Close your eyes. Picture the toughest person you know. Who comes to mind? What about that person makes them tough? Maybe they are physically strong, like a bodybuilder or CrossFit athlete. Perhaps you pictured a loved one who is kind and cheerful despite facing extreme hardship.
There is no wrong answer to this exercise. People can be tough in different ways. Digging deeper into what it means to be tough, you can see the overlap between physical and mental strength. You can even learn to develop your own toughness, with a little practice.
What Does it Mean to Be Tough?
A popular brand of garbage bags touts the toughness of their product. Politicians argue their tough stances on everything from guns to drugs. Boxers fight to be named the toughest in their sport. How can one word describe so many different things?
People and products are tough if they endure tests, trials, or adverse conditions. When products perform well under challenging circumstances, they sell better. We admire and respect people who complete trials despite encountering additional challenges.
Toughness is a desirable trait in nearly every aspect of human life. There are generally two ways to prove toughness – through physical strength or mental fortitude. Physical and mental toughness are often linked, but they develop and present differently.
What Physical Toughness Looks Like
Some people associate physical toughness with strength, but it usually involves more. You can improve physical toughness by working your body each day to build muscle and endurance. Eventually, you should be able to withstand physical activity when you’re tired, in pain, or pushed to your limits.
Many athletes devote a lot of time to honing their physiques to fit the desired guidelines of their events. Think about professional athletes you know and compare the typical physiques for different sports. Even slender athletes develop the muscles they use most in hopes of excelling at athletic competitions.
However, the biggest and strongest person is not always the victor. That’s where mental toughness comes into play.
The Importance of Mental Toughness
Mental toughness is the ability to resist and overcome any challenges that threaten your ability to succeed at a task. It requires determination, focus, confidence, and control over your thoughts and emotions.
There are dozens of examples of smaller or disadvantaged players impacting their games despite significant challenges. Some of the most inspirational stories stem from underdogs showing their mental toughness and scoring a win.
Where Did Mental Toughness Start?
It’s easy to relate mental toughness to sports because that’s where it first took root. Initially, mental toughness helped elite athletes train and perform better in competition. The idea combined psychological characteristics with mental skills to help athletes manage their stress and make better decisions.
Over time, the concept of mental toughness expanded to include many other professions and positions that deal with stress. Today, mental toughness is a critical psychological tool for many people in different roles.
- Business professionals, especially those in management and leadership positions, need mental toughness to manage staff, make decisions, and close deals.
- Military personnel exercise mental toughness daily to prepare for the uncertain circumstances surrounding their jobs.
- Performing artists, like actors and singers, rely on mental toughness to navigate their competitive fields and deliver performances.
- Emergency responders and medical workers need mental toughness to react in life or death situations and minimize the effects of the tragedies they face.
- Parenting is a full-time job, and mental toughness helps with raising kids and teaching them to be mentally tough.
Lessons from Rudy
Rudy Ruettiger, a 5’6” guy from the Midwest with sub-par grades, had a dream of playing football for the University of Notre Dame. With his entire working-class family against him, Rudy went to South Bend and worked his way through junior college to eventually gain entry to Notre Dame.
The story doesn’t end there. Despite Rudy’s small stature, he walked onto the football team. He never made it off the practice squad until the final game of his senior year. With only 27 seconds left, Rudy entered the game and managed to sack the Georgia Tech quarterback.
You do not have to be a Notre Dame football fan to appreciate what Rudy accomplished or the sheer toughness it took to achieve so much. Not only did he study hard enough to gain acceptance to the university, but he also pursued football in their prestigious program despite his stature.
How to Develop Characteristics of Mental Toughness
How did Rudy overcome the odds to achieve his dreams? As a motivational speaker, Rudy talks about his journey and encourages others to reach for their dreams. Though he doesn’t explicitly mention mental toughness, his insights and lessons include many characteristics linked to mentally tough people.
Before you can develop mental toughness, you need to understand the characteristics most commonly associated with it. You may already possess some of these characteristics. If so, that’s wonderful! You can focus on other aspects of toughness!
