Mental Toughness

Mental Toughness: What is it?  Why learn more about it?

Mental Toughness is persistence in overcoming an external challenge in your setting and/or a sabotaging inner critic. Mental Toughness can help you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually do.  

Any transition requiring deep change in your personal and professional lives begins with a challenging physical and mental struggle.  A mental toughness framework, and ways of implementing it, will provide you with a road-map for moving into this struggling phase and transition. 

Interest in Mental Toughness: Self-Initiated or Imposed on You?

Moving into the struggling phase may be self-initiated or may be imposed on you by external circumstances.  A business executive may initiate a complex organization-wide cultural change with his or her senior team and other stakeholders in the organization.  Another example is if a person starts an eight-month training program to run a marathon which will involve finding time and energy amongst other responsibilities and commitments to family during this period of time. 

Alternatively, entering the struggle may be involuntary, such as in the case of a traumatic outside event which might include the death of a spouse or family member, a divorce, loss of a job or injuries from a serious car accident. 

Both voluntary and involuntary situations will involve a struggle with physical and/or mental aspects which will require a transition through deep change into a new normal. 

Origins of My Interest in Mental Toughness

My personal experience with these kinds of struggles were relatively minor compared to the ones I have just described.  In 2013, I formally retired from UCalgary’s Haskayne School of Business; I describe this transition as a pro-tiring occasion. This new chapter would involve my teaching two courses per year without other faculty-related responsibilities or expectations. Thus, I was leaping forward enthusiastically into the next chapter of my life.   

However, two other major activities occurred in 2013. My first challenging project involved a pilgrimage circumambulating Mt. Kailash in western Tibet from May to June. This pilgrimage involved a series of stages, first flying 24 hours to Frankfurt, onto Delhi and finally into the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Then traveling five days at 40 km per hour in a small, very decrepit old van overland north across the border into Chinese-occupied Tibet, and westward on the high Tibetan plateau through many military checkpoints to a small community in western Tibet. Finally, this would be the staging point for the pilgrimage. The next day I started the three-day pilgrimage walking very slowly at 12,000 – 18,000’ altitude around Mt. Kailash, a very holy mountain for Hindus and Buddhists. One of the physical challenges was preparing for high altitude sickness. There were moments when I thought I was going to die on the mountain.  After visiting another holy space, Lake Manasarovar, I drove the five days back to Kathmandu in the same very slow van. Eventually I returned exhausted to Calgary.  

My second challenge focused on walking the 800 kilometer Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in France and Spain from September to October 2013.  I flew from Calgary to Gatwick for a few days and then flew to southern France. Then we taxied to a small community near the France/Spain border, and the next day started the trek across the border through the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain and walking west almost 800 kilometers over 36 days to Santiago in western Spain. After three weeks of walking, my body did not want to complete 20 kilometers each day. Often I had to negotiate patiently with my inner critic and other demons so that together we could continue westward to Santiago.    

My preparation for both pilgrimages involved extensive walking to physically prepare myself for the rigors of both challenges. Also, I researched the history of both pilgrimages and read pilgrims’ descriptions of their adventures. However, my preparation to become more mentally tough was not as well organized or focused enough to prepare me for the physical and mental challenges that faced me in real time during the days on each pilgrimage.  

Thus, began my interest in others’ experience with mental toughness. Over the past four years, I have synthesized elements of mental toughness from a variety of sources, including the more recent versions of preparation for Navy SEALS training, for professional athletes training, and for education where mental toughness is known as “grit”.  

Others’ Experience of Mental Toughness 

Historically researchers and practitioners have described a variety of personality characteristics and specific kinds of experiences as key to developing mental toughness. However, what follows is a more systemic, integrated approach to strengthening your existing level of mental toughness.  Let’s call it a Mental Toughness Framework. The six elements of the framework are interdependent among themselves. You can use the framework holistically and begin with any part in the framework and then move to include the other parts as you can through your own initiative and the support of others.

 

Mental Toughness Framework©: an Integration of Many Persons’ Experiences

The six aspects of the Mental Toughness Framework include: 

1. Visioning your purpose and meaning
2. Visualizing your outcome
3. Establishing your set point: passions and values
4. Engaging mindfully with others in a supportive network
5. Focusing your attention and concentration
6. Life Force

 

You foster increased clarity about yourself when working through elements of the Mental Toughness Framework.  Identifying your passions and exploring your values are great inputs for establishing a meaningful purpose.  

Practice is vital when strengthening your existing levels of mental toughness and resilience.  For example, visualizing your outcome, engaging mindfully with others in a network of important and trusted others, and focusing your attention and concentration need practice to both master the skills and embed habits in your daily life.  Experientially, you can direct your attention by practicing “Box Breathing”.   In addition, you can strengthen your concentration by focusing on positive, performance-based actions while reducing an automatic “flight” or “freeze” response.  

Conclusion

When using as a tool, the Mental Toughness Framework provides a solid foundation to continue strengthening your leadership effectiveness and enhance your personal development.  This framework combined with: a) your willingness to dive deeper and practice new tools: b) mindful engagement with others in a supportive learning cluster and c) experienced mental toughness experts will help you achieve your important improvement goals. 

On a final more personal note, this evolving framework has become an important perspective for moving through my struggles of living in the 21st century’s complexity, volatility, ambiguity, and uncertainty.  And, at the same time, help me maintain a sense of hopefulness and inner peace. 

The Haskayne Executive Education Strengthening Mental Toughness and Resilience program provides a more in-depth exploration of each of these components of the Mental Toughness Framework.  The program runs April 3 to June 15, 2018.

Also, if you are interested in receiving a copy of Sloane Dugan’s Strengthening Mental Toughness and Resilience Workbook, please click on the link below and provide us with your name, company, job title and phone number, a member of our team will send you a copy. Receive your copy of Strengthening Mental Toughness and Resilience Workbook by clicking here.

About the author:

Sloane Dugan, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources area. He has taught at the Haskayne School of Business since 1980. He received his degrees from Syracuse University: BSc in Business Statistics, MA in Higher Education, and PhD in Organizational Behaviour and Change.

Sloane is passionate about how strengthening mental toughness helps leaders be more positively influential in their lives. As a result, leaders learn to more consciously make informed decisions. Previously, his research activities focused on the action research process with persons, teams, organizations and communities in North America, Asia and Europe. This research examined how the action research approach enabled them to create a vision of a good quality of life for themselves, marshal the resources necessary to pursue this vision, and develop the attitudes and skills necessary to move toward their vision.

Sloane worked as a teacher/community developer in the U.S. Peace Corps in Nepal and then served as a regional director of the Peace Corps for all development activities in Eastern Nepal from 1964 to 1969. He then taught practitioner-oriented programs at Syracuse University in Syracuse, the University of Kansas and the Ottawa University. Sloane was involved in UCalgary’s international development activities in Nepal, Thailand and in Bhutan for a decade. During the project’s initial three years, he acted as Canadian team leader and advisor to the Nepali Project Director in Nepal.

Since 1995, Sloane Dugan’s interests have shifted from international development in Asia to coaching and leadership development activities in Calgary and Europe. He has taught leadership and change courses in Haskayne’s Executive MBA Program. He has acted as a trainer and coach with programs offered by the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and in other countries in Europe.