Improve Your Mental Toughness in 2 Minutes

May 31, 12 | 12:06 am

By Barry Moltz

It is no surprise that it takes stamina and mental toughness to be successful in small business. The truly challenging part is achieving this level over an extended period of time. Dr. Jason Selk, a performance specialist and author of Executive Toughness, believes that "The way a person chooses to think will really control the way they behave." Having the right mental focus will lead to more successful business outcomes in the long term.

In my interview with Selk, he describes how to train for this mental toughness on your way to becoming a peak business performer.

1. Focus on solutions. Selk insists that within 60 seconds of when top-performing people are faced with adversity, they replace the negative thinking with solution-focused thoughts. He points to scientific research that shows people who have "Relentless Solution Focus" (RSF) are "proven to live longer, be happier, and to be significantly more successful." If you fail, cheer the darkness for a minute. Have a pity party if you want, but then focus on the solution. Fortunately, Selk believes that everybody can be retrained to focus on the solutions not the problems.
2. Seek to control only what you can. This is very difficult to do in practice. Selk reiterated, "The only thing we can control is how we deal with the past and what we do in the future." Learn what you can, but then take action to get another chance at a successful outcome.
3. Find one thing you can do differently to make the situation better. Selk says top performers force themselves "to control what they can control," which is how they deal with adversity. This is difficult, because Selk says humans are biologically built to have problem-centric thought (PCT). In other words, we have a tendency to focus first on the problems not the solutions.

Source: OPENForum. Continue reading the complete article "Improve Your Mental Toughness in 2 Minutes" on the OPENForum website.