Mental Toughness & Iron Will: Build the Daily Habit

It's been a while since I posted something about mental toughness so today, I'm going to discuss about the 6th chapter of seven about Mental Toughness and Iron Will Buckle up folks, it's going to be another long yet fun read ahead.

Ancient Chinese philosopher Sun-Tzu said that every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought. In order to establish unshakeable mental toughness, there are habits and mindsets that you can collect and build on every day. If you are scrambling to shore up your mental defenses when an obstacle is staring you in the face, you’ve already lost. Prepare these habits before you need them in battle and you will be ready to come out on top. 

Sammy had never been much of an athlete, but as middle age started to creep up on him he realized he was slowly but steadily gaining weight. His doctor recommended he take up some light exercise and examine his diet. Figuring he could use a little help, he joined a local jogging group. 

He started out with some of the beginner runs, short and slow, a few mornings a week. But Sammy quickly realized that on the mornings he accomplished a run first thing, he felt more in control and ready to tackle anything else the day could bring. 

The grit that he was building by consistently showing up and pushing himself athletically was transferring over into other areas of his life. Sammy was tapping into a commonly known trick among athletes — diligence and commitment to athletics builds reserves of mental stamina and toughness that can be deployed in all areas of life. 

The feelings of power that Sammy was growing during his workouts began to transfer over to his work life, and his admin assistant began to remark on how different he was behaving in the weekly board meetings. Sammy began participating in more of the jogging group’s events and even signed up for a 10k. The more involved he became in the jogging group, the more in control and confident he felt. 

Ultimately, not only did Sammy lose the weight that was his original goal, but he also revamped his self-confidence and increased his mental toughness by consistently pushing himself physically and discovering new boundaries far outside of his old comfort zone. Sammy had developed his mental toughness muscle through consistent use in his workouts. What started out as a simple slow jog a few mornings a week morphed into a more serious commitment with much more serious mental toughness requirements. 

• Visualization

Visualization is another habit that can be used to build mental toughness. Mental rehearsal, or visualization, is a technique that athletes, musicians, doctors, soldiers, and even astronauts use to prepare for any possibility and perform at their best. To engage in mental rehearsal you envision an event or scenario that is making you nervous or that you need to be prepared for. Start at the very beginning and imagine each step of the process or event, including possible hiccups and your reaction to them

For example, an athlete can use mental rehearsal to visualize scoring goals or imagining the most effective way to block an opponent’s advances. You may not be an athlete, but you can apply the techniques of mental rehearsal to almost anything you do in your daily life. By mentally rehearsing challenges you expect to face or areas of your life that could be more efficient, you are forcing yourself to think through overcoming or improving these situations. 

We worry about things because we feel we are not fully prepared to face them. At its base, mental rehearsal allows you to convince yourself that you are prepared. After mentally rehearsing an upcoming situation or event, your worries will seem to melt away.

Visualization creates the overall feeling that you’ll be fine, that you can handle what might come your way, and that ultimately you’ll find success. As we know, belief is a large component of mental toughness. 

•  Emulate Athletes

Just like Sammy in our opening example, athletes have long known that building mental toughness and endurance through physical feats primes mental toughness for other areas in our lives. 

There are many things that we can learn and apply to our own lives from athletes and other similar people who perform under high pressure on a daily basis. Their entire jobs are to perform accurately and consistently under very high pressure with extremely high stakes. Athletes know that the grit that it takes to apply physical discipline to your life begets mental toughness.

We can choose to build up our bodies through the habit of physical discipline and therefore build our mental toughness. Choosing to run a marathon or compete in a Tough Mudder are options, but you don’t have to be that extreme to gain the benefits of this habit. Simply showing up consistently and pushing yourself further, faster, or harder than you did the day before will also work to build this habit and grow your mental toughness.

• Set Performance Cues

 Another habit that is employed by mentally tough individuals is the decision to set performance cues. 