Start with Self-Confidence
Having a tough mindset begins with confidence in yourself and your dreams. No matter how many people say they can’t, no matter how many roadblocks pop up on their journeys, mentally tough individuals exude confidence.
What is Self-Confidence?
In the simplest terms, self-confidence means that you believe in yourself. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that it entails trusting your abilities, finding the motivation to take action under any circumstances, and believing you can succeed.
Trusting yourself and your abilities are crucial for your success. Self-confidence is a cornerstone of mental toughness because it impacts your self-worth, happiness, and motivation. Self-confidence is closely linked to several other characteristics of mental toughness.
How to Boost Your Confidence
Some people are born with rock-solid self-confidence, while others struggle to believe in themselves. Thankfully, self-confidence is something you can work on if it’s not your strong suit. Building confidence is one aspect of mental toughness that you can master with practice.
- Mind your posture. Whether you’re standing or sitting, pay attention to your posture. When your body is relaxed and open, you project confidence to everyone around you.
- Be present. Awareness of your surroundings and your body’s reactions to the events around gives you more control. Pay attention to your breath, any tension in your body, and input from all of your senses.
- Visualization helps. Imagine how you look and feel when you’re confident and project that image when you need a quick boost.
- Clarify who you are and what your goals are. Vague dreams are difficult to attain, but when you spell out your values and life goals, it’s easier to be confident in them.
- Practice self-love. Compassion for yourself is one of the best things you can do. Allow yourself to make mistakes, learn from them, and appreciate the lesson without tearing yourself down.
Learn to Handle Pressure
As adults, there are always multiple people and issues vying for our attention. It’s challenging to prioritize sometimes, especially when more than one problem is urgent. Mental toughness means handling those pressure situations calmly to find the best answer.
Learning how to handle stressful situations takes practice. You may need to learn more than one method to manage different issues. What works with one person may exacerbate the situation with somebody else, so having different approaches can help you keep your cool.
- Stop multitasking and address one thing at a time. Giving your entire focus to one project helps you manage it better.
- When in doubt, list it out. If you have no idea where to start or you’re feeling extra stressed, list your stressors. Putting pen on paper to face your issues often helps resolve them.
- Accept imperfection, even if it’s difficult for you. Sometimes a job well done is better than one that’s perfect.
- Take a breath. Practice breathing techniques to use when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Count to ten if it helps you calm down.
- Know when to say “no” to a person, project, or appointment. It’s okay to decline an opportunity to address the other fires you’re extinguishing – especially if you’re the one on fire!
- Learn to channel your energy. Stress creates a lot of excess energy. If you learn to reroute that excess through exercise, art, or meditation, you positively release the energy.
Roll with the Punches
Another characteristic of mental toughness is handling change. Whether facing a bump in the road or a massive plot twist, mentally tough people manage without melting down or bailing out.
Don’t Sweat the Small Things
Have you ever let a negative comment derail your day? What about losing your cool in traffic? In the larger scheme of things, both of these issues are small bumps in the road. If you blow up or break down at the slightest signs of trouble, how will you manage real adversity?
Embrace Change
Change is good, even when it’s difficult. Mentally tough people are flexible and adapt to new situations. It’s healthy to look for opportunities to change, even if they’re a little scary.
Learning to embrace change sounds daunting, but it doesn’t have to be scary. With a little practice, you might start seeking out ways to change your life.
Create a Change List
Lists are excellent tools. They can remind us of times we changed and how we felt in those moments. We can use lists to track our progress. Even the smallest changes add up over time.
If you want to get fit with the goal of running a 5K, track the actions you take each day. When you need a boost, re-read every small change you made and how they added up.
Seek Opportunities for Change
Change leads to growth, teaches us flexibility and adaptability, and makes life interesting. When you actively alter your life, you open doors to new experiences. Even something as small as a new hairstyle or route to work could inspire you to make other changes in your life.
Set Goals and Stick with Them
Mentally tough people set goals and follow through with them. Look at Rudy Ruettiger and how he stayed the course no matter what people told him. Even his family expected him to fail, but Rudy set goals and worked hard to reach them.
What if Setting Goals is Hard?
