Athletes constantly hear about the importance of mental strength. Successful athletes and teams often emphasize precisely the importance of mental toughness that leads to victory. If mental endurance is the key to the success of elite athletes, how do athletes develop this important ingredient for success, especially in situations of adverse circumstances?
What Mental Strength Is, and What It Is Not?
Mental strength is a skill that helps in overcoming stressful and demanding situations. Mental endurance does not guarantee victory; it helps to overcome difficulties and thus creates a chance for success. It is not biologically conditioned; there is no genetic code for mental toughness. Mental toughness is a learned skill that helps us face challenges. It is an athlete’s ability to remain focused, motivated, and committed to their goal, especially in situations when faced with difficulties and defeat.
If we agree that mental strength is a skill, then we can develop it alongside physical and technical skills. When training any skill, it is necessary to focus on execution and repeat that process in order to develop self-confidence and faith in our capabilities. Mental strength is like a backup plan that activates when things go wrong. Everything revolves around the expectation of possible events and a coping plan. If we do not develop mental strength, our responses are limited and the result is usually failure.
If you start working on developing mental strength, you will handle failure better, bounce back faster after injuries, cope with difficult conditions (bad weather, delays, faulty equipment, poor refereeing), and face distractions.
Tips for Developing Mental Strength
1. Predict what might shake your concentration and self-confidence during a competition (e.g., a poor referee decision, field conditions, a mistake…), that is your room for improvement.
2. Imagine how you will handle that challenge, admit to yourself that you do not have control over all events, and do not waste energy on things you cannot influence.
3. Create demanding situations that simulate competition, train under pressure so that, to begin with, you learn to be OK, then good, and finally excellent even in those toughest circumstances.
4. Look forward to the unknown, new circumstances bring new knowledge, but do not expect results immediately.
5. Analyze your performance and identify strategies that were successful as well as unsuccessful, think about what you can change in similar situations.
6. Fight even when it seems to you that you have no chance at all; no one can forbid your engagement and fighting until the end.
Choose what you want to be: a leaf or a canoeist. A leaf and a canoeist find themselves in the same situation, but the leaf travels wherever the river carries it, while the canoeist determines the direction themselves. Do not let the lack of mental preparation carry you where you do not want to go.
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Mental Training Blog guest: Matija Kopajtić, Master of Psychology
