MENTAL TOUGHNESS
How To Elevate Performance Under Pressure

Many leaders view the pressure that professional athletes experience as unique. But you and the teams you lead experience pressure that equals theirs, only without a roaring crowd of fans surrounding you. This pressure might come in a sales call that makes up 30% of your yearly income, a performance review that determines whether you get a promotion, or a meeting where you’re presenting a daring, innovative proposal. In these moments, the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you’re expected to perform at your highest level.

If you don’t, you will lose control of your future, forfeiting it to a boss, coworker, or competitor. Cracking under pressure can set you and your company back years.

But succeed, and you become a champion in your workplace.

The Shot

Michael Jordan races down the court while being double-teamed by two Cavaliers on the inbounds, doing everything they can to keep the ball away from Jordan. It’s game five in the 1989 Easter Conference Series between the Bulls and Cavaliers, with the Cavaliers up one point with three seconds lef

Jordan moves right, pushing away the Cavaliers’ power forward, then cuts left to get open and receive the incoming pass. Drifting left, Jordan takes a jump shot at the foul line over the defending shooting guard as the time runs out. Swish! At the last second, the Bulls win by one point.

This shot is one of the most famous plays in basketball history. It’s so famous that it is known only as “The Shot.” One reason why is that it demonstrates one of Michael Jordan’s most excellent and valuable characteristics as a high performer in basketball: the ability to keep a competitive edge until the last second, generating opportunities to score until the very end, especially in do-or-die situations.

You can hone that competitive edge in your work too, no matter what you do. The same principles apply to high performers everywhere, not just in sports. Because at the end of the day, excellence isn’t a sports concept, but a human performance one.

In sports psychology, mental toughness is a measure of an athlete’s confidence and ability to cope with the pressure that impacts performance. Mental toughness measures the player’s capacity to excel while performing under extremely demanding conditions.

Sports psychologists have narrowed down the attributes of mental toughness into a four-stage framework:

High performers master mental toughness by adopting performance-boosting behaviors at each of these four stages. Although they are applied to an athletic setting, these behaviors are universal and, as you’ll discover through this special report, are in no way limited to athletes

For you, instead of performing in a competition, you need to perform in the workplace. You may not be training in a gym, but you do go to work to gain experience every day in an office. As you read about how mental toughness is demonstrated in high-performing athletes, think about how these concepts can be adapted to the performance required of you by your workplace, family, and community.

Attitude

Belief - On the deepest, most foundational level, mentally tough performers have a pervasive, resounding belief in themselves that transcends sport and competition. They are fundamentally confident not just in their ability, but their capacity to work toward and succeed in achieving their goals, needs, and desires.

Focus - Throughout the training, competition, and post-competition process of mentally tough performance, athletes who exercise high levels of mental toughness remain focused on long-term goals. They are unlikely to make decisions that will profit them in the short term but not the long term. In every part of their life, long-term achievement is

Training

Simone Biles has trained 6 days, 32 hours a week, every week, nonstop for the last three years after switching coaches to Laurent Landi in 2017. She’s in control of every aspect of her training regime. After becoming the first woman to land a triple-double in competition, she said, “I feel like you should never settle just because you are winning or you are at the top. You should always push yourself.

Using Long - Term Goals As a Source of Motivation - In order to perform at the highest levels of their events, mentally tough performers need to undergo years of intense training. No one has the ability to go through what they do without motivation. To stay focused while repeating the same routine month after month, year after year, mentally tough performers use long-term goals as a source of motivation.

Controlling the Environment - While training, mentally tough performers have complete control over the environment they train in. They aren’t put in a situation by others, rather they are the ones who control, down to the tiniest minutia, the characteristics of their training environment.

Pushing Yourself to the Limit - A common idea that mentally tough performers focus on is “pushing yourself to the limit.” This means training and getting comfortable with pushing yourself as hard as you physically can, even up until failure. It also means becoming mentally prepared for the sensations and emotions of putting in literally 100% of your effort. It becomes a kind of self-competition to performers with mental toughness.

Competition

In order to get his team focused and in the right mindset, Michael Jordan would lie, telling everyone that players from the opposing team had been trash-talking them. He would tell himself that he got cut from the varsity team in high school because he wasn’t good enough (in reality he didn’t get a spot because of his age). Though completely false, these lies got Jordan and the rest of his team into a high performance mindset.

Handling Pressure - Mentally tough performers enjoy “the big day.” They thrive throughout every stage of the event. Mental toughness also means being able to adapt when thrown a curveball. Sudden changes or unpredictable situations are adaptable to mentally tough performers.

Belief - In competition, belief for mentally tough performers means trying as hard as you can down to the final moment. Believing you can win, believing that your best efforts will be enough to win, is a fundamental cognitive behavior in mentally tough performers.

Regulating Performance - Mentally tough performers know how to recognize the moments in competition that determine success and seize those moments by elevating their performance. By knowing where and when to expend their highest effort, mentally tough performers save their best for the times when it matters most and achieve success as a result.

Staying Focused - Focus in competition allows mentally tough performers to excel at their difficult tasks regardless of hype, pressure, the things people are saying, and the many other factors in a competition that are irrelevant to the successful execution of their task.

Awareness and Control of Thoughts and Feelings - Mentally tough performers know the thoughts and feelings they have when they perform at the highest level. Part of mental toughness is the ability to control your mindset, changing your thoughts to the ones that are ideal for achievement.

