What Does it Mean to Have Mental Toughness
Mental toughness is intentional. It’s not something that happens by accident. Mental toughness is a character trait one must earn by successfully completing activities that require mental toughness. In the process of completing these types of activities, one develops their mental toughness by learning the behaviors that support discipline, self-control, and the ability to act courageously in the face of adversity or fear.
Over time, these behaviors then become habits in your mental muscle memory. What’s more, if you must continuously think about how you “should” act with mental toughness, you aren’t mentally tough yet. You may be on your way there. However, once you are truly mentally tough you don’t think about how you “should” behave.
By definition, thinking “I should” is not an act of mental toughness. “I can”, “I will”, “I must” and “I did” is. In fact, the “I should” mentality is the first thing one must eliminate on the path to mental toughness. It’s a limiting belief and mentally tough people replace limiting beliefs with neutral, if not positive thoughts of themselves as well as their present, past and future.
This is what it means to have mental toughness. Mental toughness is the ability to continue to have neutral and/or positive thoughts in moments of weakness and then use those thoughts to guide behavior. It’s not that mentally tough people don’t have moments of weakness. Instead, mentally tough people behave with discipline, self-control, and courage in those moments.