Mental Toughness Training

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Mental Toughness Development
Presented by Dr Peter Clough Doug Strycharczyk
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Mental ToughnessWhy is it important?

• Mental Toughness is directly related to
• Individual and group Performance
• (Positive) Behaviour
• Wellbeing
• Aspirations

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What is Mental Toughness?
The quality which determines in some part how
people deal with challenge, stressors and
pressureirrespective of the prevailing
circumstances
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The Four Cs

• Mental Toughness has 4 components
• Challenge
• Control life control emotional control
• Commitment
• Confidence in abilities and interpersonal
• Which can be combined to provide an
• overall measure of Mental Toughness

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Mental Toughness Development

• Mental Toughness is much more of a state than a
  trait
• This means it can vary over time as a result of
  setbacks or successes
• As it can change, it can also BE changed by
  careful intervention
• This programme looks at how this can be achieved

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Understanding the World in which we work and live
Pressure, Stress and Consequences
Stress can be defined as How we respond
physiologically or psychologically To stressors
and challenges physical and mental Which place
special demands on a person.
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The main themes encompassed by this definition
are that

• Stress is not necessarily bad and is unavoidable
• Many stressors are what motivate or challenge us
  we need them!
• We all swim in a sea of stress all the time
• Individuals react differently to the same
  stressors thats what is important
• Inability to deal with stress can be physically
  and psychologically damaging

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A Model Of Stress 4
Stress is the result of the impact of stressors
and the way the individual responds to that
stressor
STRESSORS
CONSEQUENCES
Individual Level Group Level Organisational
Level Extra-organisational
Psychological Behavioural Cognitive Physiological
STRESS
THE INDIVIDUAL
Personality Mental Toughness Age, Self Belief,
Gender, Social Support, Physical Fitness,
Challenges Special effort
Peak Performance
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Challenge
The extent to which people respond to change and
challenges
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Control
The extent to which people feel in control of
their life and their emotions
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Sub Scales
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Confidence
The extent to which people respond to difficult
tasks and setbacks
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Sub Scales
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Commitment
The extent to which a person will persist with a
goal, particularly, where that is measured.
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Mental Toughness the Workplace

• These are all demands we increasingly make of
  employees.
• Rarely do we assess their capacity to deal with
  these demands
• Rarely do we do anything about it.
• We need to assess these and provide much better
  support.
• The Mental Toughness Model gives us the
  framework and the tool with which to do this

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How we respond to challenge is key

• If we respond badly it can have a detrimental
  effect on our health, work, relationships, etc.
• If we respond well we are closer to achieving
  effective stress management optimising our
  performance
• Conquering stress, pressure and challenge can be
  broken down into two components
• Seeing the challenge not the threat Dealing with
  stressors
• Increasing your resistance to stressors Coping
  with stressors

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Can we develop Mental Toughness?

• We can

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Main Psychological Weapons

• We can psyche ourselves into action
• or psyche ourselves out of action.
• Anxiety Control - coping with stressors
• Focus - Attentional Control
• Positive Thinking - Creating a can do frame of
  mind
• Visualisation - Seeing your success
• Goal Setting - Working SMARTER eating the
  elephant

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Anxiety Control

• The anxiety response is an adaptive response to
  danger readying the body for fight or flight
• When anxiety is brought on by worry or fears, the
  danger is not one we can physically fight or
  run away from.
• The response then, can have negative impact on
  performance and wellbeing.
• Techniques include
• Thought stopping
• Self talk
• Controlled distraction
• Relaxation techniques
• Controlled Breathing

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Attentional Control

• Interruptions and distractions can significantly
  impair performance. Learning to sustain attention
  is important
• Developing the ability to park the mind
  enhances concentration and enables you to
  maintain focus
• Losing focus can affect performance, behaviour
  and wellbeing significantly
• Techniques include
• Stroop Tests
• Number Grids
• Stork stand
• Penalty taking

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Positive Thinking

• We are what we think -
• Yours is the most influential voice you will hear
• It is fuelled by your dreams and aspirations
• Techniques include
• Positive Affirmations
• Turning negatives into positives
• Think three things I have done well today
• Penalty taking

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Guided Imaging

• Is most effective in creating feelings of
  calmness - focuses and relaxes the body
• Can be used to manage stress, unleash creativity,
  change attitudes, heighten concentration, set and
  reach goals, relax, stimulate performance and
  activate your natural healing powers
• Body reacts physiologically in the same way to
  sensory images as sensory experiences, e.g.
  mentally anticipating an event can be just as
  frightening (if not more so) that the event itself

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Visualisation

• Using your imagination is more potent than using
  words alone
• Like watching a video of yourself see
  yourself being successful
• Can keep replaying scenario till you are happy
  with it
• Visualisations should
• ? Be grounded in real life
• ? Focus on the positive feelings you are
  experiencing within your imagined scenario
• ? Negative thoughts should be pushed away

"If you can't imagine it, you can't do it."
Albert Einstein
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Goal Setting

• Goals provide a sense of direction and purpose
• People do perform better when committed to
  achieve certain goals. This links to
• ? Challenge seeing the goal and setting
  challenging goals
• ? Commitment setting the goal and sticking to
  it
• ? Confidence beliving in abilities to achieve
  the goal

There are no big problems, there are just a lot
of little problems. Henry Ford
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SMARTER
Setting yourself goal gives you meaning and
direction, and fuel and energy to achieve you
objectives. For goal setting to be effective
think SMARTER Specific - clear and concise
goals Measurable - know what success looks
like Achievable - challenging but not
impossible Relevant - relevant to circumstances
and has a real impact Timebound - work towards a
deadline Exciting - inspires enthusiasm and
commitment Reviewable - re-establish targets as
circumstances change
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Big Goals

• How do you eat an elephant?

A slice at a time!
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Other tools

• Time Management
• Fatigue state and trait
• Procrastination/Pro-activation
• Biofeedback

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DOES IT WORK?

• IT DOES
• THE EVIDENCE

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MTQ48

• If you want to complete it FOC.
• Please provide a business card or e-mail
  address.

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Any Questions?
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MTQ48 Organisational Case Study

• Major NW Local Authority 3 star
• Employed 7000 staff 97 senior managers
• Decided to go for excellence better than 3 star
• Reorganised merged with local PCT
• Year 1 year of visioning went very well
• Year 2 - year of planning went very well
• Year 3 start of years of delivery little
  happened
• Organisation had previously been centrally led
• Objective was to empower and engage the whole
  workforce and
• Introduce a performance management culture.

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MTQ48 Organisational Case Study

• What happened next
• 2006 participating in the validation study for
  ILM72 -they also used the MTQ48 with all 97
  managers
• Organisational analysis extremely interesting
• Result
• Understood why the organisation had struggled
  with its goals and
• Where attention had to be directed
• Has now developed a co-ordinated OD programme
  with a greater chance of success
• Individual feedback to all managers

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MTQ48 Overall Mental Toughness

• Across the 97 senior managers almost 60had MT
  which was no
• greater than the normal population

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MTQ48 - Challenge

• Across the 97 senior managers more than 70 had
  Challenge scores which were no greater than the
  normal population.
• The organisation had accepted a major challenge!

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MTQ48 Commitment

• Across the 97 senior managers more than 60 had
  Commitment scores which were no greater than the
  normal population.
• Perhaps explaining the lack of commitment.

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MTQ48 Confidence

• Across the 97 senior managers about 70 had
  Confidence scores which were no greater than the
  normal population.
• Key in dealing with setbacks and selling the
  programme to others