Controlling the Environment - In training, mentally tough performers need to create an environment for ideal performance. In competition, the environment leaves the athlete’s total influence. Being able to control the environments they perform in sets mentally tough performers above their competitors. To handle a competition environment, or even to take advantage of it, is the mark of a mentally tough performer.

Post-Competition

In order to get his team focused and in the right mindset, Michael Jordan would lie, telling everyone that players from the opposing team had been trash-talking them. He would tell himself that he got cut from the varsity team in high school because he wasn’t good enough (in reality he didn’t get a spot because of his age). Though completely false, these lies got Jordan and the rest of his team into a high-performance mindset.

Handling failure - Mentally tough performers treat failure as a learning opportunity. Performers have higher mental toughness when they can analyze their performance, understand why they failed, and then adapt whatever caused the errors so they can achieve their ultimate goal.

Handling success - Mentally tough performers know their ability, what it takes for them to succeed, how to celebrate success, and when to get back to work. Pressure increases when you succeed and coping with the new kind of pressure that success brings is crucial.

All of the characteristics above are important. But when you boil down mental toughness to its essence and render from it the most fundamental key indicators of high performance, you find that three repeating themes stand out.

Every high performer demonstrates these three mental skills:

MENTAL TOUGHNESS IS ROOTED IN A HISTORY OF HIGH PERFORMERS

In this section we’ll talk about these three fundamental key indicators – control, focus, and belief – how they apply to universal human performance, and their origins not in sports psychology, but in the entire human experience.

CONTROL

Do you have a friend who only says whatever you want to hear in the moment? Every time you voice an opinion they agree? Every decision you make is a great one? Everything you ask of them is “no problem”?

How reliable is that friend?

Yes-men make poor friends and even worse coaches.

As you learned in the last section, it is important to have complete control over your thoughts, emotions, and environment, both while training and competing.

Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese general who demonstrated and recorded this principle during his military career. Rather than worrying about the likelihood of an attack from one of his enemies, Sun Tzu controlled his environment by making his position unassailable. So, if there ever was an attack, Sun Tzu’s army would be in a position of strength regardless of the situation.

Strategic Excellence Position

Sun Tzu was speaking about an army’s physical position in war, but the same principle applies to your position at work.

You shouldn’t worry about whether or not an attack is coming, because one always is. Don’t assume that your boss won’t evaluate your performance. Don’t assume that a peer won’t lay the blame on you when things go wrong. These are attacks that you will face as you work and struggle to achieve success.

Rather, make your performance, your position, unassailable. Make your labor so abundant that you’re too valuable to lose. Make it clear to everyone from your work that you are above reproach.

Dr. Scott O, Baird, Griffin Hill human performance expert and leadership coach, talks about Strategic Excellence Position (SEP). Your SEP is your goals and aspirations. It is also what you do, what you excel at, and the way your work impacts the world at large.

Don’t prepare when you think there might be an attack. Master and control your SEP in the way that Sun Tzu describes above - make your position unassailable.

At the end of the day, you are in control of what you do, what you excel at, and what you reach towards with your goals and aspirations. Forfeit control over these things, and you become subject to the whims of your boss, coworkers, employees, peers, and competitors. Master control over your SEP, and you create situations and environments that generate opportunities for success.

Focus

Each high performer at the forefront of their field needs focus in order to stay motivated, perform under pressure, and seize sudden opportunities before they pass.

When Beryl Markham talks about greatness originating, “not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of [your] daily work,” he is describing the way that mentally tough performers understand and exercise focus over the course of their lifetimes.

Few, if any, massive life changes can be accomplished in an hour. Many of the biggest things we seek, those things that are most important to us, are accomplished over a period of decades rather than months or even years. It is impossible to work continuously toward these goals without focusing your thoughts and efforts on your long-term goals and the behaviors that support them.

Anyone who tells you that success is fast or easy is scamming you. True achievement is not gained in an hour of extreme effort, in one high-risk investment, or one moment of decision. Achievement is gained through the consistent application of behaviors that inch you toward success, day after day, year after year.

Priority Alignment

To stay focused on your goal and the behaviors that will get you there, align the priorities of your team and your individual priorities. You do this by communicating with your boss, team, and employees about your roles and responsibilities. Focus on what will make your SEP stronger. Set, reflect on, and record goals that improve your performance in your work roles.

Consider reading a list of your roles and responsibilities on a daily basis. Mark down what you do successfully, and reflect on where you have room to improve. Write down the tactics that increase your productivity, and do all of this before you start working so that everything you do afterward is focused.

In time, your focus will increase, the quality of the work you do will be more tuned in to the expectations of those you’re accountable to, and the long-term goals that were originally so far away will inch closer and closer.

Belief

Mentally tough performers are capable of getting into a mindset when they’re about to perform that puts them in the ideal mental and emotional position to excel to their greatest ability

In the 10th Century BC, King Solomon ruled over the most prosperous and successful period in Israel’s history. He forged political alliances and controlled trade, stretching his kingdom’s influence across Africa and the Arab Peninsula. King Solomon knew that in order to be a powerful and wise leader, his thoughts needed to be the kind that supported his success, not undermined it.

Dr. Scott O. Baird at Griffin Hill says, “What you think about is what you will become. What you think about in a persistent, disciplined way will determine the level of achievement that you will reach.”

High achievers create a mindset that prepares them for success.

But simply telling yourself, think better, isn’t really an actionable behavior. Trying to think better thoughts through sheer force of will is like getting a hype man to help you go to sleep. In order to improve your ability to think in a persistent, disciplined way, start reflecting and writing in a journal.