Mental Toughness The One Thing That Will Change Everything

i left home at 14

and i spent three years in homeless

hostels in london

and sofa surfing and trying to keep my

heroin addict boyfriend from

overdosing yet again but against

all of the odds i became the first woman

in the world

to drive a world rally car and the first

woman to drive

for ford motor company i started out as

a loser

and i became a winner so

why do some people win and some people

lose why

do some people achieve their goals and

others never get there

what do you think what’s the difference

between winners

and losers is it skill talent or

intelligence

that sets the winners apart rarely

alan sugar had one gcse einstein was

told

he wouldn’t amount to much bill gates

dropped out of harvard

in his junior year elton john walt

disney

and richard branson they all dropped out

of school to pursue their passions

and i was a runaway homeless teenager

with a drug addict boyfriend i dreamt of

becoming a rally champion since the age

of six

when i saw rally cars on tv for the

first time and

the colorful cars were whizzing through

the forest throwing up mud and

gravel and i saw the co-driver shouting

instructions

pace notes to the driver who was sliding

the car sideways and

just making the car dance through the

corners

i thought it was the most exciting thing

i had ever

seen and i knew from that moment that

when i grew up

i wanted to be a rally champion when you

were a kid

what did you want to be a ballet dancer

train driver

astronaut and did you do that or did

life get in the way

i had no chance of my dream becoming a

reality

i’d grown up in a dysfunctional house

with an alcoholic manic depressive

mother

who spent most of my childhood in a

lunatic asylum

and a father i was afraid of to survive

and function

i disengaged emotionally from the world

and i believed i was useless worthless

and completely unlovable

these are not useful or helpful thoughts

if you want to be a confident successful

rally driver

i started out as a loser and i became a

winner

so what happened how did i do that

and how can you do that too well

i may have the answer thirty percent

of any achievement you make will be down

to your skill

talent and intelligence only

thirty percent but seventy percent of

your achievement will be down to your

mental toughness your confidence

commitment

focus grit resilience determination

just think about it think about anyone

you admire

in business sport politics media any

field at all

they have all achieved their success

because of their determination their

focus

and their commitment it is your mental

toughness that will set you apart from

the rest

your mental toughness is your game

changer

so what is mental toughness well it’s

not

a macho aggressive notion some of the

quietest people

are really mentally tough mental

toughness

is the ability to manage the stress the

pressure the challenge

and the chaos of life and the better we

handle stress and pressure

the more likely we are to enjoy life the

mentally

tough thrive because they can breeze

through the tough times and remain

optimistic

for the mentally tough a challenge or a

setback can be

water off a duck back on the other end

of the spectrum

are those people who don’t cope so well

with

change and stress and are much more

likely to crack

under pressure these mentally sensitive

people however

are creative and pathetic they tend to

wear their hearts on their sleeve and

they’re brilliant listeners

they’re really nice to be around so the

world

needs a diverse mix of mentally tough

and mentally sensitive people

so how did i become mentally tough

enough to overcome the obstacles

and the setbacks that i faced well i

discovered

that there were four key aspects to

becoming mentally tough

which i wanted to share with you and

practice

repeatedly these will help you to

increase

your mental toughness the first aspect

is

control this is the extent to which you

feel you are in control of your life

you might feel like you’re in the

driving seat of your life

in control of your destiny you choose

the direction

the pace the style the destination

but you might feel more of a passenger

through life at the mercy of where life

takes you

almost a victim of what the world throws

at you

some people believe they can have

considerable influence over their

environment they can

make a difference and they can change

things

and this is the growth mindset that we

hear about believing that

anything is possible always open to

possibilities

and that we can steer destiny and

results the way we want them to go

but others feel that outcomes are out of

their personal control

and they’re unable to influence events

or others

so there’s a sense of having control of

your life but there’s also

emotional control being able to manage

your own emotions

as well as the emotions of others we all

get stressed

we all get anxious it’s just that some

of us deal with it better than others

you know that when you walk into a room

full of really stressed out people it

can be contagious and you can become

super stressed as well a mentally tough

person wouldn’t be affected by everyone

else’s emotions

if you can regain a sense of control of

your life and your emotions

you will feel more excited and more

engaged and energized by what life

throws at you and more able to cope

the more changes we face the less

control we may feel so really

it’s less about what happens to you but

more about what happens

within you what could you do today to

regain a stronger sense of control over

your life

start to visualize how things could be

if everything went your way

create a picture in your mind of what

you’re after forget the things you can’t

control

and focus on the things that you can

the second aspect of mental toughness is

commitment

this is our ability to set a task and

complete a task

how likely are you to persist with a

goal a target

or a work task you know some people love

to set goals and to reach them they stay

focused they don’t get distracted

but some people set goals and do nothing

about them

some people avoid goals like the plague

they are demotivated by them because

there’s a danger that if they don’t