For some people, setting goals is difficult. Maybe they set too many, make them too big or broad, or they don’t know where to start.
The first step in setting a goal is deciding what you want to accomplish. Make a list of things you want to accomplish in life. Read them over until one particular goal jumps out at you. That’s your winner. Write your new goal down and clarify it as much as possible.
Setting Goals is Easy, Making Them Happen is Not!
You’ve set a goal! Now, what do you do? Seeing your goals through can be difficult, especially if they are scary or involve a lot of change on your part. It’s okay to find goals a little overwhelming, but giving up on them doesn’t help you at all. Put in the work, enlist a support system, and keep going!
If your goal is a big one, like earning your Ph.D., break it down into smaller steps. Say you have your high school diploma, set your first goal to earn an undergraduate degree. Break that down into smaller goals, like gain admission to a university. Celebrate every win along the way, and eventually, that Ph.D. will be yours!
Work Through Mistakes
Even the toughest people make mistakes. The difference is how people handle mistakes. We can learn a great deal from errors. They teach us to clarify our values and goals, accept our flaws, live with integrity, and face our fears. We can even learn how to fix a project or solve a problem by analyzing what went wrong.
Finding Success After Failure
Mentally tough people embrace their failures and learn from them. They don’t dwell on mistakes or try to cover them up. It’s admirable to succeed at something after failure. Some of the most successful people failed on epic levels before finding their ways.
- Walt Disney lost his job at the Kansas City Star because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas” and launched several businesses that failed before he finally premiered his first film, “Snow White.”
- The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts rejected Steven Spielberg multiple times. He went on to earn three Academy Awards, 4 Emmys, and 7 Daytime Emmys.
- If R.H. Macy gave in to his failures, we would not have one of the largest department stores in the world, Macy’s.
- Hollywood and Broadway star, Fred Astaire, was initially told he couldn’t sing or act and could only dance a little.
- It took Sir James Dyson more than 5,000 failed prototypes to develop the bagless vacuum.
How to Learn from Your Mistakes
It could not have been easy to witness the failure of thousands of prototypes before finding success. That doesn’t mean Dyson didn’t learn from each mistake. When you learn to reframe your mistakes, you gain wisdom and insight to improve.
- Admit the mistake. Don’t minimize the problem or blame other people.
- Be tough on yourself, but not for making a mistake. Ask the hard questions to determine what went wrong, what you could do better, and what you learned.
- Create a plan to use when you face the situation again. Preparation helps you avoid a repeat mistake.
Practice Optimism
Be optimistic and positive. You don’t have to be upbeat all of the time, but try looking at everything with an optimistic lens. It may seem difficult to find the silver lining in some situations, but it’s worth the extra effort.
- Don’t let others limit your joy. Learn to find happiness on your own. Practice ignoring the negative opinions of others.
- On that same token, don’t take the joy away from others. Jealousy has no place in the world of mental toughness. Be happy for the victories of those around you because jealousy and resentment drain your energy.
- Be hopeful about the future, even if life gets hard.
- Face reality and reframe it to a more positive light.
- Be grateful for the things that work in your favor. When you’re really struggling, list three things you are grateful for and focus on them.
Take Calculated Risks
Risks can be scary, but you don’t want to let fear run your life. Instead, assess the situation and weigh your options. What choices do you have? What are the likely consequences and outcomes of each decision? Make a list if it helps.
When you take the time to work through your circumstances, you can approach things more rationally. Determining all possible actions and eliminating the ones that don’t work will help you create a better plan. Mentally tough people take risks, but they are not reckless with their actions.
Seek Out Good Advice
When in doubt, get advice from wise people. While you are the only person who can make the best decisions for you, input from experienced people can help.
If you know somebody you trust who has been in a similar situation, ask them for advice. They may shine some light on alternate options or outcomes.
- Friends and family who support you may offer sound advice, especially since they know and love you. However, be wary of their advice, especially if one or more of your choices could impact your relationship.
- Mentors are excellent resources, especially since we tend to choose people we admire. There is a lot to learn from people who have achieved goals similar to our aspirations.
