I can remember when I was back in college and my coaches would talk to me a lot about being more mentally tough.
And now, as a mental performance coach, I talk to a lot of players about building their mental toughness.
When it comes to working to build your mental toughness, we need to first begin by defining what mental toughness really is.
I think mental toughness is made up of a lot of different mental skills such as confidence, your ability to focus, the ability to calm nerves, and much more.
But there’s also one simple tip—or change—that we can work on making that will make all of that easier to develop in terms of those skills. And it will also make the general idea of becoming more mentally tough easier for you.
That’s what we’re going to cover in today’s article.
What it Means to Be Mentally Tough
The simple tip that I’m referring to is making sure that your thinking is not a reflection of what’s happening around you or what other people are saying—and that your thinking remains the way you want it to be, no matter what is happening around you.
We could also view this as your mentality.
So if we take the optimal mentality that you want to have as an athlete and you define that—to be mentally tough means: can you remain in that mindset or in that mentality no matter what happens during the game?
No matter what your coach says to you, no matter what the opponents say to you, no matter how many mistakes you make, you remain in that mindset—that’s what it really means to be mentally tough.
We want to keep our thinking—which really encompasses our mentality—the same no matter what is happening around us.
If we view mental toughness this way, it gives us a great starting point and a great foundation to work on becoming more mentally tough.
Examples of Mental Toughness in Action
Let’s take the example of a soccer player who becomes very reactive to what happens on the field.
Let’s say that they make a mistake, and after they make a mistake, they get down on themselves. They beat themselves up, and now they are scared of making another mistake.
That’s not really an athlete that we would classify as mentally tough because they are struggling to move past a mistake.
However, if they were to make a mistake and—even after the mistake—they were still able to remain in the mindset that they want, and they were still able to control their thinking, now they are more mentally tough. They’re not as reactive to what’s happened.
Let’s take another example of a football player whose coach yells at them mid-game.
Their coach yells at them, and then they start to get down on themselves. Now they’re scared of getting yelled at again.
Again, what’s happened in terms of their coach yelling has caused that athlete to get out of the mindset they want to be in. So again, that’s not necessarily the most mentally tough approach to take.
But on the flip side, if they are able to have their coach yell at them but then they’re still able to think positively—they’re still able to play with confidence and play with aggressiveness out there on the field—now they are becoming more mentally tough.
Simplifying Mental Toughness
When we view mental toughness in this way, it becomes a lot simpler for us to work to develop more mental toughness.
Because instead of seeing it as all these different skills we need to build, or all these different characteristics we need to develop, it’s simply:
“I’m going to choose the mindset I want to be in. I’m going to choose the type of thinking that I want to have when I play. And then I’m going to work to stay in that mindset and to continue that thinking no matter what happens around me.”
That’s a great starting point for us.
How to Develop Mental Toughness
Now, how do you actually go about doing that?
What we want to do is work on building our ability to control our thinking.
The reason we want to start with working to develop our ability to control our thinking is that it’s more natural for us to react to what happened.
If I make a mistake, it’s more natural for me to respond to what’s happened on the field—so I make a mistake, then I beat myself up. I’m thinking negatively about what happened.
Or maybe our team is losing, and so I’m reacting to the score, thinking there’s no way that we can come back from this deficit.
It’s a mirror or reflection of what’s happened on the field or what somebody said. It’s a response.
In order to develop more mental toughness, we want to have more control—to where whatever has happened does not immediately result in a response that mirrors whatever has happened.
And this is an incredibly tough and difficult thing for you to do.
Working to Control Your Thinking
What you can start to work on today in order to gain more of this control over your thinking is, first and foremost, knowing what the mindset is and what the type of thinking is that you want to have when you play.
Then, work to see that as the most important thing to you within your game.
You can practice this on a daily basis. You can work on this during practice. And you can also work on it during a game.
What this really means is that you’re going to be giving more attention to managing your thinking and managing your mindset whenever you are playing and practicing.
Honestly, I think that working on this just on a daily basis is valuable as well, even outside of your sport.
Now, what I mean by putting your attention onto this is very simple.
Let’s say I make a mistake. After the mistake, instead of worrying about it or thinking about what’s going to happen next, I put a lot of attention on making sure that my thinking stays the way I want it to be at that moment.
Maybe that involves me thinking positively. Maybe it involves me refocusing on whatever is happening right now during the practice or during the game.
But I’m going to work to refocus and think in the way that I want to think.
Or let’s say coach says something to me. After coach says something to me, I’m going to put a lot of attention on making sure that my thinking remains the way I want it to be.
Now, what am I referring to when I keep using this term—keeping my mindset or my thinking the way I want it to be?
It comes back to you knowing what kind of mindset you need in order to play your best, and knowing what kind of thinking helps you play your best.
Maybe for yourself it’s more encouraging thinking, where you’re talking to yourself in a positive way and saying things like: Come on, let’s keep going. I’ve got this. Let’s reset. Let’s refocus.
Or maybe it’s you talking to yourself about how you’re out there wanting to dominate the competition.
That’s the mindset you need to have.
Well, if you start losing and then get away from that mindset, you’re not being as mentally tough as you can be in that moment.
So, you want to work to get back into that dominating, more aggressive, winning-first mentality that you had in the first place.
Final Thoughts
If you are wanting to work on developing your mental toughness, begin by focusing on controlling your thinking—controlling your mentality.
No matter what’s happening out there—whether you’re losing, you’ve made mistakes, your coach is yelling at you, or you’re playing a trash-talking team—can you keep your thinking the way you want it to be?
Can you keep your mindset the way you want it to be?
Instead of it being a reflection of what’s happened, try to control your thinking. That’s really what’s going to help you build this foundation of mental toughness as an athlete.
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Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
