Mental toughness is what separates the good from the great or is it?
With mental toughness, you always have a fighting chance.
Mental toughness gives you the confidence needed to keep pushing forward despite the competitive situation.
The key component of mental toughness is the ability to focus on the challenge right in front of you.
You see, athletes that lack mental toughness have misplaced focus.
Athletes that lack mental toughness suffer from two BIG problems:
Frustration: Frustration over making mistakes, suffering losses, or trailing in a competition. Frustration keeps an athlete’s mind stuck in the past, preventing them from seeing the opportunities in the present to turn the tide in their favor.
Fear of Failure: Fear over bad outcomes or choking in critical moments in competition. Fear is future-based and, also, prevents you from focusing on the NOW or the things you need to do in the present to be successful.
So, if you are looking to go from good to great, it is imperative that you work on your mental toughness.
Or is it Mental Toughness we need to work on something I like to call Mental Fitness or Mindset Training?
Here is what I mean.
What is mental toughness?
It’s an innovative idea to start with a definition of mental toughness, but that is problematic. Researchers have been interested in the ‘psychological characteristics of elite performers’ for years (I won’t go into the history of mental toughness here, but there’s a list of papers at the end of this post that you might find useful).
Way back in 2002, Jones, Hanton, and Connaughton defined mental toughness as “having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to:
a) Cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on the performer, and
b) Specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.
Based on interviews with ten international athletes, Jones, and his colleagues also identified several important (but diverse) attributes that were thought to make up mental toughness. Although there have been some developments, later definitions of mental toughness have supported Jones’ ideas.
Furthermore, while the number of attributes could be debated (Jones et al. 2007 interviewed a “super-elite” sample of athletes, coaches, and sports psychologists and identified 30 distinct attributes), the make-up of mental toughness is thought to include a variety of attributes and abilities related to self-belief, motivation, focus, thriving under pressure, recovering from setbacks, and pushing yourself to the limit.2 To be honest, that all sounds great.
So, what’s the problem?
Well, as I said at the start, everyone loves a bit of mental toughness. But there are two big issues that I can see in using the term toughness or strength to describe a collection of quite different psychological attributes, skills, and abilities.
The first issue relates to the perception of mental toughness in sports. Because mental toughness is associated with the best of the best, the “super-elite”, if athletes aren’t achieving, they can often be described as lacking mental toughness, or even worse, they’re called mentally weak or soft.
Despite the academic definitions, people tend to think of mental toughness as being innate, some ‘thing’ that you either have or don’t and that if you don’t have it, you’ll never make it, you’ll cave under pressure. As one young boxer once said to me, “You’re either a pussy or you ain't, innit!”
Wow!
It’s a dangerous and damaging mindset to have. If an athlete has great self-belief, is confident under pressure, but is having difficulty focusing on practice, does that make her mentally weak? Of course, it doesn’t!
If a young athlete is full of confidence, highly motivated, and pushes himself in every practice, but is struggling when the competition lights come on, is he mentally soft? No, of course not.
These things can be worked on and developed, but the athlete might already be written off as mentally soft. They may even begin to believe it, but there’s a second issue with using toughness to describe mental attributes that can prevent athletes and coaches from reaching their potential.
This second issue has more to do with the perception of sport psychology in general. Paradoxically, by holding up mental toughness and strength as the ideal, it’s possible that in the eyes of many athletes and coaches, seeking the help of a psychologist becomes an admission that you’re not mentally tough.
NBA Centre, Roy Hibbert, discussed his own experiences with sport psychology. Having now embraced it as an essential part of his own development, he still feels that there’s a taboo and that if you work with a psychologist “people just think you’re mentally weak.” Now, stand up if you want your teammates and coaches to think you’re mentally weak.
Still, sitting?
The misconceptions around sports psychology are slowly being diminished, but I think the persistence with ideas of toughness and strength being held up as the ideal is outdated and potentially damaging for the reasons described above.
Why Mental ‘Fitness’ Might be Better than Mental ‘Toughness’
I propose an alternative. I’ve started using the term MENTAL FITNESS. Honestly, I’m not sure yet if it’s quite right. I’m just trying it out for size, but it sits better with me. Think about what it means to be physically fit. Strength yes, but also flexibility, stamina, and speed.
Different athletes and sports require varying combinations and several types of strength, stamina, speed, and flexibility. Because Jo Pavey can’t deadlift 350kg (I assume!), would you call her physically weak? I wouldn’t.
So, when it comes to the mental aspects of sport, why are we so quick to label people as strong or weak, as tough, or soft?
While TOUGHNESS is this intangible quality, FITNESS is something that we know can always be worked on, and there’s much less stigma attached to working on various aspects of fitness.
We do it all the time in training, in practice, and at the gym. So Mental Fitness makes sense to me. Maybe I’m alone on this, I don’t know. It’d be great to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below if you like.
Mental toughness gives you a chance and, in sports, anything can happen if given the chance.
Try this tip to improve your mental fitness:
Get your head in the game. Let go of mistakes quickly. Focus on the present. The past is over, and no amount of regret or frustration will change it.
Tell yourself, “Anything can happen,” and look for ways to elevate your game. Stay focused on that game strategy throughout the game.
Stay Focused, stay within yourself and the mental part of your game will improve.
Until next,
Coach Nye
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