Zahariades, Damon. The Mental Toughness Handbook:
The Mental Toughness Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Managing Negative Emotions, and Overcoming Adversity with Courage and Poise - Kindle edition by Zahariades, Damon. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Managing Negative Emotions, and Overcoming Adversity with Courage and Poise.
This book was a quick read and it helped me to organize the way I handle the increased stresses of current global chaos. The following are my notes.
Trainees are placed in extreme hostile situations that trigger natural fear response. The situations are progressively more extreme in order to find the hidden braking point. Fears are not to be ignored but endured with confidence in their ability to respond to the extreme situation.
Knowing that fear is a normal response to extreme stress and that we can protect ourselves from it by required habitual training.
The Mental Toughness Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Managing Negative Emotions, and Overcoming Adversity with Courage and Poise - Kindle edition by Zahariades, Damon. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Facing Life's Challenges, Managing Negative Emotions, and Overcoming Adversity with Courage and Poise.
This book was a quick read and it helped me to organize the way I handle the increased stresses of current global chaos. The following are my notes.
1 Fundamentals of Mental Toughness
Few are born with mental toughness.
Mental toughness requires work, overcoming painful and difficult obstacles, large dose of patients, besotted with frustrations, plagued with intense periods of anxiety and dread, and will have to work through more failures than basking successes.
2 What Is Mental Toughness (And How Does It Differ from Grit)?
Mental toughness is durability in the face of adversity. Those with mental toughness exercise a high level of resilience during hard times. Grit is an attribute of behavior while mental toughness a state of mind.
2.1 Ten benefits of being mentally strong.
- Will develop resistance to negative emotions.
- Will improve performance in all aspects of life.
- Will have greater confidence in dealing with future circumstances.
- Will handle stress with greater ease.
- Will be less susceptible to self-doubt.
- Will have greater clarity of intentions and purpose.
- Will have greater confidence in overcoming fear.
- Will not be deterred by failures but see it as an opportunity to learn a better way forward.
- Will delay gratification with ease.
- Will easily let go of unrealistic goals or desires.
2.2 Top Seven Traits of Mental Toughness
- Able to disentangle ourselves from things we cannot influence.
- Flexible in handling unscheduled or unanticipated events.
- Strong sense of objective self-awareness.
- Willingness to confront and endure the unknown.
- Able to bounce back from failures and disappointments.
- Avoid emotional meltdowns and emotional rage against self, others or the unknown.
- Realistic optimism about self, others, and circumstances.
2.3 Eight Obstacles of Mental Toughness.
- Self-Pity.
- Self-Doubt.
- The Internal Accuser aka the Predator Mind.
- Fear, the great and powerful slave master.
- Laziness, “I’m too good for this” thinking.
- Perfectionism, “if it is not perfect than I won’t do it” thinking.
- Emotionalism.
- Self-Limiting-Beliefs will not try something new.
2.4 Mental Toughness Exercise to Identify and Eliminate Obstacles.
Write 2 or 3 obstacles from the above list on note cards and place them next to your bed. Take 5 minutes each morning to affirm your determination to overcome those obstacles.
3. Pivotal Factors in Developing Mental Toughness.
3.1 Mental Toughness and Emotional Maturity.
The Value of Self-Awareness.
Increasing self-awareness is the first step towards increasing emotional maturity.
Be Empathetic.
Empathy is awareness of others. Being aware of others is the next step.
3.2 Emotional Maturity Attributes.
- Acknowledge and accept both the positive and negative emotions as being a part of life.
- Meditate at least 5 minutes a day on current emotions without judgement.
- Constantly improve awareness of what can be changed and what cannot. Consciously eliminate any frustrations towards the latter.
- Proactive. Deal with problems quickly thus avoiding chaos..
- Works on health. Sleeps well, exercises well, counteracts the stress of life with relaxation techniques, and exercises the inner joy.
3.3 Mental Toughness Exercise to Identify and Eliminate Negative Emotional Energy Drains.
Make a list of emotions that typically occur when experiencing obstacles, failures, or setbacks. Focus on each identified emotion and describe how it drains energy and any resulting destructive behavior. Finally, write down positive counter measures that you can employ.
4. Mental Toughness and Mental Resilience.
Mental resilience is the ability to work around obstacles, setbacks, failures, or unforeseen circumstances. Mental toughness takes resilience to the next level by viewing these obstacles and opportunities for growth.
Those without mental toughness react with fear, anger, and/or violently to obstacles/failures.
4.1 Catastrophic Thinking Weakens one’s Ability to Adapt.
4.2 Anticipate and Rejoice in Failures.
4.3 Mental Toughness Exercise to Identify and Eliminate Catastrophic Thinking and Behavior.
Make a list of past catastrophic thinking and behavior. Detail every over-reaction to the failures, the unnecessary cost of time, money, and energy, and what would have been a positive, simpler, and less costly way of dealing with these failures. This exercise with a few simple changes in reactions to negative events will have a significant impact.
5. Mental Toughness in the Face of Adversity.
5.1 The Finnish Concept of Sisu.
The Finnish word sisu can best be described as grim courage in the face of certain failure.
