mental resilience

step 1 identify the source and impact
Simply recognising the specific pressures that
are causing your stress and the impact they
have on you emotionally, physically and
behaviourally can go a long way to reducing
the feelings of overwhelm that occur.
step 2 is it real?
Many of us are guilty of 'horribilising' - great
word! Under pressure we start to think of the
worst things that could happen and then we
start to believe they will. Yet they hardly ever
do. We beat ourselves up and accuse ourselves
of being a 'failure' or 'being unable to cope'. Or
seeing everything as our fault. We ignore our
strengths and successes and focus instead on
our faults. We wouldn't allow other people to
speak to us in this way but we do it ourselves.
We become our own worst enemy. We need to
learn to argue with ourselves, to question our
'fuzzy' thinking in order to undermine our worst
enemy - the one within!
Step 3 - what can I do?
Some sources of our stress are under our
control, some we can influence and others are
outside of either. Recognise which source falls
into which category. This helps us understand
the approaches we need to adopt - the direct
approach to remove and release the cause or
source or the indirect approach to help us
address the impact on us, the symptoms
Step 4 - address or release?
The most common sources of stress are
people. Even when it is not directly caused by
people, the solution often lies with people.
Often we avoid addressing people directly for
fear of how they may react. We fear that we
may make the matter worse. Usually we don't.
There are some clear do's and don'ts for these
conversations to improve your chances of
success. You'll find out about them if you click
on the yellow box in the top right of this page.
Step 5 - are you alone?
Even the toughest need support. What support
do you want? Who supports you? Who should
be supporting you? Who could support you?
Would they if you asked them? People are raely
mindreaders. You need to ask for the support
you want - go on - do it!
Step 6 - can you relax?
Easier said than done but there are some very
simple and effective techniques for doing so.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Autogenics
usually work great. They're easy to learn and
you don't have to spend hours a day doing
them - 10 minutes usually does it!
Step 6 - do something you enjoy every day
Strangely as soon as we become under
pressure we tend to drop the things that help
prevent us getting stressed. Don't drop the fun
stuff. Do some sport, read a book, paint, sculpt,
watch a comedy DVD. Whatever you enjoy.

nature or nurture
There are people who seem able to focus on
what is important and really FOCUS on what
is important when the pressure is on.
Who would bet on Tiger Woods missing a 20ft
putt to win th masters? Or Venus Williams
serving an ace at match point?
The truth is even these people work at
developing their mental resilience. In fact
they do it more than anyone - it's why they
are where they are!

building blocks
There are three primary building blocks of
mental toughness:
___self-belief
___focus on the important controllables
___positive self-motivation
When these are combined with an ability to
recognise the sources of pressure which
affect us most and effective strategies to
overcome them, we are guaranteed to
improve our mental resilience. Just follow
these 6 steps.