Mental Toughness: The Key To Success! Strategies to strengthen your mental toughness

In the sports world, you would be hard pressed to find any athletes or coaches who have not heard of the term: Mental Toughness. It has been quoted many times over as a key aspect to top performance and overall success. But what actually is mental toughness and how can we train ourselves to improve this important characteristic?

By definition, Mental Toughness is a personality characteristic that is defined through a multitude of aspects. Resilience and confidence come to mind as two aspects of mental toughness, however Jones, Hanton, and Connaughton listed 4 main components of mental toughness with sub-components making up each one.

1.)   Attitude/Mindset – self-confidence, and sense of cockiness, desire to win, and appetite for success

2.)   Training – Resilience, patience, discipline, self-control, positive outlook on training (especially when the training gets tough), seeking out of opportunities to win against teammates in practice

3.)   Competition – Love of pressure, ability to cope with adversity, commitment to the end goal, fostering a “killer instinct”, focus, and control

4.)   Post-Competition – good sportsmanship, use of success and failure to improve themselves and their performance for future competitions

From this clearer picture of what mental toughness is made up of, we can start to pick out areas that can be focused on when trying to promote, foster, and enhance mental toughness within ourselves and others.

1.)   Building self-confidence / Having a positive attitude

      How can we build self-confidence? Using positive self-talk is an important strategy for athletes and coaches. You can either approach positive self-talk by creating a list of positive personal statements (ex. I am quick and agile, I am strong and stable, I have the ability to overcome any obstacle, etc.) or by creating a positive word that you state when faced with a negative thought or situation (ex. After a missed shot, a negative voice might start to be heard saying ‘you aren’t a good shooter’, as soon as a negative thought appears, you say your positive word/statement – ‘next play I will make my shot’)

2.)   Dedication and desire to win/be successful

      The desire to win and the dedication that is needed in order to accomplish it, is mostly an internal characteristic that individuals tend to either have or don’t have. By creating and recording your goals/accomplishments and being reminded of why you are working so hard (ex. Putting up a quote or image that is motivational in your room or in the locker room) can help spur on that desire and maintain dedication.

3.)   Resilience

      - One way to build resilience is to constantly try and look at opportunities and challenges as ways for improving. Athletes and coaches who lack a positive outlook from every situation they find themselves in, can struggle with resilience. Coming off a bad workout or bad loss? Try and learn as much as you can from it. What went wrong? How can you prevent that from happening again? What were some areas of weakness that you can focus on to improve? The same thought process goes along with winning and successful situations. What went right? How can you increase the chances of this happening again? What were some areas of strength and weakness that can be improved upon?

      - Another way of building resilience is to put yourself in situations that can foster a mentally tough and resilient response. From coaches introducing different game scenarios to individuals trying to improve their fitness by adding challenges to their workouts. Creating an atmosphere that is challenging can lead to a build-up of personal resilience.

4.)   Focus

      - If you tend to get distracted and lose focus, fear not! You can train yourself (or your team) to re-focus and stay concentrated on the task at hand. In order to learn how to stay focused, you must first identify when you start to lose focus. When this happens, utilize a key word or phrase to get your mind back on track. This can be anything from ‘focus’ to ‘strong’ to ‘next play’…whatever word or phrase works best for you. By constantly re-focusing yourself, you will start to strengthen your focus and should notice your lapses in focus start to decrease.

      - Another way of fostering a strong focus is to use a journal. After practice sessions or competitions, write down when you started to lose focus. You might find a pattern from this technique that helps you to identify different times that your focus starts to drift, allowing you to concentrate on different techniques during those times to stay focused. 

5.)   Goal-setting

      - Creating, monitoring, and accomplishing your goals is a big part of fostering mental toughness. By having a goal that you would like to achieve, planning out how you will go about achieving it, and recording your progress can aid in the development and maintenance of mental toughness. By utilizing goal-setting, you are also able to stay on track and use it as a guide when you face challenges and adversity. Using journals, goal tracking sheets, and vision boards/calendars are all techniques that can be helpful in this technique of goal-setting.

