What is Mental Toughness?
Mental toughness is vital for any athlete looking to improve their performance in trainings and competition since mental toughness plays an important role in goal achievement. In fact, it can play a more crucial role than any other factor such as talent or intelligence. Compared to being mentally tough, being talented is overrated.
You’ve likely seen athletes squander their talent because they seem to not care, not want to put in effort, or take the time to build their talents. And, before you know it, others that many not have had the same natural athletic talents are passing them by. You might shake your head and think, “You would be so good, if only…”
You may even be one of these people that knows you can be even better, but you aren’t sure how to get yourself from where you are, to your next level. You aren’t alone and you can learn how to be mentally tough or get mentally tougher.
Mental toughness refers to an individual’s ability to effectively handle stress, pressure, and challenges which enables them to perform at their peak, regardless of the circumstances they face. For athletes, at least part of their challenges, pressures and stress comes from within. Every athlete must overcome parts of themselves in order to succeed.
For example, you probably don’t have an issue showing up to practice to put the work in, but you might find it is a bit more difficult to do individual training. You might drag your feet, pull back effort, wing it, or stop earlier than you originally planned. You may have a hard time turning down and outing with your friends rather than getting to bed early or getting your workout it. I’s not that you won’t train individually or make the hard call and focus on getting solid rest and recovery. It’s that you know you could do more, do better for you and what you truly want for yourself.
A core component of mental toughness is mental resilience which is defined by the APA (2014) as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress.” It is how well an athlete adapt to setbacks—loses, tough training days, poor performance days, injuries, etc.
Mental resilience is an internal process around how well you as an athlete copes with adversity. While mental toughness is about staying strong, focused, determined, and willing to continue forward in the face of adversity. You have to be resilient in order to be tough, but not all resilient athletes are tough.
Mental resilience helps an athlete get through challenges and mental toughness helps athletes conquer them.
So how do you build your mental toughness to be that athlete you want to be?
There are “4 C’s” of mental toughness.
1. Control
2. Commitment
3. Challenge
4. Confidence
The first 2, control and commitment, are related to mental resilience, your ability as an athlete to bounce back. They are the personal attributes that then influence how challenges are evaluated and approached (or not approached). If you start with the first 2, you will find that your ability to approach and overcome challenges and build confidence will grow with them.
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