Too often, we hear of leaders claiming that they have a high level of resilience as they can simply ‘push through’ the challenging times. They believe their success is linked to their ability to do the hard yards, the long hours, and sustain the high demands of their roles. Their water cooler conversations often focus on who is operating with the least sleep, and with the greatest number of competing deadlines and commitments.
They artfully juggle the many stressful balls of their professional and personal life, dropping only those balls which bounce back up, and masterfully catching the glass balls which would otherwise shatter if not for their adept juggling skills. To the outside world, they appear to have it pretty much under control, coping with the high levels of stress, which comes with their role. Yet how easy is it? How long can they sustain this reality?
Research suggests that operating under long-term periods of high stress is unsustainable. Without due care and mindful practices, we can reach a tipping point, which moves us from a productive stressed state, to a state of depletion and burnout (Yerkes- Dodson Law). We find ourselves moving from a state of engagement and flow, to one of mental depletion and in some cases mental illness. Our performance state is impeded and the unintended consequences of our work habits create new challenges for us to overcome.
Rather than simply ‘pushing through’, leaders can benefit from building their mental toughness to better prepare themselves for the goals which they are pursuing. And whilst you might be thinking that this is just another way of saying “simply push through to completion”, true mental toughness is anything but.
Mental toughness
Mental toughness stems from developing both hardiness and confidence (Clough et. al., 2002). Hardiness requires an assessment of your control, commitment and challenge towards a goal, whilst confidence refers to your degree of self-efficacy. Designing your goals to encompass these constructs can provide a framework in which to build your mental toughness and associated resilience, sustaining high levels of performance.
When you’re thinking about building resilience, you should pause and reflect on how you are tracking against each of the constructs below. Which levers do you need to adjust to better your wellbeing and resilience? Increasing this self-awareness provides you with the ability to make informed choices as to the behaviours you would rather adopt, in order to achieve your desired outcome. Maintaining your status-quo without self-reflection may limit your ability to effect change and sustain high performance.
Let’s explore the constructs in more detail to support your building of your mental toughness and resilience.
4 constructs of mental toughness
1. Commitment refers to your level of commitment towards your goals, and your levels of associated motivation and engagement. Question whether your motivation and commitment is too attached to the feelings of success, which arise from validation from external sources (extrinsic motivation), rather than from your own perspective.
Are you able to increase your level of commitment by drawing from your intrinsic motivation? Consider how to reframe the goals to increase this alignment so you are personally connected and motivated by your goals, rather than being motivated by what you have been told must be achieved.
Purpose led goals are likely to produce higher levels of engagement, energy, motivation and commitment, and increase positive emotion and levels of optimism. A more positive outlook certainly aids resilience, and increases your capacity to develop creative solutions to problems.
2. Control refers to whether you have both life control and emotional control over your goals.
a) Life control considers the extent to which you determine how and when your goals are achieved and advanced. The greater your feelings of control, the greater your ability to select your actions towards goal completion, increasing your wellbeing and resilience.
Control may be impacted by the level of input you have towards scheduling your actions, empowering your advancement, and engagement towards completing your goals. How able are you to influence the manner in which the goal is pursued? How can you access the support you need, be it team resources, financial resources, or technical skills? What are the system constraints affecting your level of control, and how can you advance your goals within this system? How empowered do you feel to further your goal, and what steps can you take to better this?
b) Emotional control refers to your ability to influence your emotive state whilst pursuing the goals. Where you are highly anxious, elevated, excited or worried, you may consume considerable energy, depleting your ability to direct it towards fulfilling your goals. Using attentional control and self-regulation can influence your emotional state (both positive and negative emotions) whilst striving for your goals. Deciding what to pay attention to and what to ignore can assist with balancing your emotions. Positive self-talk and visualisation of positive outcomes are useful techniques to master for emotional control.
Adopting techniques, which allow you to control the extremes of your emotions, will build your resilience and ability to sustain performance for a longer period of time. This may include drawing on your strengths (refer to
the VIA character strengths survey http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey),
maintaining exercise, sleep and nutrition, using breathing exercises and meditation, seeking support to balance your load, and accessing a coach or mentor to co-develop solutions to current concerns.
3. Challenge refers to the extent to which you view the goal as stretching you, building your capacity to act and grow. Where you are not challenged by your goal, you may become bored and complacent which can derail your performance. Conversely, where the challenge is too great, you may feel out of your depth and at risk of failure. In both cases, you can improve your mental toughness by increasing the personal challenge associated with the goal.
Reframing the goal as a learning goal, where you are able to adopt a growth mindset to support your personal growth, can enhance your resilience. This may increase your openness to developing creative solutions towards goal fulfilment, broadening your capacity to act. (I recommend you read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset, The New Psychology of Success).
Managing the risks associated with the challenge, by embracing change, recognising your limitations, whilst developing solutions to extend beyond these limitations, may support your mental toughness and resilience. Adopting a mindset, which considers possibility rather than focussing on the threats associated with the outcome, can increase mental toughness.
4. Confidence refers to your self-belief regarding your own capacity to respond to the goal. Those with low levels of confidence may seek to draw on their prior success to remind themselves of what has worked for them in the past, and how it might be applicable to their current goal.
Applying learned optimism (a positive outlook, consciously challenging any negative self-talk) together with a growth mindset, can build confidence. This is further enhanced when focussing on self-determination theory, with increased relatedness, autonomy and competence (Deci & Ryan, 2011).
In working towards your goal, consider whom to work with to feel a sense of relatedness and belonging. Who are your key stakeholders in relation to the goal, and what is the quality of these relationships? These relationships might bolster your confidence where you don’t have all of the answers to completing your goal. Your focus on having quality conversations with such people, where you build trust, psychological safety and confidence, will open up a further support network with whom to collaborate. Having confidence in yourself as well as trusted others, engenders teamwork and cooperation, which can support confidence towards goal attainment.
Reward yourself for the small successes, which arise as you strive toward the larger goal. These smaller successes are the short-term performance accomplishments, which can increase your confidence towards achieving the goal to its completion. Stop and notice the progress you are making.
The results
Mental toughness can be developed. Knowing which combination of the four constructs to focus on will improve your potential to effect change, and sustain peak performance.
Grab a pen and paper and start to reflect on your current goals and the choices you can make to alter your degree of commitment, control, challenge and confidence.
References
Clough, P. J., Earle, J., & Sewell, D. (2002). Mental toughness: The concept and its measurement. In Solutions in Sporting Psychology. Cockerill (Ed). pp.32-43., Thompson, London. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2011). Self-determination theory. Handbook of Theories and Social Psychology, 1. 416-433.
Dweck, C. L. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House, New York