According to the Association of Applied Sports Psychology, a performance cue statement is a short statement said to yourself to refocus your concentration. These cues help you to focus regardless of the challenging environment, difficult situation, or negative obtrusive thoughts that you might find swirling through your brain.

They help to limit the impact these negative aspects may have on your performance. The use of self-talk, motivational phrases, and even Internet memes is not new. The goal is to find a word or phrase that connects personally to you.

To employ cue words in your everyday life and cultivate this habit of mental toughness, simply hone in on a word or phrase that has meaning to you. It can be related to performance, such as “claw,” “push,” and “heel” were in the example experiment, or simply remind you of a time that you were extremely successful. Then build the habit of mentally reciting this word in situations where you need to focus or shut out distractions. As simple as that, you have built a mental toughness habit into your life and you can reap the benefits of increased focus and greater efficiency. 

• Accept Uncertainty

The last powerful habit to embrace to build mental toughness is to accept uncertainty. This is the act of letting go and relinquishing your expectations over how your life should unfold.

There’s no possible way for us to control everything in our world. Trying to do so is usually a surefire recipe for chaos, inefficiency, and massive disappointment. You should take this as good news, at least a little, since it removes a great amount of expectation off your shoulders and makes it easier for you to envision surviving. Because of it, we therefore have to allow the reality that we’ll always have a certain degree of uncertainty in our lives.

We believe that if anything unexpected happens to come up in the course of work, then it’s going to end badly. Uncertainty is an assumed precursor to a negative event. Uncertainty equals disaster. Therefore, we hold predictability as the highest standard and volatile unpredictability as the lowest. 

Of course, it’s important to be as smart and thoughtful as possible about potential hazards that could arise in any activity, as long as it’s done from a pragmatic standpoint.

A healthier mindset doesn’t just leave room for uncertainty — it accepts it. Anything else and you’re just waiting for something that has never been possible and is never going to show itself to you. You have no choice but to live with this uncertainty—so acceptance of it is just a step above that. Understand the possible results of the uncertainty.

 Accept the reality, digest it, and allow that there’s no immediate resolution—then continue doing what you need to do. 

Think about this: how much uncertainty do you already allow in your life as a regular occurrence? Every time you get in a vehicle you’re subjecting yourself to the unknown. Any time you change cities, change jobs, or take a vacation, there’s a number of risks that you’re taking. But they’re not standing in the way of your work or your leisure. Why are they any different? We take these for granted and ignore the fact that we never associate them with negative outcomes.

If the notion of accepting uncertainty reminds you of Buddhism’s insistence on the impermanence of life, you’d be right to make that connection. They both present different ways of perceiving the world to become more resilient and difficult to knock down. When you can accept that the world has no obligation to go your way, you’ve instantly become more adaptable and mentally tough.

Battles are usually won far before they actually begin. This means we should build our foundation of mental toughness far before we need it. If we are grasping for it in the heat of the moment, it’s probably too late. We’re going to lose. Ideally, we engage in a few habits to make mental toughness an unconscious response.

Visualization is a helpful habit. Otherwise known as mental rehearsal, it is when you view yourself going through that what you fear most. View yourself dealing with it in incredible detail, down to every last pen stroke. This allows you to understand what you’ll need to deal with and prepare yourself for the likelihood of obstacles. Overall, you become more prepared and confident in your abilities to adapt.

Get into the habit of emulating athletes in the sense of pursuing physical excellence. For most, mental toughness begets physical toughness. It can also work the other way around — building the habit of physical toughness can give your psyche plenty of evidence to remain confident and tough.

Learn to accept uncertainty on a daily basis. We struggle to do this because we tend to associate uncertainty with negative outcomes. But letting go of expectations of certainty and control will instantly make you more adaptable and understanding of hardship.

By Patrick King's "Mental Toughness & Iron Will: Become Tenacious, Resilient, Psychologically Strong, and Tough as Nails"