Mental Toughness Can Be Taught
A. Mental toughness, to me, is your ability to keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing regardless of a situation, regardless of whether you’re physically or mentally fatigued. Because it hurts. High-level sport is uncomfortable. We try to teach the players to be to be comfortable at being uncomfortable."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/business/international/rugby-england-eddie-jones.html
This is a short interview with Eddie Jones, the current head coach of the English rugby team. With 2019 Rugby World Cup still fresh in our minds, I read this article about Jones's philosophy on mental toughness. It was written in 2016 so it may be a little outdated from what he thinks now with his new accomplishments, but I still learned a lot, and I thought I'd share!
I quoted the comment above because I couldn't agree more, and I personally felt relieved that it isn't just me that was feeling uncomfortable frequently as I competed professionally. Just knowing that this is "normal" for us, gave me confidence and self-assurance (slightly ironic).
Also the interview really underlines the importance of constant learning. It's a learning process, and the learning should never end- because if there's no more learning, you're probably closer to the "end of the career." I think the article resonated with me also, because lately I've been a bigger supporter of learning/studying than ever before.
There's a huge stigma that being smart is good, being talented is good, being successful, etc., etc. But that's the "being" part and we tend to forget the "becoming." You can always become smarter, become more successful if and only if you'd continue the learning. So you just can't label the current state simply with good or bad. It keeps going. It's what you keep doing and what you continue to become, not what your are right now or was- and "learning" is critical to becoming great. That's my opinion. lol
Anyhow, Jones's interview really nailed these points that I've been thinking about learning and improving, so that's probably why I loved this New York Times article so much.
Hope you feel the same way!
I quoted the comment above because I couldn't agree more, and I personally felt relieved that it isn't just me that was feeling uncomfortable frequently as I competed professionally. Just knowing that this is "normal" for us, gave me confidence and self-assurance (slightly ironic).
Also the interview really underlines the importance of constant learning. It's a learning process, and the learning should never end- because if there's no more learning, you're probably closer to the "end of the career." I think the article resonated with me also, because lately I've been a bigger supporter of learning/studying than ever before.
There's a huge stigma that being smart is good, being talented is good, being successful, etc., etc. But that's the "being" part and we tend to forget the "becoming." You can always become smarter, become more successful if and only if you'd continue the learning. So you just can't label the current state simply with good or bad. It keeps going. It's what you keep doing and what you continue to become, not what your are right now or was- and "learning" is critical to becoming great. That's my opinion. lol
Anyhow, Jones's interview really nailed these points that I've been thinking about learning and improving, so that's probably why I loved this New York Times article so much.
Hope you feel the same way!
Great point Maho! Thanks for sharing - Quite inspiring!
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