Eight ways to develop your Mental Toughness

Life Control: Develop a strong inner compass; when your sense of direction is deeply internalized, you never have to worry about becoming lost. Stay true to your course and focus on what you can control.

Emotional Control: Grow your capacity to stay objective and deliver the same level of performance regardless of your emotional state.

Commitment Orientation: Keep your attention on the long-term outcomes to stay steady in the face of real or potential obstacles.

Delivery Orientation: Don’t expect results immediately or rush things to fruition before their time; anything worthwhile takes hard work and endurance, view everything as a work in progress.

Learning Orientation: Complications, unintended side effects, and complete failures are all part of landscape; mitigate the damage, learn the lessons that will help you in the future, and move on.

Risk Orientation: Make regular small excursions outside your comfort zone; get used to maintaining performance while feeling “slightly” uncomfortable.

Confidence in Capacities: Don’t worry about pleasing others: That’s a hit-or-miss proposition for anyone but the worst sort of waffler. Instead, make a concentrated effort to do what is right and to know what you stand for.

Interpersonal Confidence: Stay positive even, maybe especially, when you encounter negative people; don’t take their criticism personally and never bring yourself down. Don’t fall into the trap of criticising others, stay focussed on their arguments and why you do not agree.