5.2 Embracing sisu in the face of adversity.
- Look towards the power of creativity to prevent being overwhelmed by impossible circumstances.
- Work on what can change while testing ways to overcome that which are more challenging.
- Maintain emotional peace throughout the day and not to react to setbacks, frustrations of the day, or other misfortunes.
- Expect and prepare for problems.
To sum it up “Adopting a sisu mindset doesn’t mean ignoring your weaknesses. Nor does it entail showing false bravado when confronting insurmountable odds. Rather, a sisu mindset calls for recognizing your circumstances, evaluating your options, and taking determined action toward achieving your desired outcome. It’s an acceptance that things are not working in your favor, but a commitment to press forward despite that fact.”
Zahariades, Damon. The Mental Toughness Handbook (p. 63). Kindle Edition.
5.3 Mental Toughness Exercise to Identify and Eliminate Negative Reactions to Seemingly Impossible Circumstances.
Write down the negative reactions to unexpected and seemingly impossible circumstances. Contemplate the inner reasons and then write down ways to calmly respond to such shocks.
6. Mental Toughness and the Importance of Delaying Gratification.
6.1 Five Ways to Develop Impulse Control.
- Have a clear and concise set of values.
- Have a clear understanding why such values are important.
- Have an action plan when feeling the need for gratification.
- Have a productive alternative behavior to known compulsive desire(s).
- Schedule rest-stops on the journey of self-control.
(6). My personal experience is to have a clear visualization of the future. Knowing what I am striving for has kept me from being fooled by quick and easy.
7. Mental Toughness and Habits.
Habits are the key to mental toughness.
Habits are pre-programmed actions that we have chosen to incorporate into our existence. They usually run-on autopilot and are important during times of stress. Positive, healthy, and introspective habits help to endure the stress of difficult circumstances.
7.1 Guide to developing positive habits.
Make the new habit easy and enjoyable so it will be hard to stop. Whenever experiencing setbacks in habits just restart the habit at current level. A 10-20% increase in difficulty every six weeks works best when upgrading. Negative emotions towards new habits can sabotage efforts.
7.2 Five Daily Habits That Will Improve Mental Toughness.
- See past mistakes as necessary training for future successes.
- Evaluate negative emotions when they arise.
- Strengthen self-confidence.
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right”, Henry Ford. - Focus on gratitude.
- Keep increasing tolerance for change.
7.3 Mental Toughness Exercise to Establish Positive Habits.
Write down the positive habits that you want to develop. For each habit, detail the method that you know that you can easily adhere to and the motivations that will keep you going. Review your progress on a weekly basis and search for any negative emotions that will counteract your goal to change.
8. Talent, Ability, and Realistic Confidence: How They Influence Mental Toughness.
8.1 Realistic Confidence Spring from Realistic Abilities.
Realistic confidence is based on known talents and abilities. Being prepared for any hardship comes from learning from past experiences.
8.2 Knowing Realistic Abilities Develops Realistic Confidence.
8.3 Knowing the perils of unrealistic confidence helps to define and further develop realistic abilities thus enhance mental toughness.
Realistic confidence appraisal:
- My confidence has been tested and shown to be realistic.
- I do not hesitate or back away from obstacles that I am realistically confident that I can handle.
- I can share my understanding of how I can handle the problem(s).
- I have learned to endure setbacks and have learned to do workarounds.
8.4 Five Core Building Blocks of Realistic Self-Confidence.
Building realistic self-confidence is a lifetime work and requires respect of the power of the unknown’s ability to reveal our unseen weakness. Therefore, it is important to know how to build realistic abilities.
- Willing to leave the comfort-zone.
- Willing to experience emotional discomfort.
- Keep analyzing strengths and weakness.
- Be positive and grateful.
- Rejects the desire for validation.
8.5 Mental Toughness Exercise to Build Realistic Self-Confidence.
Make a list of things that have a negative impact on realistic self-confidence. Analyze the internal and external behaviors that cause over/under confidence. Then write down steps that can be taken to work on the flaws of realistic self-confidence and practice asserting realistic self-confidence.
9. How Attitudes Affect Mental Toughness.
9.1 Overcoming Circumstances vs Expecting Them to Change.
Circumstances that can be changed requires work and conversely that which cannot be change requires acceptance.
The Importance of Commitment.
Committing to a project means a willing to sacrifice to achieve the goal.
Willingness to Work at Continual Growth.
No resting on past laurels.
Keep tools clean, sharp, and in their place.
Keep improving skillsets.
Keep increase our knowledge and usefulness.
Stay flexible in the face of obstacles.
Strive to be Grateful in All Things, Including Adversity.
Gratefulness is the grease that reduces the resistance to adversity.
Seeing the good things of life is the umbrella on a rainy day.
Heartfelt appreciation of others brightens their light of the giver and receiver.
Mental Toughness Exercise to Improve Attitudes.
Write down 5 things that prove a can-do attitude, five self-sacrificing events needed to complete a task, five ways of showing continual growth, and five ways of showing gratitude.
