5 Ways to Build Mental Fortitude

Every person on this planet has the capability to be mentally tough.

Mental fortitude starts with self-awareness.

In order to shift any behavior, you must first take inventory to evaluate where you are right now.

Self-awareness is the foundation of mental toughness.

It does not come easy… it requires courage and a willingness to become more aware of your thoughts and feelings.

To start building self-awareness, a couple of effective mindset tools are to develop a journaling or meditation practice.

Each of these practices forces you to sit or write your thoughts, which in turn can create space between you and your thoughts. .

By creating this space, it allows you to look at your thoughts objectively and build awareness.

You can notice and ask yourself:

• Where do my thoughts go?

• What patterns do I notice?

• Are these the thoughts that will help me improve?

Sometimes when we are “in our head” we are overwhelmed by thoughts instead of having clarity of who we truly are. By writing or meditating, it can help us get out of heads and take a different perspective.

After building self-awareness, these next steps can build your resilience and mental strength:

1) Let go of past performances

The resilient person will not meddle or ruminate on past performances - good or bad.

Understand that every day is a new opportunity to get better and that’s all that matters.

Playing and performing in each moment requires FOCUS.

Being in the present and not worrying about what’s to come or what has already happened is what separates the mentally tough person from others.

2) Be open to challenges and new growth

Growth does NOT happen in your comfort zone.

When obstacles barricade your path, it can be helpful to adopt the mindset of “the obstacle IS the way”.

Instead of using energy to find ways around it, the mentally tough person uses their [mental] strength and agility to sprint at the obstacle head on to THROUGH it.

These are the challenges in life that truly grow skills and character.

3) Develop a gratitude practice

We can not feel more than one emotion at a time.

You can’t be angry and grateful at the same time.

Gratitude is such a simple and powerful tool. When you practice gratitude daily it strengthens your ability to shift and shape your perspective.

Energy is everything - gratitude carries a strong, high frequency energy.

This means when you operate from a place of gratitude, when you think, write, or speak grateful thoughts you are literally working at a higher vibration versus when you are angry (which is a low frequency feeling.)

4) Focuses on the controllables

When it comes to performing well, it is critical to focus on the things you can control.

This includes (but not limited to):

• sleep schedule

• nutrition & hydration

• screen time

• training time (working on your craft)

• preparation

• the words you speak

• the thoughts you think

• how you treat others

• your response to events

What mentally tough people DON’T do is focus on things outside of their contro:

• the weather

• how their opponents train

• who coach is playing where

• officials’ calls

• how others may be act

• decisions of others

• opinion of others

All of these are factors in the outcome, but the mentally tough know that it is wise to spend their precious energy focused on the things they can actually control versus what they can’t.

5) Find the Good

It takes work to train the brain to be positive.

If you have taken time to become aware of your thought patterns, you will notice that our brain naturally defaults to the negative or the worst case scenario.

Our brain does this for a couple reasons:

1) Our brain wants us to be warned of dangers and needs to keep us safe

2) It takes less energy to be negative, we have 3 negative thoughts to 1 positive thought

It takes MORE energy to be positive and dodge around the limits our brain puts on us.

The resilient understands the natural limits the brain imposes and then trains their thoughts to see the good in every situation.

After reading through these traits, how many traits do you currently have?

How many of these traits still need work?

It is YOUR choice to work on these traits - they are the building blocks towards becoming a tougher you.

Building mental fortitude and resilience is for everyone, but not everyone is willing to sacrifice and spend time investing energy into the hard work that is required.

Can you put in the required work with desire, intention, and practice?

How are you choosing to build your mental fortitude?