7 Strategies to Build Mental Toughness as Athletes
As an active athlete, in the course of your career, training, participating in tournaments, and so on, you’ll encounter various physically demanding activities. These activities require you to be mentally strong to partake in as they come with intense pressure and expectations.
It can be overwhelming and disappointing when you’re not hitting your target. It’ll feel like things are falling apart, and you might even consider giving up your passion.
But that won’t be necessary, you only need a little toughness mentality to get back up and conquer.
In this article, we’ll talk about 7 strategies you can adopt to build your mental toughness.
Set realistic goals
First thing you need to do is be real with yourself. Perhaps the reason you help feeling like you haven’t achieved much, which is depleting your toughness, is because you set the bar too high.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to aim higher, but you must be realistic in the course of that. Set clear goals that are measurable, achievable, and that allow you to track progress.
Focus on the controllable
Stop worrying about the outcome of a sports event. Rather, keep your eye and mind on what you can control such as your effort, attitude, preparation.
Know that whatever the outcome would be, you can’t control it. But you can measure your personal performance, and improve where needed. This helps reduce the anxiety and pressure for you as an athlete.
Embrace challenges
As an athlete, you’re going to encounter a handful of challenges in the course of your career. Get used to it. Don’t run away. Develop a tough skin for it. Find solutions to them.
With each challenge you overcome yourself, it increases your problem-solving IQ. And this applies to your life both on and off the field.
Develop a strong routine
Get into a consistent pre-competition and training routine. Go as hard as you can. The process helps your mind prepare for what’s coming.
Sometimes, competitions don’t feel very competitive but because they don’t, but because you prepared for it.
Preform mental rehearsals
Picture yourself performing your best in a competition. The feeling, the pump, the excitement can help you come close to matching that mental picture.
It also helps you reduce anxiety of any kind knowing the match ended well even before it started. And most importantly, you performed exceptionally. This help you sustain a healthy mental health, which determines a great outcome.
Recite affirmations
Many athletes don’t see this as effective but it is. Affirmations are not mere words you say to deceive yourself, they’re a process of ingraining positivity into your subconscious.
If you keep saying positive things about yourself, your skills, and your career repeatedly. In a matter of time, there would be no more space left in your subconscious for negativity. And from that point, all you know how to do is win.
Stay calm under pressure
Another way to build your mental toughness is learning to stay calm under pressure. See pressure as an opportunity to improve your mental toughness rather than as a threat.
For example, when your competition is ahead of you in a match, your chance at taking over the lead is hugely dependent on your ability to stay calm.
Celebrate small wins
Acknowledging your small wins is a great way of staying motivated. It also encourages you to strive for more wins and be better at your skill.
You got a new trophy? Put it up on your Instagram, not caring what somebody else thinks or says. Attained a new milestone? Get yourself some nice gift.
This helps you stay committed to winning, and reinforce a positive mindset.
Develop grit
You must accept that things won’t always go the way you want. Therefore, you must stay committed to your long term goals even if it feels uncomfortable doing so.
Keeping your effort sustained over time can help you develop mental toughness.
Talk to a sport professional
The last strategy on our list is reaching out to sports professionals such as a coach, if you don’t already have one. A coach is not only limited to helping you get better at your sporting skill, but also helping you develop mental toughness as an athlete
The combination of both great skill and mental toughness is what prepares you for greatness.
Can mental toughness be trained?
Mental toughness is achieved from the repetition of certain activities such as the ones above. Overtime you get used to undergoing uncomfortable situations. At that stage, it is safe to say you have attained a good level of mental toughness.
Be ready to do the work. Be ready to face challenges and overcome them alone or with the help of someone else. It will take some timem and it might stretch your mind, but you can achieve it. And once you do, no challenge will faze you anymore.
As Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the stoic philosopher of ancient Rome says: “Treat your body rigorously so that it may not be disobedient to the mind”
In conclusion, yes, mental toughness can be trained. Be patient while at it. It’s a journey. Give yourself time to grow into it. And when you finally do, you’ll face new challenges with better experience.
Wrapping It Up
In the world of sports, almost nothing is predictable. But rest assured you’ll fare smoothly and have a great career if you develop some thick skin against any adversity.
Your mental toughness is a strong determinant of your career’s growth. Hence, a need to train yourself to absorb challenges, or better put, learn to solve them without getting scathed.
If you’re looking for a coach to help you build and develop your mental toughness, then look no further; Sportconn can help you achieve that.
Sportconn is an app that encourages athletes, coaches, sport business owners, and even fans to come together and create profitable relationships among themselves. There, you can find a well-groomed coach that’ll help you build a solid mental toughness in no time. All you need is some commitment.