Mental toughness is a concept that describes an important personality trait which is difficult to assess. Unlike the behavioral concepts with which we are all familiar, mental toughness measures »how we think« rather than »how we act« when things happen.
A brief history of mental toughness
Plato identified what he called his 4 Cardinal Virtues. One of it is fortitude. It is having emotional power and the ability to withstand adversity. When you examine fortitude more closely, one can see that it is virtually the same concept that, today, we call mental toughness.
The Stoics also saw fortitude as a core virtue or principle.
One could argue that a central component of mental toughness is how effectively one deals with potentially stressful situation.
Stress is a complex phenomenon that has a number of definitions. Stress is adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and/or psychological process, which is a consequence of any external action, situation or event that places special physical and/or psychological demands on a person.
The AQR stress model. Stress is most often a result of the combination of the impact of some stressor and the way that the individual responds to that stressor.
Key factor that influences how we respond to stressor include:
- Personality
- Age
- Gender
- Social support
- Fitness
- Mental toughness
Source of stress include:
- Individual (from within)
- Group level
- Organizational
- Extra-organizational
Sources of stress from four broad headings:
- Psychological
- Behavioral
- Cognitive
- Physiological
Peak performance is the ability to efficiently function at your best, enabling you to express your full potential. Key characteristic of high-performing individuals and teams:
- Passion
- High self-confidence
- Controlling the things, you can
- Resilience – dealing with setbacks
- Seeing the challenge not the threat
- Focus
- The ability to relax
Attributes affecting performance
- Your abilities
- Your approach
- Your reward
- Your colleagues
- Your state of mind
Resilience is the process by which people are able to bounce back from adversity. Jackson and Watkins suggested that the following items were key in the way individuals deal with difficult situations:
- The accuracy of analyzing events
- The number of alternative scenarios envisaged
- Flexibility
- Internal drive to face new challenges
Seven factors of resilience:
- Emotion regulation
- Impulse control
- Causal analysis
- Self-efficacy
- Realistic optimism
- Empathy
- Reaching out
Hardness. Kobasa proposed that hardness consists of three interrelated concepts: control, challenge and commitment. Control is expressed as tendency to feel and act as if one is influential in the face of the varied contingencies of life. Commitment is the tendency to involve oneself in whatever one is doing or encounters. Challenge is a belief that change rather than stability is normal in life and that anticipation of change provides incentives to grow rather than threats to security.
Loehr’s four markers of toughness:
- Emotional flexibility
- Emotional responsiveness
- Emotional strength
- Emotional resiliency
The 21st century has led to an explosion in interest in mental toughness. There is a degree of agreement that mental toughness describes a set of attributes related to how people deal with challenges, stressors and pressure. It has been frequently related to successful performance.
Developing the 4Cs model
The model was developed on two sources of data: existing published research on mental toughness and related constructs and the interviews with 12 sportspeople. The model is about: control, commitment, change and confidence.
The 4cs eight factor model:
- Commitment
- Achievement orientation
- Goal orientation
- Challenge
- Risk orientation
- Learning orientation
- Confidence
- Interpersonal confidence
- Confidence in abilities
- Control
- Life control
- Emotional control
The psychometric debates
Psychometric describes the scientific field of developing and evaluation measurement tools that serve to connect with unobservable phenomena that is, the endeavors of researchers to be able to quantify abstract, psychological constructs.
Efficiency is unobservable. We could explain the concept of efficiency as the relationship between constructs such as time, cost and effort. We may not be able to objectively see mental toughness, but by identifying typical cognitions, affective states, attitudes and behaviors, we can form an approximation.
In psychometrics, reliability simply means consistency. There are internal consistency and consistency across time.
Emotional control is not about presenting positive emotions and hiding negative emotions it is more about awareness and effective management of all emotions.
Mental toughness is a malleable personality trait. This means that it is resistant to change but can be changed over time and with intervention.
Control
The control construct describes the extent to which the individual believes that they have sufficient control of themselves, their lives and their circumstances to be able to achieve what is important to them and perhaps, to others. Two components are life control and emotional control.
Life control represents what many understand to be meant by control generally.
Emotional control describes the extent to which individuals are minded to manage their emotions and the extent to which they will reveal their emotional state to others. This does not mean they do not experience emotions or that they are not emotionally sensitive (intelligent).
People who lead, manage, teach know that if their inner emotional state is negative and they show it to others (their staff, students, colleagues), this will impact negatively on them.
The mentally tough are often described as being comfortable in their own skin.
