I often think that our parents and grandparents had to be tougher to survive and thrive than we do now. My Dutch grandfather lived to 101 years of age and saw two world wars in his lifetime. His country was occupied for five years in the World War II and he and his family were displaced. After the war, as a worker, it was common to cycle for ten kilometres just to find out if you had a job for that day. If you were rejected, you went home without pay but still had to feed your family.
Compared to their struggles my life has been blessed and easy. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own struggles and problems to deal with to be able to perform at my best. It was in 2014, when for the first time in my life I clearly noticed that I was operating at the limit of my mental coping capabilities. I didn’t feel myself and this was noticeable to those around me. I felt at a tipping point where things could go downwards quickly. Was this really happening to me?
According to Martin Seligman, at any point in time about 25% of the population has some form of depression. I’m not sure if I can say I was depressed, but this must have been as close as I ever got to it. I was just struggling to cope and felt as if I couldn’t handle one more thing. Of course, this meant I couldn’t perform at my best, either at work or at home. Many of the coping mechanisms I used in that period, are interventions you too can use to increase your Mental Toughness. At the time, I wrote about 14 interventions in a blog. The habits and self-interventions I describe in this book are a follow-up from this initial blog and are applicable to anybody. We all can be sure we’ll have some challenging times during our lifetime. Our problems and challenges might be small compared to others’, but we still have to deal with them.
Our problems might be small compared to others, but we still have to deal with them.
Mental Toughness doesn’t only help you deal better with life challenges, it also helps you to perform to your best ability in whatever you wish to pursue and live your full potential. Mentally Tough individuals simply are mentally and physically healthier and perform better. Research shows that they sleep better, make better decisions under stress, recover faster from injury, show emotional intelligence, feel less bullied, take on change more easily and perform up to 25% better.
The good thing is, we can all become a little bit more like that person and build our Mental Toughness over time. Mental Toughness is not only applicable for elite athletes, CEO’s, successful entrepreneurs or people who achieve amazing things. Mental Toughness is applicable and helpful to all of us in our day to day life. However, we can learn from great examples and aspire to learn from their strengths.
In my new book, which you can purchase here, I write about 15 of the qualities Mentally Tough individuals might show: their habits and the questions they ask themselves when they stand in front of the mirror in the morning. The book focuses on straight forward self-interventions you can apply to develop the same qualities and build your own Mental Toughness. Half of the proceedings of the book will go to The Movember Foundation, who ask attention for men’s Mental Health. Men don’t talk about their Mental Health, with devastating results. Did you know that in Australia, the biggest killer of men aged 15-44 is suicide?
If you have an interest in self-improvement and in particular in improving your health, well-being and performance through being more Mentally Tough, my new book is for you. I hope you join my mission in bringing Mental Toughness to the world
May Mental Toughness be with you,
Niels
If you want to measure your Mental Toughness using the only valid survey in the world and receive a 12 page personalized improvement report, drop us an email at info@mentaltoughness.online
