Mental Toughness
and Cold Weather Training.
Mental toughness is a mindset. It describes the direct link between thought & actions. Mental toughness allows for thought to turn into action, regardless of challenges, or things that may hinder you. Mentally tough individuals see challenges as opportunities to grow and find new solutions .
Hitting a tree 1,000 times in 1,000 places will achieve nothing, but hitting that tree 1,000 times in ONE place will chop it down.
Mental toughness is the ability to see the goal, aim for it, and follow through every time.
Confidence: believing and trusting in your abilities to complete the task.
Challenge: see challenges as opportunities to find new solutions and grow. Embrace the challenge, knowing that is better preparing you for something down the road.
Control: maintaining an internal locus of control, only focusing on what you can change. Avoid giving time to things that you can’t control.
Commitment: committing 100% to executing the plan you set for yourself. It is ok if it fails. The failure gives you the opportunity to go back to the drawing board, make a new plan, execute it, and repeat.
Can you improve mental toughness?
YES! It is like a muscle, it can get stronger over time with intentional work. Here are some tips to work on your mental toughness and your mindset.
RSF or Relentless Solution Focus
This phrase was coined by Dr. Jason Selk, top performance coach, working with individuals from Olympic athletes to CEO’s, on developing mental toughness. He dives into this idea in his book Relentless Solution Focus: Train your mind to conquer stress, pressure & underperformance. He believes that “The most common cause of failing to reach our professional and personal goals is hardwired in us: Humans instinctively focus on problems.” This is what is called a negativity bias.
Think about it…when you are getting together with people, what usually comes up in conversation? How tired we are, how much we don’t like work, what’s wrong with our family life, how we aren’t getting enough exercise, sleep, good food, etc. etc. etc. We want to connect with people and feel like we have similarities, so we say things like, “I’m tired” (knowing most people are). We get it, it is important to have people to discuss issues with, as long as the goal of that conversation is to help you solve those problems. Venting for venting’s sake doesn’t have a positive outcome. Then in our internal conversation, we focus on what went wrong, what is wrong. It’s all of this negative talk that keeps us down. The missing piece is that while we are focusing on what is wrong, we don’t always focus on potential solutions. The question asked by RSF is this:
“What is ONE thing that I could do differently that could make this better?”
The problems are still there, but instead of dwelling on them we focus on what can be better. Relentlessly focusing on SOLUTIONS.
Here are some suggestions from Dr. Selk to help you work towards a relentless solutions focus mindset.
The + 1 Concept: Focus on improving, not perfecting. You don’t need to cross the finish line in one step, but you do need to take that one step. Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect. Focus on simply improving the situation, rather than fixing it totally, right away. This will make it seem much more manageable. With consistent improvement over time you’ll get to your goal. All problems have a +1 solution.
Be Relentless: Within sixty seconds, turn every problem thought into a solution focus.
Expectancy Theory: What we focus on expands. The more you focus on problems, the more problems will appear. By changing our thoughts immediately to potential solutions, we will shift our focus. Just the idea of a potential plan can break the negative thought cycle. According to the expectancy theory, as we focus more on solutions, more solutions will appear. Let the brainstorming begin!
Write it down: In brainstorming, it is very helpful to see the positive options out in front of you. Dr. Selk provides a tool for tracking RSF on his website, which you can download here. It’s a type of worksheet. You can print out a ton of them and keep them in a 3 ring binder to use continually. If this doesn’t help you, try using a journal, an app on your phone, or something similar to keep your potential solutions in. You may never know when an ‘old’ idea can help solve a new problem.
Breakup the Four C’s into small goals.
Small goals will take you to the finish line, and beyond. Just focus on one area you want to improve upon at a time. For one month, pick a different “C” to focus on each week. For that week, only focus entirely on that “C” and improving it in any area of your life. This will help you build a habit of focusing on improving your mental toughness, but in a way that seems a bit more manageable.
Celebrate your (small) victories & improve self-talk.
By recognizing when we accomplish a small goal, it will help us focus on the positive. Then you can make a plan to get a little closer to your larger goal each week. When we beat ourselves up, or practice negative self-talk (ex: I’m terrible, I missed my PR, I failed, I got a terrible time on the race, etc. etc.), we are allowing the negative feelings to take up space in our brain (remember the theory of expectancy?). Try to switch the way you speak to yourself by noticing the things you did well, even when it wasn’t the outcome you wanted. (I missed my race goal time, but I got a minute quicker than last time.) Think like your trainer…you didn’t hit a PR, is Kyle or Emily going to beat you up for it? Of course not! We’ll always notice what you did well; whether it was good form, or proper breathing, etc. Then we talk about why you may have missed the PR (not enough sleep or good nutrition, distracted, or stressed, etc.). Lastly, we make a plan to hit the PR next time. Be your own best advocate and take the negative out of your self talk.
How does this translate to cold weather training?
As it gets cold, most people stop exercising as much. The weather gives us so many more excuses to use. It’s great to have an excuse because then we don’t feel as bad. We feel validated in our decision to skip out on the run, or not hold ourselves accountable.
However, if it is that easy for us to find an excuse, then maybe we need to readjust our goals. If we are aligned and passionate about the goals we have, then we need to take a mentally tough approach to training in the winter.
OUR BODY CAN DO IT…it’s our brain that usually needs the convincing!
We can’t control the weather, but we can control how we prepare, and adjust as needed. Use this season as an opportunity to practice your mental tough mindset! Feel free to check our blog last week with tips on how to better prepare for the weather so you are ready to go!
Have you heard of mental toughness or RSF before? Is this something you practice, or utilize in different areas of your life? Drop a comment or head over to our social media to let us know how mental toughness has impacted your life.