Hey, it’s Stéph from StephandShay.com—excited to share this information with you!
While the COVID-19 pandemic and its shockwaves have continued into 2021, we keep getting hit with more stressful surprises. In business, the biggest news stories include major cybersecurity attacks, established businesses going under, and continued political unrest.
Inc. Magazine once listed the top most stressful events that can happen to a person as:
- Death of a spouse
- Divorce
- Marital separation
- Detention in jail or prison
- The death of a close family member
- A major injury or illness
- Marriage
What Is Stressing You Out?
Couple any of these stressors with the biggest news stories in 2021, and it’s easy to see why many of us are wondering, “How will I get through this?”
Our recent Olympics have connected Mindpower with athletic performance. Athletes are trained on the importance of mental toughness all the time. Successful athletes or teams often attribute mental toughness as the secret sauce that leads to victory. Yet, Simone Biles changed the worldview of super athletes when she announced she was withdrawing from most of her Olympics events for mental stress issues.
Way back in 2002, Jones, Hanton, defined mental toughness as “having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to: generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on the performer.”
So, why at the crucial moment did Simone Biles not have enough mental toughness to compete?
And bringing it back to you—the reader—why have you felt more than once in the last twelve months that you want to withdraw too?
What we know to be true is mental toughness is not biological. There is no genetic code or natural proclivity for mental toughness.
We aren’t born knowing how tojust suck it up and move on!
What Exactly Is Mental Toughness?
Mental toughness is a learned skill that helps you cope with challenging situations. It’s a broad term that covers your overall mental game.
Daniel Gould, professor of Applied Sport Psychology at Michigan State University, defines mental toughness as: “It’s an athlete’s ability to stay focused, motivated, committed in the pursuit of their goals, especially in the face of adversity and failure. It’s not like you show up on game day and have it.”
Mental toughness is developed. It’s what separates those of us who get slammed with one stress after another and still sail through (or so it looks to outsiders) and those who get the same stresses handed to them, but they stop, drop, and curl up into a ball.
Let’s leave sports for a second.
Scientific American wrote: a whopping 83% of coaches rate mental toughness as the most important set of psychological characteristics for determining competitive success.
So, whether you lost your job during the pandemic, or your marriage folded under the stress of the last year, or you’re bouncing back from a serious illness—whatever your stressful situation(s)—your ability to bounce back is directly related to your mental toughness. And this is where Mindpower comes into the picture.
What Is Mindpower?
But to put it simply, Mindpower is what separates the masses. It is the strength of your mental fortitude—how much you can “handle without crumbling.”
I got a crash course on how important mastering your Mindpower really is almost the second I stepped foot on my college campus year one. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Imagine hanging out with your college buddies golfing. Then BAM. I’m on my back, lying on the green. I literally did not know what had hit me, but I could see the horrified faces of my friends hovering over me.
By the time I got to the hospital, I had pieced together that while my friends and I were playing a round, the golfer on a parallel hole hit his ball directly in my direction. Not just in my direction—but a line drive directly into my right eye socket. I heard doctors talking about emergency surgery, maybe having to remove my eyeball and other horrible outcomes.
Fast forward, I was sent home in a last-ditch effort to save my sight, which meant I had to stay immobilized. The basic premise being that if I didn’t move my head for a week and didn’t use either eye during that time, I could potentially stabilize the internal bleeding. If I could reduce the bleeding and let the orbital bone heal, there was a very slim chance I’d see again out of the eye. You can say that my stress levels were off the charts.
I was in the prime of my life—this wasn’t fair.
And to add to the stress of the situation, I discovered lying absolutely still is mentally exhausting. I’m lying there, scared to death to move my head even a little, and my mind is racing, creating scenarios—one worse than the other.
Purposely not moving is like when someone tells you that you can’t pull the fire alarm. You just want to pull it. The mental mind field is a doozy.
Clearly, I didn’t lose my vision. I tapped into my Mindpower to heal it. Crazy, I know! If you want the full version of the story and how I healed it read, Master Your Mindpower.
What wasn’t apparent then, but has become my life mission today, is that mastering Mindpower and teaching others how to do the same is a world-changing endeavor.
You can believe that using Mindpower techniques saved my vision. Shay and I spend every week training individuals and couples how to master their own Mindpower and increase their mental toughness, so they can go out in the world and create greatness!
When you understand how easy it is to master your Mindpower, you will be amazed at what doors open for you personally and professionally.
How Do I Get More Mindpower and Mental Toughness?
In about six weeks’ time, you can become the master of your own Mindpower. But if you want to get started today, then let’s start with habits.
Easy Mindpower Habits
Mental toughness comes down to habits. It’s about doing the things you know you’re supposed to do—consistently. It’s as simple as sticking to a schedule. Here are the basic steps for building a new habit that increases your Mindpower.
- Start by building your identity—what are your values, principles, and passions?
- Focus on small behaviors, not life-changing transformations.
- Develop a morning routine that gets you going regardless of how motivated (or unmotivated) you feel.
- Stick to the schedule and forget about the results.
- When you slip up, get back on track as quickly as possible.
As we always like to say: proper planning prevents poor performance. So, to make sure we’re constantly productive and pushing the needle forward on our goals, we must consistently create our ideal mindpowered days and mindpowered weeks! After all, the compilation of the days and the weeks comprise the years in which we can make all of our big goals a reality.
Do you want to tap into your mindpower and mental toughness? Then grab a copy of our WSJ bestselling book, Master Your Mindpower, and join the thousands who are overcoming obstacles and achieving their lives’ goals with the power of their minds.
Even though we believe Mindpower is something that is innately within all of us, it has to be fully actualized for us to witness and utilize its power. But don’t worry, we’re here to help you along the way!
It Comes Back to Mental Toughness
Once you become aware of your own Mindpower, eliminating the stresses, roadblocks, and WTF moments from your work and relationships becomes easy.
Yes, Mindpower is a real thing. Yes, mental toughness really works.
In future blogs, Shay and I will keep breaking it down for you.
But, if you’re curious about how to achieve your goals this year, or you’re ready to resolve mental and emotional barriers through a series of impactful coaching sessions that will maximize your clarity, mental toughness, and success, check out our Mindpower Breakthrough course.
Stéph & Shay
#BeResilient
