Mental Toughness: What It Is and How to Build It

(by Ben Thompson, LICSW, BCD, Director of Psychological Counseling Services, The Williston Northampton School)

  It’s the day after the Boston Red Sox were eliminated from being able to play in the post-season, having blown a nine-game lead and going 7-20 in the month of September, and I’m thinking about mental toughness—or, more accurately, the lack of it.

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Mental toughness has been defined as having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to generally cope better than others with the many demands placed upon you—the ability to remain determined, focused, confident, resilient, and in control under pressure.  As a team, the Red Sox didn’t show much of that during our first month back at Williston.  There were individual exceptions, (Jacoby Ellsbury comes to mind) but the team as a whole imploded.  For those of us who are hard core fans, it was excruciatingly painful to watch.

 Mentally tough athletes (and others) have certain qualities that can be cultivated through practice and hard work.  These qualities include:

 Reboundability/Resilience: This component of mental toughness refers to one’s ability to bounce back from setbacks and mistakes.  There are going to be obstacles on any journey to success.  While the number and difficulty of these challenges can play a role in the final outcome, the way one deals with them (something we can control) is most important, in my opinion.  Those who quickly leave their miscues and failures behind them often fare better than those who dwell on their mistakes while striving for a goal.  As Vince Lombardi once said, “It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up.”

 Handling Pressure/Composure: The ability to stay calm in the clutch is a key ingredient of success.  While some nervousness can actually enhance performance, too much anxiety may have the opposite effect.  Learning and employing coping mechanisms such as relaxation techniques and breathing strategies can go a long way towards reducing the physical and mental effects of fear.  It also can be helpful to examine one’s “self talk,” replacing automatic fearful and catastrophic thoughts with ones that are more realistic.

 Concentration/Focus:  Mentally tough individuals are able to focus on what is important—the right thing at the right time—and to block other things out.  In sports, they don’t allow others to “get into their head” or succumb to outside distractions.  When their attention wanders from the task at hand, they are able to re-focus on the “here and now.”  Some people find that practicing some form of meditation on a regular basis can improve concentration and focus.  It also helps to get plenty of sleep, eat nutritious foods, stay hydrated, and exercise regularly.

 Confidence:  A key ingredient of mental toughness, confidence refers to self-belief that isn’t shaken by setbacks and failures.  Confident people see challenges as opportunities, and they generally perform better than others when demands are placed upon them.  Confidence springs from accomplishment—the experience of working on something and getting it done.  Sometimes that means facing and moving through those experiences that one most fears while keeping one’s “eyes on the prize.”  It also helps to be prepared and to play to one’s strengths.

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As I finish this article, another New England team, the Patriots, just bounced back from a third-game-of-the-season loss to defeat the formidable Oakland Raiders.  Since 2006, the Pats have lost back-to-back regular season games on just one occasion.  In talking about the win, Patriot’s player Matt Slater said, “We completely put things behind us and we’re able to move forward and focus on the task at hand.  There’s no panic when we lose a game.  We come back and start fresh.”

 Sounds like mental toughness to me.