For athletes in all competitive sports, the role of psychological strength is massive. Not only do top-level athletes have to be physically strong, agile, and skilled at their craft, but they have to be able to out-smart the competition to win.
So, what are the elements that comprise mental toughness for athletes? Is it possible to learn these things, or are top athletes simply born with them? You can assess your IQ online by looking at the MyIQ test. But there’s more to it than just a single glance.
So, what are the primary elements of mental toughness? We’ve broken it down into several fundamental qualities:
Grit. Athletics is tough. It is tough for high school athletes, kids getting started on a court for the first time, and, of course, for professionals. What does it mean to be gritty as an athlete? It means continuing to train when you are tired. It means focusing when your mind wants to drift elsewhere. It means pushing past the obstacles even when they appear larger than life. This is why certain athletes make it to the top when others fail.
Perseverance. Perseverance is all about staying with something over the long haul. Top-level athletes go through a lot of ups and downs during the course of their training. There are many times when they want to quit, both for physical and psychological reasons. An injury, burnout, changing conditions…there are many things that can challenge an athlete’s desire to persevere. But the best ones will stay in it through thick and thin.
Love of the sport. To continuously succeed in a sport, you really have to love it. Without sincere passion, you won’t have the desire to persevere year after year. You need to go to bed at night excited for the next day of practice, and wake up anxious to make it to the gym. You should have competition at or near the front of your mind at pretty much all times.
Temperance. For all your passion, you shouldn’t let yourself get too carried away on any given day. You should know how to pace yourself, and you should walk into the gym calm and focused. If you become too over-the-top emotional at any given time, you could subsequently experience a low that it may be hard to recover from. Eye on the ball at all times.
Even if you don’t have the ability to go pro, you can always hone your skills to make yourself a stronger competitor. This includes several things:
Moving past mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes as an athlete. Lots of them. While you shouldn’t simply forget about things that have gone wrong, don’t dwell on them. Simply step forward and move on.
Don’t get cocky. If you win a competition, that is great. But don’t let your head get too big. Take the win as a motivating factor to keep working even harder so that you can go even higher next time.
Take ownership. Your training is up to you. Of course, your coaches are there to help you, but it is ultimately up to you how much you can achieve in the gym. Don’t complain because your knee hurts or you got indigestion last night or your coach yelled at you. Simply move past it.
One other major category of improvements that you can make involves honing your cognitive aptitudes. Take the MYIQ online test to see how you score in terms of your overall IQ. It is true that not all athletes are braniacs, but developing your cognitive skills can give you much better mental toughness, and help you outsmart the competition.
The MYIQ test will tell you where you stand in terms of your IQ, give you a percentile ranking, and illustrate how you can raise your score in subsequent efforts through helpful exercises and courses. It also offers separate tests for several different areas
Overall IQ assessment
Personality type
Potential career choices
Potential relationship types
In other words, itis truly a comprehensive program. And the best part is that you can continue working on it for as long as you need until you get the score you want. People everywhere are raving about this program and how useful it is for many different aspects of their lives.
You might not be able to change certain things about your athletic ability. The best athletes in the world are those that are both born with incredible physical ability, and have extreme mental toughness. You can hone your physical ability to some extent. But it is your mental aptitudes that really help you in life, and this applies to sports and other endeavors. So start doubling down on your mental skills today. Work on your intellectual skills, and your mental toughness. You will be glad you did.
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