.
The only time to truly stop is when you are in pain, pain can be a sign of injury so take it seriously.
Fortitude
Overcoming obstacles is rarely just a physical affair. Having the mental strength to pursue your goals without mercy is how you succeed. Mental strength will give you the determination to keep going in the face of adversity and in the face of failure. Mental strength is like a muscle, you have to use for it to grow. Steel sharpens steel, so the harder tasks you face the sharper you will become. As your mental strength overcomes adversity you’ll find yourself easily overcoming obstacles that once upon a time you considered difficult.
Overcoming obstacles is rarely just a physical affair. Having the mental strength to pursue your goals without mercy is how you succeed. Mental strength will give you the determination to keep going in the face of adversity and in the face of failure. Mental strength is like a muscle, you have to use for it to grow. Steel sharpens steel, so the harder tasks you face the sharper you will become. As your mental strength overcomes adversity you’ll find yourself easily overcoming obstacles that once upon a time you considered difficult.
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