7.)   Use of past outcomes to improve future outcomes

      - Similar to what was discussed during resilience, using past outcomes to improve your future outcomes is a big characteristic in those who are mentally tough. Whether it is a success or a failure, mentally tough individuals are able to learn from them and move forward in a positive way. How can you incorporate this into your journey? Keeping a journal and utilizing self-assessment after performances is an easy way to assess the situation, come up with some positives, create a plan of attack, and monitor what is and is not working for you.

These areas and techniques for improving mental toughness may seem hard to implement into your routine at first, but building positive and efficient habits is one of the biggest steps of all for becoming mentally tough. Once you conquer doing something that you don’t want to, in order to get better, you have started your expedition to a tougher mentality – and that will be your first step to success!

The picture below includes a poem written by James Casey and reminds me of how mentally tough individuals view their "hills, bruises, and storms",  as experiences that make them stronger! 

-Cat

How to Set Goals Correctly!

Goal Setting is an opportunity for athletes and coaches to set goals aimed at a variety of beneficial areas of their games by providing motivation, confidence, a more focused approach and promoting persistence. When done in an efficient way, setting goals helps individuals to understand what they are currently attaining and what they would like to attain in the future. We can start to see the benefit of goal setting already within those two sentences. Not only does it set up a timeline, it also allows us to explore what needs to be done along the way. 

Here is the interesting part: the majority of athletes use goals…incorrectly! It has been found that athletes use goals that are not specific or measurable, and often times cannot be controlled. This starts to make you wonder, is there more we could be getting out of ourselves and our athletes if we correct the way we set goals?

Before you begin setting and planning your goals, it is important to understand what kind of goals there actually are. There are three main types of goals: process, performance, and outcome. See the picture to the left to learn more about what these types of goals are! Process and performance goals bring development to the goal-setter in a way that is attainable, measurable, and able to build upon. This becomes important, so that the goal does not become only about an outcome, with no real plans on how to reach it. For instance, everyone would like to win a championship. However, how do you prepare for it, what needs to be accomplished beforehand, and what do you do if factors outside your control interrupt that outcome goal? The majority of the time, athletes set goals that focus on winning. But with little control over the external aspects of winning a game (did the team have a bad game, was the other team better, did an injury happen, etc.), it becomes important to promote goal setting focus around the process and performance of the individual, giving them the best skills, mental tools, and preparation for the big time games they want to win.

           

Overall, setting goals is a valuable tool to utilize, both as an individual athlete and as a coach trying to establish goals within a team. Below is a description of some key components of effective goal setting – broken down from an individual athlete and team coach perspective:

*Specific:

            Athlete – Being specific is a key. A broad goal can leave an athlete with reduced motivation and more chances to deviate from what they want to accomplish. Make goals more specific by adding dates, measurable outcomes, and working on the wording of your goal. “I want to be the best soccer player in the world” is a bit too ambiguous…as well as having a number of other things wrong with it. Don’t get me wrong, it is good to dream and set goals that take effort and time to achieve, but without specificity you are losing a valuable aspect that will help you in the long run. 

            Coach – Encourage your individual players and the team as a whole to come up with goals that are specific. “Being the best team” and “Playing as hard as we can” are not quite specific enough and “win the conference championship” and “be undefeated” are very much only aimed at outcome. Remember, being focused on performance and process goals will help prepare the team and reduce some of the pressure and anxiety associated with outcome goals.

*Measurable:

            Athlete – Is the goal you are setting measurable? How do you know when you have accomplished it? How do you know you are improving? Set a measurable main goal, and measurable short-term goals leading up to it. This will help keep you focused, maintain motivation, and give you solid evidence that you are making progress and improvements.

            Coaches – Same questions as the athlete. Help keep your team focused, motivated, and energized by seeing measurable goals be accomplished in a noticeable way.

