How to Improve Mental Toughness

It is difficult to succeed without mental toughness. People who achieve overnight success often "crash and burn" because they have not needed to develop mental toughness. Building mental toughness is one of the most useful things a person can do to guard against stress and anxiety and also to ensure some success in achieving goals. People who are risk-averse often have an inability to overcome stress and adversity; this inability is frequently a precursor to anxiety and depression. Less dramatically, it can lead to underperforming because such people are reluctant to risk failure.

Instructions

• 1

  Take risks. This does not mean that you should be reckless, but almost every successful endeavor involves a risk of failure. Inability to take risks can become escalating mindset, until the fear overcomes ambition.

• 2

  Accept that some failure is inevitable. If many well-known writers, for instance, had been so cast down by rejection that they gave up, many famous books would never have been published. This also applies to many other spheres of life.

• 3

  Learn to detach yourself from rejection and failure. Do not become arrogant and unable to take constructive criticism. Learn to accept the rejection or failure as being about a specific issue, not you as a person. Being unable to keep failure in perspective fosters feelings of inadequacy and can make a person feel beaten down.

• 4

  Set goals that you want to achieve. This helps you to maintain focus and motivation. Concentrate on each task at hand, giving it your best effort. Avoid distractions, and try to focus on the process rather than the outcomes.

• 5

  Learn to enjoy the journey, or the tasks themselves, as this can remove some of the pressure as you strive to achieve. Learn how to switch off, as workaholics are not always the most effective people. Keep a sense of perspective.