- Therapists and counselors provide neutral feedback and can give you a fresh perspective.
Live with Integrity
Mentally tough people hold true to their values, even when it’s complicated. If something feels wrong, the chances are good that it is wrong. Listen to that voice in the back of your head that guides you through tough situations.
Part of staying true to your values sometimes means making tough decisions. In situations where the right decision is unpopular, mentally tough people stay the course and don’t back down. They don’t cave to peer pressure or threats.
Integrity can Change the World
If you aren’t sold on the importance of integrity or how it links to mental toughness, look no further than Europe before and during World War II. Though Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rolled through much of the continent, several individuals and factions resisted.
It was unpopular and downright dangerous to resist the Nazis in any capacity, but some Europeans stuck to their values anyway. From smuggling Jewish children to safety to spying, some people knew the atrocities committed by Hitler were wrong and refused to accept them.
The Exception to the Integrity Rule
Like most things in life, there is one exception to backing down. When you make a mistake, you need to backpedal and admit you were wrong. Remember, admitting mistakes and learning from them is a characteristic of mental toughness.
Mind Your Health
It’s difficult to be mentally strong if you feel physically awful. Taking care of your body and building physical resilience is critical to being tough. Pay attention to what your body needs and react appropriately.
- Get seven to eight hours of sleep every night.
- Eat a healthy, balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables.
- Exercise regularly. Vary your activities to include cardio and strength exercises.
- Manage your stress levels. If you need to take a break to catch your breath, watch a movie, or meditate, then, by all means, do that!
Build Healthy Social Relationships
Forming strong, healthy social relationships is a critical aspect of mental toughness. When you have a group of people you can rely on for support, you feel stronger and less vulnerable to the world around you.
Strong relationships don’t happen overnight, and they aren’t one-way streets. It takes time to build trust and earn respect from other people. Do your part to foster relationships and build a positive social image, so people know you are trustworthy and reliable.
There are two aspects of building a solid social circle. First, you want to choose the right people. Second, you want to treat those people well.
Cut Toxic People Loose
Choosing the right people for your social circle is not easy, especially when you are dealing with toxic people. Coworkers, friends, and even family members can negatively impact your progress toward goals, even if they don’t mean to disrupt you. It is okay to distance yourself from those people.
How do you know somebody is toxic? Consider how they make you feel in various situations. Weigh the effects of their participation in your life with how it feels to take a break from them. If you’re still not sure, look for the warning signs.
- They try to intimidate you and others around you to get their way.
- Toxic people leverage guilt to gain control over others.
- People who frequently exhibit jealousy may be too toxic for your inner circle.
- Do you notice that the person always gives backhanded compliments but never offers sincere praise? That’s not healthy or positive for anybody.
Cutting toxic people out of your life can be complicated, but it’s often necessary for your well-being and success. Sometimes, mental toughness involves removing negative people from your life.
How to Build Relationships
Building your circle involves effort on your part. You can surround yourself with the kindest, most talented people, but fail to establish the relationship you need. Have you noticed people distancing themselves from you? There may be a good reason, and you need to figure out what it is.
Like most things in life, relationships give back as much as you put into them. Keep that in mind when dealing with people you care about, and make the extra effort to let them know you care.
- Keep in contact and be timely. If somebody reaches out to you, respond as soon as possible. Waiting to reply sends a message that you don’t care as much about them.
- Be kind, but remember, there is a difference between being kind and letting people walk all over you.
- Skip the gossip mill. Mentally tough people don’t waste time (or negative energy) talking about other people unless they have something positive to say.
- Forgive on your own. While forgiveness can be difficult for many people, it’s an excellent way to reduce negativity in your life. Mentally tough people learn to forgive even if they don’t receive an apology.
Build Your Mental Strength
Mental toughness is critical to most roles in life. It allows people to adapt to changes in circumstances, embrace challenges, and grow as a person. Thankfully, it’s something you can learn and develop with practice and time.
Armed with this knowledge, you’re ready to develop real mental toughness. It’s okay to start small and work toward your ultimate goals. Don’t forget to celebrate those little victories along the way to remind you of your progress!