succeed they might be exposed as a fraud

or a loser

people differ in the degree to which

they remain focused on their goals and

targets

some people are easily distracted or

bored or they divert their attention

away from completing goals whereas

others will persist

until the goal is reached have you ever

committed

to do something and you stick with it

for a bit but

you end up wandering back to your old

ways that’s because your commitment

wasn’t complete it wasn’t 100

you are either committed or you are not

a commitment is a hundred percent or

zero

99 commitment means you enter a danger

zone a tug of war where you

give yourself excuses and get outs and

you talk yourself

out of your commitment so what could you

commit to today 100

what if i could give you a task that

would take just five minutes a day

and will help you to start developing

your resilience

immediately are you up for it

well i want you to commit 100

to taking an ice cold shower every day

for the next seven days i know it sounds

awful but

you know lots of people do this every

day of the year

because they really feel the benefits it

activates the body’s natural healing

powers it makes you more alert it aids

digestion

helps with weight loss and improve sleep

anything in fact that you can do to

practice

tolerating discomfort will build

resilience commitment and determination

please give it a go and stick with it

because you will

thank me the third

aspect of mental toughness is challenge

people really differ in how they

approach a challenge or a setback some

people

when faced with a challenge will

immediately see the threat in it the

problems and the difficulties

but a mentally tough person will

consider every challenge

or problem that they face as an

opportunity

they’ll get excited at the prospect of

turning a challenge into something

exciting

a chance to try something new discover

something new

and they’ll thrive on the prospect of

flipping it around

and winning or just coming out on top

things won’t always go your way but

there is always

something to be learnt from whatever

happens

taking learning from every experience is

so

important sport of course is notorious

for teaching us

all about failure and disappointment and

in rallying they say

if you’re not crashing you’re not trying

hard enough

and what they mean is that you have to

push yourself

and the car to find your limit to

uncover your

as yet unknown ability and needless to

say i have had my fair share of crashes

in pursuit of finding my limit

lastly there is confidence most of us

want more confidence but of course

confidence is

intangible you can’t see it you can’t

hold it you can’t photograph it

but you can sense it and you can feel it

people will make a judgment about your

confidence in half a second

and that will influence how they deal

with you if they sense

nervousness in you they may find it hard

to trust you

people with high levels of confidence

have a strong sense of

self belief be warned though you can be

too mentally tough

you can have such high levels of

self-control that you’re hard to read

and

no one knows what you’re thinking or

feeling you might be so

focused that you don’t listen to anyone

else

and you maybe miss out on some amazing

ideas

with so much uncertainty lots of people

are losing confidence right now

we lack self-confidence and we can be

intimidated

by confident people but your skill and

your experience will almost

certainly be greater than you give

yourself credit for

you can have confidence in your ability

i have self-belief i believe i can

but it’s also important to develop

interpersonal confidence being

around other people i can influence

others

ask questions argue my corner speak up

and speak out

looking back i’d been developing my

mental toughness since i was a small

child without even realizing it

i grew up holding beliefs that i was

worthless useless unlovable and

i disconnected from the world

emotionally i hit rock bottom in london

and after years in homeless hostels i

just wanted to check out of life

but rock bottom can be a great place

to bounce back from my childhood dream

of becoming a rally champion would have

stayed just that

if i hadn’t lied and borrowed some money

to spend half a day at a rally school

that day changed my life 12 years later

i became the first woman in the world to

drive a world rally car and the first

and the only woman

to drive for ford i developed my

confidence commitment resilience

and sense of control of my life i

developed my mental toughness

and you can do that too we might be

stuck with the genes that we’re born

with

but we can all develop our mental

toughness you can choose to change

or choose to stay as you are a few years

ago i worked with a professional and an

amateur golfer

and i was helping them with their mental

approach to their game and their skill

was immense

breathtaking i couldn’t believe how they

could both hit a ball

such huge distances with ridiculous

accuracy

i personally couldn’t see any difference

in their ability

but it did strike me the amateur was

never going to make it as a professional

because under the stress and the

pressure

of a competition he cracked and felt a

bit

but the professional took the pressure

in his stride it was

water offered ducks back to him their

success

lie in their attitude approach and

mindset

just like yours does your mental

toughness will play a more important

role than

anything else in your success whether

it’s as a sporting hero

a partner a leader or a parent anything

so why do some people win and some

people lose

the winners have true self-belief

confidence commitment courage and they

feel in control of their lives they

don’t give up they are relentless

in the pursuit of their dream or their

passion their purpose

drives them just like it did for me

they see the challenge as an opportunity

and they embrace change as a chance to

learn and grow they learn something

valuable from

everything that happens to them they are

mentally

tough what could you achieve if you were

able to better manage the stress and the

pressure of life

as a confident committed focused and

determined person

imagine what would happen if you

developed

your mental toughness

you