The downsides of being mentally tough in control area:
- The Icarus effect – to attempt to succeed in situations where they cannot realistically succeed.
- The Intolerance effect – the failure to recognize that others are not like you and being intolerant of that gap, resulting in showing that intolerance.
- The Icon effect – because of your attributes, you are being admired but also perceived as being intimidated to some.
Tom Hopkins: “I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.”[1]
Attributions are central to feeling of control. People with an internal locus of control believe they make things happen. It can be claimed that it was Fritz Heider (1944) who first developed a coherent and useable theory of attributions.
Attributions can be stable and unstable and internal and external. Internal and stable is ability. Internal and unstable is effort. External and stable is task difficulty. External and unstable is luck.
The more mentally tough the individual, the more they believed they made their own luck. Professor Wiesman (2003) identified four principles associated with lucky people:
- Are skilled at noticing and acting on change opportunities.
- Make good decisions based on their intuition.
- Expect good fortune.
- Turn bad luck into good luck.
“Big five” personality factors that are used to describe humans:
- Openness – inventive/curious versus consistent/caution.
- Conscientiousness – efficient/organized versus easy-going/careless.
- Extraversion – outgoing/energetic versus shy/reserved.
- Agreeableness – friendly/compassionate versus cold/unkind.
- Neuroticism – sensitive/nervous versus secure/confident.
Commitment
The component reflects the extent to which we make promises, particularly those which are tangible and measurable, and the extent to which we are determined to keep those promises. Two components are goal and achievement orientation. Goal orientation measures the extent to which we are oriented to set goals for tasks and activities. Achievement orientation measures the extent to which we are minded to do whatever it takes in order to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
Making and keeping promises are important aspects of the way people deal with each other.
Goal orientation describes the extent to which an individual visualizes goals and targets for their activities. Some like the idea of goals, standards and targets so much that they like being tested – examination and tests are a good example.
With the more mentally sensitive people, it can have a negative impact on performance if they are intimidated by the notion of goals and targets.
The two factors – goal orientation and achievement orientation – are significantly independent of each other.
The downsides of high levels of commitments:
- The Icarus effect – believing you can succeed at most things, when it’s really beyond you.
- The Intolerance effect – a failure to recognize that others are not like you and being intolerant of that.
- The Icon effect – your attributes can intimidate or overawe other.
Putting things off, or procrastination, is one of the most common forms of self-handicapping among a wide range of people. One way of looking at this issue is to reduce it to a mechanism of coping with stress and reducing it. Another way is to adopt a trait approach. It has been suggested that human beings only have five predominant personality traits (McCrae and Costa):
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Neuroticism
- Openness
Conscientiousness reflects and individual’s degree of self-discipline. It has been shown that out of the big five personality traits, only conscientiousness predicts success across all categories of work.
Goal-setting is a very important psychological technique. It was initially developed by Edwin Locke (1968).
Challenge
This component of mental toughness addresses how we, as individuals, respond to challenge. A challenge represents any activity or event which we see as out of the ordinary and which involves doing something that is stretching. Two component of challenge part are risk orientation and learning orientation. Risk orientation describes the attitude towards change and new experiences. For some, risk orientation manifests itself in making choices. Learning orientation identifies how individuals handle outcomes and respond to stretching themselves.
Some see challenges as threats others as opportunities.
Some problematic behaviors for risk orientation: get to excited for every opportunity (problem of prioritization), fail to complete the tasks, because going for another opportunity, we as managers can create initiative overload.
Some problematic behaviors for learning orientation: learning for learning’s sake, create initiative overload.
McClelland (1962) suggested that individuals learn needs from their culture. Three of the primary needs in this theory are the need for affiliation, the need for power and the need for achievement. McClelland’s theory has one fundamental difference from the other need theories. It suggests that needs can be acquired or taught, and therefore provides a less deterministic view of motivation.
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”[2]
The challenge component of our model includes an element of competitiveness – the desire, or even need, to win.
“The difference between a successful person and other is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”[3]
Spence and Helmreich – their model of achievement had three main strands:
- Satisfaction with the performance itself
- Sense of completion
- Sense of competitiveness
“You’ll either step forward into growth or step back into safety.”[4]
Confidence
Confidence essentially describes and assesses self-belief. Two factors contributing to the confidence are: confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence. Confidence in abilities is the confidence one has in their own abilities. The interpersonal confidence describes the extent to which the individual is open to engaging with others. One level is about assertiveness – how you deal with criticism. Another level is about engagement.