10. Mental Toughness and the Inner Critic
Common Signs of a Self-Distructive Inner Critic.
Catastrophic Thinking.
Guilt/shame Emotionalism.
Extreme generalizations and ridiculing absolutes.
My way or the highway thinking.
Constant negativity about the future.
Five Ways to Counter the Lies of the Inner Critic with the Light of Truth.
- Immediately challenge the inner critic with the knowledge that the criticism is always a lie.
- Challenge the criticism with facts.
- Challenge extreme generalized criticisms with rational and objective truths.
- Counter the negative inner critic with inner and external positive thinking and behavior.
- Be our own inner best friend by protecting/supporting yourself from the inner critic.
Mental Toughness Exercise to Challenge the Inner Critic.
List the past week’s most common negative and self-destructive self-talk. Then write down positive behavioral and attitude changes that will negate them. Remember that the goal is mental toughness not perfection.Willpower vs Motivation.
Willpower is mental determination to endure hardships for the sake of achieving something of great value. Motivation is a technique used to keep us striving towards a goal.Understanding Willpower.
Willpower is strongest in the morning, so it is best to do willpower related difficult tasks early in the day. Willpower is also best when energetic and well fed. Willpower is weakest when tired, hungry, cranky, or mentally fatigued.Understanding Motivation.
Motivations work best with short term goals. By scheduling new tasks into a daily routine can help with achieving desired goals. However, this method relies on rote behavior and can be easily lost when our schedule is disrupted.Mental Toughness Exercise to Enhance Willpower.
When feeling impulsive, go into a meditative state and focus on breathing until the impulse clears. This is a way to train the mind to see the self-destructive nature of the impulse and a way to get used to discomfort.Mental Toughness Exercise Learn Best Motivational Techniques.
Write down the treats, friend(s) supporters, positive affirmations, and/or visualizations the work best to keep motivated. Also, write down the causes of these motivations to evaporate.Understanding Self-Discipline.
Self-discipline is the grit that keeps us going where willpower would fade. It is a mindset of internal commitment to a project or goal.Five characteristics of self-discipline.
- Maintains a temptation free environment.
- Has realistic expectations and only take small steps.
- Has realistic action plans.
- Anticipates and endures setbacks or discomforts.
- Stays focused on the current task.
Mental Toughness Exercise to Understand Self-Discipline.
Write down 15 common things that require discipline to resist or carry out. Like the discipline required to resist sweets, gossip, interruptions to uncomfortable task, looking at text messages during conversations, watching too much tv, etc., or discipline needed to do the dishes, regularly clean the house, make the bed, exercise, meditate, etc.Mental Toughness Refuses to Give Up.
Five common reasons why we give up.
- Failure to “own” commitments.
- We allow ourselves to give into temptations.
- We allow ourselves to be easily distracted.
- We are unclear about why we are doing what we are doing.
- We have unrealistic expectations.
When the desire to quit is overwhelming answer these five questions.
- Why quit?
- Is the project taking too much time, too costly, too stressful, and/or no longer useful?
- Are the rewards of the goal worth the sacrifices?
- What is the real purpose of the project?
- Do we lack resolve, or do we need to dig deep?
- The most common reason for quitting is the unwillingness to pay the price of success.
- Is quitting the best choice?
- Make sure that there are no regrets from quitting.
Mental Toughness Exercise to Understand the Importance of Perseverance.
Contemplate the life of someone that persevered in the face of extreme difficulties. Look carefully at the personal sacrifices were necessary to achieve their goal(s) and write down three things that we would do and three that we would not do.The Upside of Boredom
Boredom is an opportunity for introspection, contemplation, and meditation on life.Boredom is a consequence of mastery.
Mastery is a necessity of mental toughness.
How to change boredom into inner growth.
While doing tasks that we have mastered and the work no longer requires intense focus, we can train the mind to increase our awareness of the inner goal(s) of the work.Mental Toughness Exercise to change the negative boredom into inner growth.
Write down the negative responses we have when bored, then write down ways to change those negative responses into positive method of inner growth.Learning From Failures
How failures improve mental toughness.
Failures’ feedback loop hones our situational awareness and increases our confidence in dealing with the unknown.Five Lessons to learn from failures.
Rewarding successes comes after a long road fraught with failures.
Every failure is a valuable learning experience.
Persistence trumps everything.
Fear hamstrings everything.
We decide how to emotionally react to failures.
Mental Toughness Exercise on Learning From Failures.
Write down any dramatic failure and the accompanying negative emotional experience. Knowing what the negative emotional pattern towards failures is, helps to prepare ahead of time ways to handle such emotions.How Navy Seals Develop Mental Toughness.
Mental toughness trumps physical toughness.
Trainees are placed in extreme hostile situations that trigger natural fear response. The situations are progressively more extreme in order to find the hidden braking point. Fears are not to be ignored but endured with confidence in their ability to respond to the extreme situation.
Knowing that fear is a normal response to extreme stress and that we can protect ourselves from it by required habitual training.