Cultivating Mental Toughness

By Raman Kuppuswamy

“CONCENTRATION and mental toughness are the margins of victory,” said Bill Russell.

In fact, mental toughness is the most important ingredient for achieving goals in life because during the course of your journey towards your life’s goals, the chances of you facing bumps are very high.

Not only that, this trait will help you acquire resilience, determination and willpower so you can persist till you reach your goals.

Do you have the 'Mental Toughness' to achieve your goals?

Mental toughness gives you the ability and strength to push, despite opposition and hurdles. So, it is imperative that you must try cultivating the trait.

But before that, let us understand what we mean by mental toughness.

What is mental toughness?

Mental toughness can be described as the attribute that allows you to handle the difficulties you may face in your life.

A few experts firmly restrict this attribute to the sports field. But a number of other experts believe that this attribute pervades every area of our life.

Peter Clough and Dough Strycharczyk – researchers who authored the book, ‘Developing Mental Toughness’ – say that this attribute is:

“The quality which determines, in large part, how people deal effectively with challenge, stressors, and pressure... irrespective of prevailing circumstances.”

According to these researchers, this trait consists of a few critical components and they are challenge, control, commitment and confidence.

As far as ‘challenge’– the first component – is concerned, you must view challenges, not as obstacles, but as opportunities.

The crux of ‘control’ – the second component – is to believe that you have complete control over your destiny and life.

‘Commitment’ is nothing but possessing the capabilities needed for sticking to tasks and ensuring you complete them, regardless of the hurdles you may face.

‘Confidence’ is believing in your capabilities. Clough and Strycharczyk firmly say that mental toughness and the skills related to it apply to every area of life.

Research proves that the attribute has a genetic link. At the same time, experts suggest that people can learn and strengthen their mental toughness as well.

But how can you cultivate this trait?

1. Believe that you have the ability for achieving your goals

A study conducted in 2002 revealed that top performers – and especially elite athletes – always possess extreme self-belief.

This means that they firmly believe they can succeed. In other words, if you believe in yourself and keep encouraging yourself positively, you can achieve your goal, regardless of what it is.

2. Prefer intrinsic motivations to external rewards

External rewards – like popularity, money, etc. – are certainly nice but intrinsic motivations are better because they come from the ‘within’.

This means you will love doing things just for doing them. When you love doing things, you will push harder and try to perform better.

In fact, mentally tough people love doing things in which they are interested and their success in their tasks come from intrinsic motivations and not because of external rewards.

This means that they love the challenges they may face while doing things and overcoming those challenges is the real reward for them.

3. Mentally tough people do not get upset when they encounter setbacks

Mentally tough people rebound even when they encounter setbacks, and while doing so, they move ahead with stronger determination and resolve.

They innovate to find out new ways for overcoming such phases.

4. They are self-directed

This means that they do not let things happen. Instead, they focus on creating the life they’d like to lead.

They set goals and take appropriate action for going beyond their goals and achieving them. In other words, they learn the process of setting goals and pursue the goals relentlessly.

5. They keep their focus even if there are distractions

Distractions are bound to be there in everyone’s life, but mentally tough people do not allow them to spoil their focus. Remember that it is impossible to always have everything right.

Even if other things need your attention, you must focus only on your goals and work towards achieving them.

6. They are committed

Commitment is a major ingredient that helps in cultivating mental toughness. Remember the words of Winston Churchill who said:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

So, you should always remain committed to making the right efforts for achieving your goals.

Raman Kuppuswamy offers copywriting services of the highest quality.

Please visit http://www.addscopywriter.com/ to know more about him. Click on “web presence” on the site to see samples of the contents he has crafted.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9723966

Post by John Lee and feature by Mike I McClement

Whenever a New Year comes along, many people seem to approach this perceived milestone – even though it's a mere passage of time – with a certain amount of trepidation and often a very worthy determination to make their life more enjoyable.

So I thought this highly practical guide to building your self-confidence, self-belief and self-esteem by personal development coach, Mike McClement, might be a useful addition to my blog. As you'll see, it's full of great advice and is an excellent way to take stock of your life.

Over to Mike...

1. Know what you look like
Find out how people perceive you... if you look as though you lack confidence, then people will treat you as though you do. In other words, you're already on the back foot and it'll be a lot harder to get people to listen to you.

2. Sort out your body language
Like it or not, people suss you out quickly, mostly by taking in your body language and sound. So get yourself in front of a mirror and be honest with yourself. Do you look confident? If not, why not? Then practise looking confident. Look at your posture, your facial expression, your clothing... Sounds mad but it works.

Confident people are happy people

3. Don't say sorry
Are you a serial sorry sayer? A lot of people who lack confidence are. They apologise for everything. Well don't. Only apologise if your actions warrant an apology. Some people prefix everything they say with a 'sorry'. This is completely unnecessary and suggests you doubt yourself. You might as well hang a sign around your neck saying 'I lack confidence'.

4. Remember you're not unusual
Realise that you're not unusual. Even truly confident people have their ups and downs. They accept this as part of life. An embarrassing situation is an embarrassing situation.. so what? It happened, there's nothing you can change about it. So learn from it and move on.

5. Be realistic
Accept that you're not unlucky. No one was born confident. Confidence is a skill you can actually learn. Accept this and start to learn. Just like any other skill, it requires practice and self-discipline to get good at it. We can all do it as long as we accept the challenge.

6. Think positively
Understand your mindset. Be honest with yourself... are you a positive or negative thinker? Are you a pessimist or an optimist? This is important. It's impossible to feel and look confident if you approach life negatively. A problem is a challenge, a mistake is a lesson to be learnt, a failure is a fact of life.

7. Know where you're going
You'll achieve little, if nothing if you don't have a focus. So work out what you want to achieve, both at home and at work and write down a plan. Think strategically (say over 2 years) and more tactically (say 6 months). One leads on from the other - think strategically first and then decide what you need to do tactically to achieve this.

8. Be happy
Think carefully about what makes you happy and get some of it. Confident people tend to be happy people - just watch them and you'll see. That's because they've found a balance between the things they have to do and the things like doing. They're also realists. They accept that life is life and there are some things that just have to be done but they don't let these bog them down.

9. Smile more
Sounds mad but it's true. Smiling really does help you to feel and look more confident. Someone who walks into a room smiling looks confident. It's a fact. It's also true that smiling actually makes you feel happier. It releases endorphins into your system. This even happens when you make yourself smile... So it's worth the effort.

10. Control your emotions
Control your emotions but don't stifle them. Think about how you let them out. Don't make a fool of yourself. Take a deep breath, maybe a few minutes too and then explain your feelings in a controlled way. Confident people have the self-control to do this.

About the Author
Mike McClement is a Personal Development Coach and author on confidence. He is passionate about helping people develop their confidence and self esteem in both a personal and work environment.

To find out more about Mike visit http://www.think-confidence.com
Complete a free communication style questionnaire at http://www.think-confidence.com/questionnaires.html

(c) Mike McClement. All rights reserved worldwide

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