I had always felt that what many people need is some sort of mental strength, a form of resilience, an ability to weather the storm of career, and build belief in themselves.
Fortunately, we have recent research to help us out in the form of mental toughness, an exciting and innovative idea pioneered by the folks at AQR.
Once upon a time (in 2011), I was preparing for my first-ever marathon. Now part of marathon preparation is the grueling practice of regularly running long distances. Fortunately, in Dubai we had (and still have) the Dubai Creek Striders, a running club mostly comprising expats who organizes Friday morning runs.
One Friday morning I was running with a friend, a Canadian who was also a teacher and we ended up talking about pass rates, failures, and why students drop out. She said there may be something out there on mental toughness. I was intrigued as this seemed like exactly what I was looking for. I reached home, Googled, found the email addresses of the related people and that’s how I stumbled on the concept of mental toughness.
Mental Toughness (“MT”) has been defined as “a personality trait which determines, in large part, how we respond to stress, pressure, opportunity and challenge, irrespective of prevailing circumstances” by Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk. The good news is that all this is evidence-based and backed by rigorous research. There are now more than 80 academic papers supporting this concept.
Studies in schools, colleges, and universities in the UK and in Holland showed a close connection between MT and how well young people did in exams. In fact, around 25% of the variation in a person’s performance in exams is explained by their MT which, by the way, is pretty significant, statistically speaking. The most critical questions you would ask are (a) how do you measure MT, and (b) how do you improve MT?
This pioneering (and path-breaking) work was done by Dr. Peter Clough and Dr. Keith Earle, both of the University of Hull in the UK. Dr. Clough and Doug Strycharczyk took the concept on in 2018 and created the eight-factor model with two factors for each construct.
They jointly developed the MTQ 48, which is a questionnaire that covers the four key constructs of MT:
If you want to find out more about MT, check out the website for AQR International.
Now, the obvious next question is if you are mentally sensitive, how do you build MT?
The following are the tried and trusted methods. And, each of these impacts one or more of the four above components of MT.
In olden days, anxiety was a good thing — it was the alarm signal to get away from that saber-toothed tiger and it unleashed the energy to flee.
These days it’s still useful but it can often be negative, overwhelming you for no good reason. How do you know you have an anxiety attack coming on? It’s easy — panic and an empty mind, pounding heart, shortness of breath, racing pulse, weakness, and so on.
It’s all about keeping your eye on the ball, metaphorically speaking.
The best example is when a footballer takes a penalty shot. It’s technically doable but mentally extremely stressful. The player has to deal with the goalie’s antics, insults, and roars from the crowd, sledging from the other team, the huge expectation from his team and his own anxieties. That can be a nightmare. The best penalty taker shuts out all thoughts. All he will think of are the ball and the task.
Everything else is irrelevant.
How do you achieve this?
We are what we think. The solution is to make affirmations which must:
• be made in the present tense,
• be positively phrased, and
• have an emotional reward.
A great technique is, “think three positives.” At the end of every day, write down three things that have gone well — no matter how small. Review your list weekly.
Use the ability to imagine something to deal with or cope with a real event. We can imagine almost any situation we face inside our heads and learn, inside our heads, how we would deal with them.
I will narrate the story of a friend of mine.
Erin is an Executive Coach and was called in to help a Skier in a national skiing team. The Skier had a problem. Before he started his move, he always visualized skiing down the slope. There was a sharp curve halfway down and he always imagined himself falling down in the curve. And guess what? Every time he skied downhill, he fell at the exact same spot.
Erin took him aside and spent several sessions on proper visualizations. Positive instead of negative. Success instead of failure. Smooth skiing instead of falling down. A few months later he skied to Olympic glory.
I have seen this with many of my CFA students. Even before they start their preparation they think of failure. This paralyses and weakens them and they walk into the exam hall with the battle already lost.
Goal setting is a good way of approaching challenges like a career move. Use the smarter approach.
What is equally important is the ability to set milestones — break the bigger goal into a number of smaller goals that have to be achieved in order to achieve the bigger goal. Each will be much easier to achieve.