Rethinking Mental Toughness
By Dr Michael Passaportis
Mental toughness is a term frequently used to describe a performer’s ability to block out negative thoughts and ignore uncomfortable emotions. Within sporting circles specifically, athletes are often socialised to value the absence of any negative internal experiences. Indeed, they are led to believe sporting success requires being strong, always confident, fearless, and tough, because if they’re not these things, well then maybe they don't quite have what it takes.
Yet, this is at odds with how the human brain is designed to work. Crucially, we have much less control over what our brains do than we might think. When we add to the fire the fuel of toxic positivity, we have a situation where performers are getting into tug-of-war battles with their own internal experiences that they just can't win. In this article I explore what happens if we take a step back and examine how the human mind works. My intention in doing so is that we might be able to reduce the burden on young athletes who believe they should always be confident and never nervous, and who feel that if they do experience those things, then there is something wrong with them, or they are not trying hard enough.
Instead, I wish to offer a different view of the much-coveted mental toughness, one where mental strength is replaced by psychological flexibility. That is, "the ability to act in a way that is consistent with your values and game plan, even when under pressure and faced with difficult thoughts and emotions" (Henriksen & Hansen, 2016). In my opinion, this view leaves much more space to experience joy, satisfaction, and fulfilment in sport and performance.
Understanding Your Brain: The Thought Factory
To understand why traditional approaches to mental toughness fall short, we first need to understand how our brains work. We all have a human brain in our heads, and this brain is made to produce thoughts: it's a thought-producing factory generating upwards of 75 000 thoughts a day. Due to this, it is impossible to stop it from doing what it is designed to do. We cannot block this flood of thoughts out, change them, or reduce their intensity.
Two Systems: Conscious and Automatic
There are hundreds of different information processing systems that contribute to this, but for the purpose of this article I want to focus on two that are important to performance. The first system is a conscious process where we can actively produce thoughts, make plans, set ourselves goals, and reflect on our progress. This one we have control over. The second system, however, is automatic: this system produces thoughts without us even knowing or realising our brain is doing it.
These automatic thoughts are produced in response to things we experience and encounter in the world as we go about our lives. It's these automatic thoughts that cause us problems because the part of our brain responsible for producing them is highly specialised with one primary objective. It is designed to keep you safe and alive.
Why Our Brains Are Safety-First Machines
To help explain this concept, if we think about our modern, relatively comfortable way of life, this is very different to how we lived 100,000 years ago. Life back then was fraught with danger, and if a person wanted to survive, their brain had to constantly be on the lookout for things that might hurt or harm them. If our brain was not good at predicting, spotting, and avoiding danger, then we did not survive.
To help us survive in such dangerous times, the default of the human brain had to be safety first. Our brains developed to identify danger before we encountered it by worrying, predicting the worst in every scenario, and avoiding anything that scares us. That is what kept us alive.
One easy way to recognise these types of automatic "lifesaving" thoughts is that they usually contain some version of "what if." We often refer to them as the "what if" stories because they tend to follow the pattern of "what if this terrible thing happens". This way of thinking worked. We survived and prospered. However, that part of our brain is still very much with us, stuck in always-on mode. Your brain is an automatic "what if machine."
The Power of Thoughts in Performance
You might be thinking “what does this have to do with sport and performance? Surviving in the wild is not the same as executing skills under pressure. What does all this have to do with being mentally strong?”
Well, quite a lot. Because what this shows us is that we can't control all of our thoughts, some of them just happen. Importantly for performers, our thoughts don't just remain in our heads either, they have power, and sometimes we have a thought that influences our behaviour.
To illustrate the thought-body connection with a simple example, imagine holding a bright yellow citrus fruit in your hand. You cut it open and smell the sharp aromas, lift it up to your mouth and take a bite of its juicy flesh, tasting the bitter and sour fruit. You may have noticed that your body has had some sort of reaction to reading these words. At the thought of eating something so sour, perhaps you grimaced, wrinkled your nose, squeezed your eyes shut or even salivated a bit when you imagined biting down on it?
I'd bet most of you felt at least something, and as far as I can tell, there are no lemons there with you. There are only words written on a screen, and reading those words caused thoughts in your mind that resulted in a very real reaction in your body. Thoughts have power, they influence us, and sometimes we have no control over what we think. This understanding is crucial when we move into the performance arena.
Protecting You from What You Value Most
It’s here where things get particularly relevant for athletes and performers. Your sport and performance matters to you, that's why you care, and if you care, there is risk to you emotionally and cognitively by taking part. What is key is that our brains struggle to distinguish between real, physical danger, and the threats we encounter as part of our high-performance pursuits. As a result, our automatic brains produce thoughts intended to protect us, but that ultimately impede our ability to perform.
