Mental Toughness

No matter what it is we are trying to achieve in our individual lives, competition stands in our way. From as far back as I can remember competition was part of my life. As a child I wanted to be the best soccer player on the team, then I wanted to win first place in the spelling bee, after that I wanted to get a 4.0 GPA, then I wanted to start on the Varsity team, then I wanted to get the scholarship, etc, etc, etc... The list never ends. Now I want to present myself better than the competition and get into Harvard. Tomorrow I will want to be the most impressive candidate interviewed and get the job. Some of us thrive on competition and some of us hate it, but regardless we all have to deal with it.

I saw the new Tiger Woods Nike commercial this morning and I haven't been able to stop thinking about mental toughness since then.

http://www.nike.com/nikegolf/index.htm?takeoverDirect=usOpenVideo_takeover&cp=usgf_061008

The commercial shows clips of Earl Woods, Tiger's dad, coaching him as a child and it is narrated by Earl Wood's. His key phrase in the video is, "Tiger, I promise you, that you'll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life. And he hasn't. And he never will." Something about those words got me thinking about how important mental toughness is. I think some of us are born with more of it than others, but I also believe it is something we must develop in ourselves. Earl talked about how he purposely distracted Tiger in order to train him to be mentally tough, and I think we all need that kind of training in order to become mentally tough. But in the moment Tiger didn't like the training much. His dad said he would grit his teeth and glare at him, but was it worth it? I 'm sure Tiger would say yes.

I am tempted by the easy road just as much as anyone else, I think it's natural. But I try to force myself to dig in and devote the time and effort it takes to develop mental toughness, and I think it will be worth it.

(My June 16th post is a follow-up on this post. This is the link to that post: http://levibelnap.blogspot.com/2008/06/pain-that-inspires.html)