If you're a regular reader, you know that every month I include the admonition to "get real, get tough, and get going." For me, it's a way of summarizing the attributes that I believe are required for mental toughness. A brief explanation of each:
• Get real
This is about rigorous, relentless honesty and objectivity. It's about confronting things as they are, not as we'd like them to be.
• Get tough
This step deals with developing the thick skin and character required to be tough-minded as a way of life. This doesn't imply hard-headedness or cold-heartedness. The former characterizes people who resist input or feedback that challenges their preconceptions; the latter describes those who punish either themselves or others for the "way things are."
• Get going
I've worked with many people adept at honesty, objectivity and tough-mindedness who unfortunately, accomplish nothing. They know what to do, but they never actually do it. Life rewards action.
Because mental toughness does not happen naturally, we have to build and sustain new muscle. Mentally tough people are not cold or arbitrary. Those words better describe people who are hard-headed rather than tough-minded.
Two people who personify mental toughness for me are Stuart …show more content…
1098 Victories, A Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective: "The clearest insights I've ever heard about winning and losing come from my friend Pat Summitt, retired with 1,098 career victories, most of any college basketball coach of either gender. She was a huge confronter, not in an accusatory, finger-pointing way, simply a brutally frank assessor of her weaknesses. She had to analyze the loss before she could sleep - and sometimes that meant not sleeping for 48 hours - and then confront her players and drag them to the same realizations. She wrote her memoir this year, and I helped her type the following
• Get real
This is about rigorous, relentless honesty and objectivity. It's about confronting things as they are, not as we'd like them to be.
• Get tough
This step deals with developing the thick skin and character required to be tough-minded as a way of life. This doesn't imply hard-headedness or cold-heartedness. The former characterizes people who resist input or feedback that challenges their preconceptions; the latter describes those who punish either themselves or others for the "way things are."
• Get going
I've worked with many people adept at honesty, objectivity and tough-mindedness who unfortunately, accomplish nothing. They know what to do, but they never actually do it. Life rewards action.
Because mental toughness does not happen naturally, we have to build and sustain new muscle. Mentally tough people are not cold or arbitrary. Those words better describe people who are hard-headed rather than tough-minded.
Two people who personify mental toughness for me are Stuart …show more content…
1098 Victories, A Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective: "The clearest insights I've ever heard about winning and losing come from my friend Pat Summitt, retired with 1,098 career victories, most of any college basketball coach of either gender. She was a huge confronter, not in an accusatory, finger-pointing way, simply a brutally frank assessor of her weaknesses. She had to analyze the loss before she could sleep - and sometimes that meant not sleeping for 48 hours - and then confront her players and drag them to the same realizations. She wrote her memoir this year, and I helped her type the following