attilapersonaltraining

Mental Strength Layers

• Mental strength is the ability of your mind to push your body forward in the face of adversity. It’s the ability to tell yourself to stay the course and follow through, even when you want to give up or it seems like all hope is lost. In the book “Mind Performance Hacks,” Ron Hale-Evans writes, “Mental strength is the ability to attack a problem, mental flexibility is the ability to stretch your mind to see all of the problem’s aspects, and mental endurance is the ability to keep at a problem until you solve it.”

Confidence and Self-Esteem

• Athletes get strength from their confidence in their own abilities and the abilities of their teammates. Part of winning is believing that you can win. This belief is mired in your belief in your unique qualities to overcome your opponent. In the book “Mental Toughness,” Michael Sheard writes, “Sporting achievement has been credited with coaches who built up a psychology of winning by concentrating on their team’s strengths, while failure is due, in part, to adoption of the mentality of defeat.”

Desire and Drive

• Desire is a motivation that drives the mentally strong to succeed. Athletes thrive on the desire to be in the game. Doctors don’t give up on patients because they have that drive to not only cure that particular patient, but leave a legacy in the medical world by curing diseases that other doctors could not cure. Desire and drive propel the mentally strong.

Determination and Willpower

• Determination is the characteristic of mental strength that allows people to take a fall, get up, dust themselves and keep moving. Without willpower and determination, a runner who trips over a hurtle wouldn’t finish a race. John Wayne Creasy writes that athletes with mental strength are “pushing back the boundaries of physical and emotional pain, while still maintaining technique and effort under distress (in training and competition).”

Focus

• External pressure can keep a person from completing a task. Therefore, pressure is an essential characteristic of mental strength. Focus keeps athletes at peak performance even when their teammates are having a lousy day. Personal matters can impact a corporate executive’s job performance, unless he can remained focus and separate home life from work life.