• Question: Can you explain more about "mental toughness"?

    Asked by petercarr to Helen on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi Petercarr

      Mental Toughness is something that describes a collection of mental skills that top athletes seem to have (compared with “normal” people). There are several different ideas about what mental toughness is, but a popular description is the 4C’s – these are

      CHALLENGE: something you and I might call a problem, a top athlete would call a challenge – and they love challenges. They also love to set themselves more and more challenging goals

      CONTROL: world class athletes need to be able to control themselves – control negative emotions, like anxiety or nerves or anger (when the ref doesn’t see a foul for instance), control their attention so they don’t get distracted (by the crowds, by opponents, by a missed shot etc).

      COMMITMENT: to be successful you have to commit 100% to your goals and stick to them, even when other things might distract you (like a social life or wanting to just relax). Athletes often have to sacrifice relationships, education or a career to fully focus on training.

      CONFIDENCE: top performers believe that they can do well and be successful. This takes a lot of positive thinking, but also knowing that you have put in all the hard work you need to be successful.

      It’s not just athletes who can be mentally tough – people who are successful at what they do can too – like police, military, emergency services, business men, actors or singers. The good news is that mental toughness is learnt so you can work on developing your own mental toughness too. This is one of the things that I help athletes with.

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