There may be a narrow line between arrogance and confidence, but it is difficult to be a successful athlete unless you have that confidence. The same may be said of leadership.
Some risks about over-confidence may be: to be dismissive of others’ abilities, can believe they are right – even when they are wrong, poor to listening, manipulative in argument and discussion.
Confidence is a nondescript term that refers to strength of belief but does not necessarily specify what the certainty is about.
Conditions to learn:
- Attention
- Retention
- Reproduction
- Motivation
Ways in which learning take place:
- Performance accomplishments
- Vicarious experiences – seeing other people succeed
- Verbal persuasion
- Techniques that reduce emotional arousal
Feeling of mastery lead to performance improvements, which lead to greater feelings of mastery – the virtuous circle.
Optimistic individuals tend to adopt a problem-solving coping style that is also typical of mentally tough individuals. Extraversion, one of the big five personality traits, is clearly linked to mental toughness in general and interpersonal confidence in particular.
Independence and interplay
When we are looking at whole profile of individual regarding his/her mental strength we are looking from perspective of independence and interplay and if we take in consideration all eight factors, we can estimate that around 40.000 different combinations are possible.
Mental toughness and its relationship with some key ideas, models and challenges
Carol Dweck is describing growth mindset as Clough is describing mental toughness.
Martin Seligman is “father” of positive psychology. He believes that we have learned helplessness and learned optimism – which involves visualizing a world full of opportunity.
At its core, mental toughness adopts the idea of contentment rather that happiness.
There are clear links between mental toughness and emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) can be defined as the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.
One fascinating area that is rarely discussed in relation to emotional intelligence is the dark triad of personality variables. The dark triad consists of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.
Compassion is a fundamental and important concept. Again, it is often, wrongly, assumed that mentally tough individuals lack compassion. NHS 6 C model:
- Care
- Compassion
- Competence
- Communication
- Courage
- Commitment
There are two basic thinking styles: convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Convergent is conservative in nature. Divergent is more challenging.
Creativity as suggested by Gardner is the best described as the human capacity to regularly solve problems or to fashion products in a domain, in a way that is initially novel but ultimately acceptable to a culture. Creativity is basically the ability to see relationships where none previously existed.
Cognitive style or thinking style is a term used in cognitive psychology to describe the way individual think, perceive and remember information. The dual-thinking model (DTM) proposes the existence of two independent information-processing styles:
- Intuitive processing – evaluates information based on personal experiences and feelings.
- Reasoning – demands objective appraisal of evidence.
Mental toughness and the world of work
Mental toughness can impact in the world of work from two perspectives:
- Issues and outcomes
- Performance or attainment
- Wellbeing and mental health
- Agility
- Aspiration and motivation
- Creativity and innovation
- Factors in the world of work
- Leadership
- Teamworking
- Coaching
- Culture
- Assessment and development
- Recruitment and selection
- Competencies
- Employee development and talent management
Generally, we find that differences in mental toughness can account, in general, for around 25 per cent of the difference in performance in individuals.
In general, the mentally tough respond better and more positively than do the mentally sensitive to change, especially abrupt change.
There is a relationship between mental toughness and divergent and convergent thinking. Both are useful: divergent thinking to identify and explore widest range of options, convergent thinking to dig more deeply around one idea or thought. The mentally tough tend to be better at divergent thinking and the mentally sensitive at convergent thinking.
Leadership is a quality that provides motivation to followers to give up their discretionary effort and to do it willingly and enthusiastically. Discretionary effort is that part of what we do which goes beyond what we have agreed to do in, say, a contract of employment.
Global leadership factors are:
- Determination to deliver
- Engagement with individuals
- Engagement with teams
Each situation can be different, and the most significant differentiators are typically:
- The maturity of the followers
- The complexity of the task
- The speed of response
Leadership style elements:
- Goal orientation
- Motivation
- Engagement
- Control
- Recognition
- Structure
There are three perspectives to consider in creating a culture that encourages and fosters teamworking:
- Process
- Blocks
- People
Five aspects of teamworking that appeared every time:
- Working to common goal
- Continuous improvement
- Working together
- Engaging with success
- Effective communications
Write a team charter. Key behaviors everyone in the team will adopt:
- We will avoid the use of strong language at all times.
- We will publicly support all group decisions.
- We will respond promptly to all questions and queries.
- We will not apportion blame to any person or group when something goes wrong.
- We will keep all appointments – and be on time every time.
- We will visit a department of the business at least once a week for at least one hour.
