What is mental Fitness?
Mental fitness refers to the ability to maintain a positive and healthy mindset, manage stress and emotions, and effectively navigate challenges and obstacles. It encompasses various mental and emotional well-being practices such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, meditation, and positive psychology. It improves our ability to think clearly, make effective decisions, and overcome the stresses of life.
Mental Fitness and Business
Sports can be a microcosm of life and there are many lessons that can be carried over to business. A team sets out with a goal of winning a championship understanding that the path to the goal is one game at a time. In preparation for each game the focus turns to what activities or plays need to be mastered in practice. These are the same steps of having a goal and breaking it into smaller pieces that are applied to achieving success in business and in life.
Challenges Make You Stronger
You will face challenges along the way to achieving your goals. The key to success is being able to adjust and adapt to these challenges. This is where mental fitness comes in, as it allows individuals to have the skills and mindset necessary to work through these challenges and come out on top.
Here are five practical tips for improving mental fitness and overcoming challenges.
- Embrace Reality
- Set Clear Goals and develop a plan to achieve them.
- Enjoy the Journey not Just the Goal
- Push past the plateau
- Consistently Show up for yourself
Embracing Reality
Mental fitness is not just about pushing through challenges, but also about embracing reality. In interview on the Engineer Your Success Podcast, Holly Read, a runner and business mental fitness business coach, explained, embracing reality is crucial for navigating around obstacles and achieving success. By acknowledging the ground truth of a situation, individuals can create a plan to use the circumstances to reach their goals.
In athletics, this can mean acknowledging that a certain training plan may not be working and making adjustments. In business, it can mean acknowledging the impact of a pandemic on the workforce and adapting strategies accordingly.
However, embracing reality does not mean giving up on big, audacious goals. Instead, it means acknowledging the challenges and working towards them. For example, in running, embracing reality could mean acknowledging that a certain time goal may be difficult to reach so you need to adjust your approach to achieve that goal.
Set Clear Goals and Create a Plan
It’s easy to underestimate the importance of having clear goals in life, but they can have an incredible impact on your mental fitness and overall success. Having clear goals in life encourages us to stay focused on what we hope to achieve and allows us to measure our progress along the way. Without clear goals, it is easy to become lost in life without direction or motivation.
Part of setting clear goals is understanding what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it. It should also be clear how you are going to track progress toward that goal. When are clear on the destination you can develop plan that will get you there. The plan is simply the smaller steps that you will take to achieve the goal.
Enjoy the Journey Not just the Goal
Achieving goals is an important part of any successful life. But, the journey to achieving those goals is just as important. Taking time to enjoy and appreciate the progress you’re making towards your objectives is a crucial part of mental fitness. It helps to stay motivated and keeps you from feeling overwhelmed by the goal itself.
Rather than being focused solely on reaching a destination, take time to appreciate each step of your journey. Be mindful of how far you have come, what has changed for you along the way, and how it has impacted your outlook or way of life. Celebrate small wins and successes in order to bolster confidence and enthusiasm for future projects or plans.
Push past the plateau
The dreaded “messy middle” is where progress towards your goals slow. It can feel like you’re running in-place and not getting any closer to your destination no matter how hard you try or push yourself. It’s easy to become discouraged and want to give up. The truth is if you have felt this way, you are not alone.
How do you push past the messy middle?
To experience continuous progress, you may need to change things up. The exact steps that you took to get you to this point may not be the things you need to get you to your destination. Adjust your plan to deal with the “reality” of reaching a plateau. What changes do you need to make?
Consistently Show up for Yourself
Consistently showing up for yourself may not always be easy, but it’s essential to drive progress and achieve success. It’s important to practice mental fitness — finding the motivation and grit you need to keep going. When you consistently show up for yourself you build the resilience that will help you reach your goals.
Mental fitness is just as important as physical fitness and it’s something that can be improved with consistent effort. Some practical tips for improving mental fitness include embracing reality, setting clear goals and developing a plan to achieve them, learning to enjoy the journey, pushing past your plateau, and consistently showing up for yourself.
For more insight into mental fitness check out this episode of the Engineer Your Success Podcast: