Mental Toughness
You only read a few articles on sports performance articles to quickly conclude that mental toughness is key to success in an athlete’s life. Firstly, how should mental toughness be defined and described? One of the first definitions came from James Loehr in his classic book on mental toughness.
He described it as a psychological edge that has the following seven dimensions: self-confidence, attention control, minimizing negative energy, increasing positive energy, maintaining motivation levels, attitude control, and visual and imagery control.
Other researchers question these dimension as to if they are correct however which dimension or factor is most important is still yet to be determined by anyone. Regardless of this, we know that mindset and mental toughness is paramount to an athlete’s performance and success.
Mental toughness can help an athlete compensate for a lack of strength, skill, or natural ability. Examples of this are illustrated in sports documentaries such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Pumping Iron’ where he states, “You just go on and go on... and say, ‘I don’t care what happens.’” It’s a measure of an athlete’s individual resilience and confidence. It is the factor that may be the ultimate difference between success and failure; and between winning or coming second across the line.
Researchers have also looked at if there were different components to mental toughness that athletes had compared to non-athletes. Interestingly, it was found that there were similar key components to both groups. These were:
So how do athletes build mental toughness? Firstly, they commit to working on training their mental strength and secondly, they commit to it becoming a habit. It requires a no ‘short cuts’ approach and an ironclad commitment to consistently focus, train and, and grow your mental toughness.
Athletes need to work with their coaches to identify ways they can improve their mental toughness. This may be by first identifying the weaknesses in your mental state when competing or training and then continually to push yourself further – such as doing that ‘extra’ ten reps during training. It really is about responding to challenges with determination instead of frustration.
Here are some exercises you can undertake to train your mental toughness:
So, to realise your full potential as an athlete, it is vital that your training encompasses a mental toughness component. Just as you would never leave your physical training to chance, equally the same should be for improving your mental toughness.
He described it as a psychological edge that has the following seven dimensions: self-confidence, attention control, minimizing negative energy, increasing positive energy, maintaining motivation levels, attitude control, and visual and imagery control.
Other researchers question these dimension as to if they are correct however which dimension or factor is most important is still yet to be determined by anyone. Regardless of this, we know that mindset and mental toughness is paramount to an athlete’s performance and success.
Mental toughness can help an athlete compensate for a lack of strength, skill, or natural ability. Examples of this are illustrated in sports documentaries such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Pumping Iron’ where he states, “You just go on and go on... and say, ‘I don’t care what happens.’” It’s a measure of an athlete’s individual resilience and confidence. It is the factor that may be the ultimate difference between success and failure; and between winning or coming second across the line.
Researchers have also looked at if there were different components to mental toughness that athletes had compared to non-athletes. Interestingly, it was found that there were similar key components to both groups. These were:
- Hope
- Optimism
- Resilience
- Perseverance
So how do athletes build mental toughness? Firstly, they commit to working on training their mental strength and secondly, they commit to it becoming a habit. It requires a no ‘short cuts’ approach and an ironclad commitment to consistently focus, train and, and grow your mental toughness.
Athletes need to work with their coaches to identify ways they can improve their mental toughness. This may be by first identifying the weaknesses in your mental state when competing or training and then continually to push yourself further – such as doing that ‘extra’ ten reps during training. It really is about responding to challenges with determination instead of frustration.
Here are some exercises you can undertake to train your mental toughness:
- Take away your extrinsic motivators. For example, do you train in a nice, clean gym? Perhaps instead, slug it out at a park or a new environment where you have to train just as hard and fast but without all the bells and whistles of a gym.
- Develop good habits and consistently stick to them. Mentally tough people do not easy distract from the end goal, no matter how tempting it may be to ‘skip’ a session or reduce training time to meet social commitments – nothing stops them from their commitment to their sporting goals and training requirements.
- Accept and learn to ignore what you can’t control. It is never about what is thrown at you but rather how you react and recover from the adversity. Identify the weakness or where your performance waned, and then focus on strategies to improve. Dwelling won’t achieve anything
So, to realise your full potential as an athlete, it is vital that your training encompasses a mental toughness component. Just as you would never leave your physical training to chance, equally the same should be for improving your mental toughness.
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