Whether you are an athlete on the gridiron or in the
boardroom, a certain quality is always found in the guys who remain standing
when the storm winds blow. When rejection hits these guys it bounces off
them like spitballs off of a battleship. They chuckle at groundless
criticism. They bounce back quickly from setbacks. They feel
energized to try even harder after a defeat. That special quality these
warriors are showing is something called “mental toughness”. Wikipedia defines
this as “a term commonly used by coaches, sport psychologists, sport
commentators, and business leaders – generally describes a collection of
attributes that allow a person to persevere through
difficult circumstances (such as difficult training or difficult
competitive situations in games) and emerge without losing
confidence.” (Emphasis added.)
Each of us will
receive a gut shot at some point in our lives that knocks the wind right out of
us. It’s not a matter of whether you will be struck by disaster, but
when. In my first book, Voyage of a Viking, I describe in detail many of the
challenges I faced through my life. I’ve faced my storms and I know that
I have more storms awaiting me. I also know that you do as well.
Rather than sitting around moaning and complaining when we are being pelted by
chunks of hail the size of golf balls, we can put on a suit of armor to deflect
whatever life throws at us. That suit of armor is your mental toughness.
You can’t
measure mental toughness; you measure its effect. You
can’t measure what’s going on inside a leaders head, but you sure can measure
their behavior! You see it when they lose their biggest customer one
month, and it ticks them off just enough to go smash a sales record the next
month. You can see mental toughness when someone is running a
marathon and they are gasping for breath, and the only thing keeping them
putting one painful footstep in front of the next is their strength of
will. You see it when someone is totally exhausted, yet they keep
throwing hundreds of shots into the basketball hoop to perfect their free throw
(like my awesome daughter Mya!). In fact, Mya had to make 1000 free
throws; in order to reach that goal; she had to shoot a couple of thousand. She wanted to quit many
times during that experience, but she had committed to a number of people that
she would reach her goal. It’s amazing how a twelve year old girl will
follow through on her commitment more effectively than most adults.
Mental toughness is courage in action. When you’ve got it, you cope
better than your opponents with the demands you face.
How do we develop mental
toughness? Here are a few principles to get you started:
Principle #1: Realize Mental Toughness Can Be Developed.
Some people might be born with a
certain personality, like a “Choleric” or “D” personality type, and maybe this
personality type handles adversity a little more effectively than others.
But that’s not always the case, and either way, anyone can develop this side of
their personality. Don’t cop out on yourself by selling yourself any
victim thinking, like “That’s just the way I am.” Brothers and sisters,
you can CHANGE. How do you build mental toughness? The same way you
build muscles in the gym: by pushing yourself to new limits and increasing the
pressure or resistance you are pushing against.
Principle #2: Mental Toughness in the Gym Correlates to Mental
Toughness in LIFE.
The gym is the
ultimate proving ground for “tough guys” and “tough gals”. You really
find out what you’re made of when you’re doing hack squats or leg
extensions. Most people get into the gym, start doing bicep curls, and as
soon as it starts to get uncomfortable, they say, “Okay, I’ve done enough for
now,” and they stop exercising. This is actually the exact wrong thing to do, if your
goal is to develop your muscles. You see, when it starts to hurt, that’s
the lactic acid burn in your muscles screaming, “Great job! Keep going!
You’re making progress!” But when most people start to feel discomfort
they choose to ease off.
You don’t
become successful at anything by
letting your foot off of the gas pedal when the going gets tough. This
includes the gym, your marriage, and your business. When it hurts to do
even one more rep of an exercise, that’s when the real muscle development
starts! (By the way, I’m not talking about pushing through pain when you
are actually injured; I’m referring to the normal discomfort we feel when we
are tearing down our muscles during a workout.) If you throw in the towel
on the bench press, you train your brain to quit when things get tough.
When you force yourself to keep pushing the weight even when you want to give
up, you are training your brain to keep pushing. Some people on my
business team “run for the tape,” as my good friend and Launching a Leadership Revolution bestselling co-author Chris Brady says. That means that when there
is a fast-approaching deadline to hit a business target, and things look grim,
they keep pushing and fighting right up to the last minute! They don’t
give in just because it looks unlikely or difficult to accomplish… they pull a
rabbit out of the hat by persevering despite all odds against them.
Principle #3: Champions Fall in Love with Discomfort
Winners know that the path to
success is steep and rocky, and the path to defeat is like a sign pointing at a
waterslide that says, “Slippery, Fun and Easy to Reach the Bottom in a
Jiffy!” Bad habits are easy to slip into, like a warm bed when you’re
exhausted. Good habits are pretty much guaranteed to feel tough for most
people because you end up denying yourself luxuries and pleasures. You must
learn to do what is uncomfortable for you. To develop the psychological edge,
you must have extreme discipline to give up the comfort zone that you train and
live in. Delaying immediate satisfaction is the ultimate sacrifice that all
warriors must choose.
My
mentor, New York Times bestselling author Orrin Woodward, recounted a story of arriving home one
day in the wee hours of the morning. He had been driving for hours from a
business meeting, and had to get home to get to work the next day. It was
so early in the morning that he knew he would only get a few hours of
sleep. But Orrin’s viewpoint of this was a feeling of pride! He
actually said to himself, “I’m losing sleep! I’m fighting harder to help
my family than my neighbors, who are all getting a nice sleep right now!”
His brain normally connected feeling tired with unhappiness, and now his brain
connected fatigue with a feeling of honor. That’s what winners do!
RESOLVE to
become a champion and develop mental toughness in your business, your health,
your relationships and in LIFE!
By Tim Marks
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