Why Your Performance Feels Threatening
When we compete in a sport we care about, particularly in high-stakes situations, that automatic part of our mind identifies the competition as threatening. I'm not talking about physical harm, but rather the danger competition poses to things you value. You care about winning, performing to your standards, making family and friends proud, impressing selectors or coaches, achieving qualifying times. Competition threatens these precisely because you value them and because there's the possibility you could fail. If you've ever lost or failed before, you know the pain that comes with that experience.
Your Mind's Protective Response
When you face a pressurised situation, your automatic, threat-detecting mind becomes engaged, and it does exactly what it was designed to do. It looks for threats, identifies everything that could go wrong, and warns you about them. Your mind starts telling you all the various "what if stories"; “What if I make a mistake?”, “What if I let my team down?”, “What if I'm not good enough?”
This is completely automatic, and more importantly, normal. You can't stop it, and you might not even be aware it's happening. What’s more is these thoughts have power, just like the lemon example, they influence your behaviour by causing very real physical reactions in your body. We've all felt that weight of anxiety in our stomach, the jitters, the nervous energy from just thinking about having to perform.
The Problem With Fighting Your Thoughts
The biggest issue is that it is not possible to turn off those "what if" stories. In fact, if we try to and we engage in battles with them or strive to block them out, we get hooked on them. We get stuck in a tug-of-war battle with them and that's when performance really suffers, because fighting these thoughts takes our attention away from what matters. Instead of focusing on your performance, you're playing out all the "what if" scenarios in your mind.
The Myth of Unshakable Confidence
This is why we may need to re-evaluate what we think mental strength looks like. As Henrisksen and Haberl (2019) argue, when young athletes are asked to describe a mentally strong performer, they talk about someone who is always confident and never nervous. This image gets further reinforced through books, movies and documentaries that portray elite athletes as having supernatural mental powers and unshakable confidence.
Apart from being inaccurate, this creates an unrealistic standard. It causes athletes experiencing doubts and worries to think something is wrong with them, that they're not cut out for this level, or that they're mentally weak.
Yet what the science shows us is that right before a championship event, an elite performer’s dominant thoughts are often ones of doubt, worry, and even wanting to escape. What predicts performance success in these events is not what the performer is thinking, it's in what they do with those thoughts.
True Mental Strength: Performing Alongside Discomfort
This brings us to the core argument of this article. Mental strength or toughness is not the ability to block out uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. It's the ability to have these natural human experiences and still perform. To feel nervous or anxious, to have doubts about your abilities but still commit to behaviours that move you towards your goals and your values.
The Relief of a New Approach
Understanding mental strength this way can often be a relief to performers, as they realise they can stop struggling with their own thoughts and feelings. The goal of the work I do with performers is not to get rid of their anxiety, nerves, doubts, or worries completely. Instead, the objective is for them to be able to maintain their focus on their performance and execute their game plans without becoming entangled in thoughts and emotions. This requires paying attention, and so training awareness often becomes a central focus of our sport psychology work. Through developing a performer’s ability to pay attention to what matters, they can take charge of their actions and direct their energy and effort into achieving their goals, regardless of what their minds may be saying to them.
Recognising Thoughts for What They Are
When we recognise that those unhelpful thoughts are just a result of our automatic brain identifying a threat and trying to protect us, we can start to see that they are a natural response to doing something that you value. We don't need to fight them, instead, we can recognise them when they arise, see them for what they are, and then let them be. We can choose to pay attention instead to something that matters, preparing well for the game, being a good teammate, focusing on what you need to do for the next play.
Strength Through Acceptance, Not Control
Importantly, letting go of your thoughts is not weakness, it is not soft or giving in. I'm not saying let those thoughts run rampant through your mind. I’m actually saying the opposite of that.
What you are doing when you let go of those thoughts is dropping the struggle with them. You are saying: “I value my sport and my performance strongly enough to be able to withstand these uncomfortable, difficult internal experiences and still focus on what I need to do for me, for my team, and for the career or life I want”.
A New Understanding of Mental Strength
Mental toughness isn't about blocking out uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, it's about performing effectively alongside them. Our minds are designed to produce "what if" thoughts when we face situations we care about, and trying to eliminate these thoughts only creates internal battles that hurt our performance.
True mental strength is psychological flexibility: the ability to stay committed to your values and game plan while experiencing the full range of human thoughts and emotions. This shift from control to acceptance isn't weakness, it's what allows elite performers to compete at their best even when experiencing doubt, nerves, and pressure.
The foundation of sustainable high performance isn't the elimination of discomfort, but the willingness to pursue what matters most while being fully present.