*Attainable:

            Athlete/Coaches – Create goals that are attainable. You can set goals that are not within reach quite yet, but don’t set goals that are so unattainable that you lose motivation because of it. If you are just starting out running, you probably don’t want to set a goal that involves you winning the 100m sprint at the next Olympics. As coaches, if your team is full of beginners, you shouldn’t be hyping them up to win their league and go undefeated. What you can do is set attainable goes that progress as improvements are made, allowing your athletes to maintain motivation by accomplishing goals throughout the season. 

*Record:

            Athletes – Write down your goals!! Record them, keep track of them, monitor them and watch the progress you make. Keep them somewhere you can see them daily and update them regularly. Starting a tracking journal, or wall calendar that allows you to see your progression will create a positive reminder of what you are working towards, why you are working towards it, and how far you have come so far.

            Coaches – Write down your team goals!! Put them somewhere your team can constantly see them and remember what they are working towards. As you achieve and accomplish goals along your path towards a main goal, make sure your poster, chart, etc. is updated. Encourage your team to take part in the creation and maintenance of whatever type of visual recording aide you choose to use. Just make sure the goals are solid, recorded, and seen by all.

*Get rid of the negatives and stay positive:

            Athletes – You will come across various people throughout your career who will try to bring you down, tell you you can’t do something, and are just negative influencers in general. Avoid their negative comments and stay positive in your journey by remembering that the goals you set are for yourself and not for anyone else. There is also a strong possibility that you come across some personal adversity. Stay positive by trusting the process, recording and assessing your progress and keeping up the hard work. The path to your goals is not always clear cut and that’s ok. Know that this will likely be the case and prepare mentally to have to dig deep and continue to climb.

            Coaches – Creating a positive environment for your team in all areas is a key to maintaining and accomplishing any goals that have been set by you and your players. Eliminate threats to your team’s positive environment swiftly and consistently. Set team expectations and rules early in the season and stick with them. By not deviating from what was established from the start, you are in a good position to keep accountability high and efficiently. Take care to self-assess how you are coaching and speaking with your players as well. They will look to you during tough times and how you react will have a heavy influence on how they react. Is your criticism constructive or destructive? Are you encouraging or demotivating? Are you setting challenges in a way that is promoting your athletes to work hard and accomplish them? These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself, in order to make sure your team is in a positive environment and not surrounded by negative words, thoughts, and actions.

*Act:

            Athletes/Coaches – Once goals are set, planned, and ready to be monitored it is time to act! No more sitting and wishing for things to happen. You make them happen! Get up, get to the gym and start to put in the work. Goals aren’t accomplished by themselves and it is now up to you to put your plan into action. When it’s going well, make adjustments to push yourself further. When it’s not going well, stay positive and keep working through whatever challenges come your way. Put yourself in motion and act!

*Visualize:

            Athletes – One great tool that can help with goal-setting is to introduce visualization to your daily workout routine. You’ve set your goals, so start to produce mental images of you achieving them. This will provide motivation, sustain focus, and create a positive feeling. If you want to know more about how visualization works, check out my previous blog post on how to use it efficiently.

            Coaches – Encourage your players to take some time to work on their mental training tool of visualization. As you are writing your practice sessions, is there an opportunity to insert visualization into the plan? At the beginning or end of practice is a good opportunity to have your athletes take 5 minutes to visualize their goals and team goals. The use of visualization may not only help with the development of skills, but also with motivation, focus, and determination.

*Believe:

            Athletes/Coaches – Believe in yourself and in your dreams! When you can get 100% behind a goal, it’s plan, and its execution, you will be in a position that allows you to achieve success. Believe in the process, believe in what you want, and believe in yourself and others!

Why are these things important? Think about being in the locker room minutes away from playing in a championship game. Wouldn’t you rather be thinking “I’m ready for this, look at everything I have achieved, I’m fully prepared for this moment in every respect, I am ready to reach my goal” than “We have to win, that’s the goal, it’s what we said we wanted to do, our whole season rides on this one game, I’m only successful if this game is won”. Who do you think is in a better place mentally? If you don’t know the answer, take a few more minutes to re-read this post :) 

All the best on your journey to accomplishing your goals!

-Cat