A team must have: a shared sense of purpose; aspiration; effective ways of working with each other; a willingness to work together; personal independence; and a collective identity.
Leadership, teamworking, culture and developing motivation and aspiration are all vitally important for all organizations. Mental toughness is a concept that applies to each of these areas.
Employability
Employability is a set of qualities – operational skills, understandings and personal attributes – that, first enable individuals to gain employment and then, to be successful in their chosen occupations and in their long-term career development. This produces benefit for the individual, employers, society and the economy.[5]
Employability factors – 16 of them are arranged around four major themes: mental toughness, the ability to deal with problems, motivation and drivers and interpersonal skills, each with four elements or scales.
In 2017 the World Economic Forum published its research on the future of work and what skills will be needed in 21st century. They identified six areas of foundation literacies:
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Scientific literacy
- ICT literacy
- Financial literacy
- Cultural and civic literacy
They also identified four competencies:
- Critical thinking/problem solving
- Creativity
- Communication
- Collaboration
They also identified six important character qualities:
- Curiosity
- Initiative
- Persistence/grit
- Adaptability
- Leadership
- Social and cultural awareness
Mental toughness and the world of education
Typical challenges such as exam pressures, peer pressure and bullying have been overlain with the pressures of home schooling, social isolation and uncertainty. Mental toughness has the potential to make significant impact on all of these important aspects of the world of education.
Mental toughness and sport
Uncertainty is a prominent determinant of stress. Not knowing the outcome of our endeavors for which we have poured every ounce of our physical, mental and emotional energy is high stakes. In sport, however, this is a constant.
The winning combination is to find something you are talented at and being mentally tough.
Nobody wins all the time. Losing is part of sport, but learning is too.
Mental toughness and its links to physical and mental health
Mentally tough people tend to do more exercise. The causal link is unclear at the moment. Mental toughness may drive the exercise, or the exercise may drive mental toughness.
Mental tough individuals appear to have more tolerance to pain and discomfort.
Mental tough individuals appeared to report lower level of depression, anxiety and stress.
Can mental toughness be developed?
Key question is are we changing someone’s mental toughness or are we simply equipping someone with tools and techniques that enable them to behave as a mentally tough person might behave?
Factors that might help enhance mental toughness by Crust and Clough:
- Providing a challenging yet supportive environment
- Having an effective social support mechanism
- Encouraging reflection
Kolb learning styles model:
- Concrete experience
- Reflective observation
- Abstract conceptualization
- Active experimentation
Using the mental toughness model for coaching and mentoring
Coaching is a continuous process that is used to bring out the best performance in others.
Mental toughness coaching offers the coachee the ability to deal with a whole range of pressures better and to become the best that they can be.
Positive thinking
The Attitude Ladder – show 10 phrases based on “can do” which progressively range from “can’t do” to “can do” enabling individuals to map progress in change in attitude.
Mindfulness is emerging in the 21st century as a powerful and popular approach to improving wellbeing, mindfulness has its roots in Buddhism as well as many other religions that have contemplation as one of their practices.
Visualization
There is a close relationship between visualization and other positive-thinking techniques.
Wellbeing can be described in two ways. First, there is subjective wellbeing. This is about a state called happiness and will often have a material undertone. Alternatively, there is psychological wellbeing. This is driven from older traditions of motivation and satisfaction as described by Maslow and Herzberg. Rather than use the term happiness we can use a related term – contentment. Your life’s work should be something more enduring – like contentment or fulfilment of your potential or self-actualization.
Mental toughness is about opening doors to opportunity and contentment and then having the psychological equipment to go through them – Maslow’s self-actualization in practice, perhaps!
Anxiety control and relaxation
Fitness and diet have positive effect on anxiety control and relaxation.
Attention control
If there is one factor that underpins people’s ability to perform at their best, whatever their occupation, whatever the situation, it is their ability to focus and control their focus of attention effectively.
Routines and practice help.
Focusing on what you are trying to do, rather than on how you are trying to do it, can help keep attention focused on relevant information.
Goal-setting
Goals provide a sense of direction and purpose. Goals must have:
- Clarity
- Challenge
- Commitment (importance)
- Feedback
- Task complexity
SMART(ER) goals – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, exciting and reviewable.
Breaking a large goal into smaller interim goals or milestones will generally make the process more achievable.
[1] In the book on page 65
[2] Henry Ford in the book on page 96
[3] Vince Lombardi in the book on page 97
[4] Abraham Maslow in the book on page 98
[5] Yorke in the book on page 170
