Mental Toughness Definition Expressed As An Equation

I discussed this equation “MT = R + C”, that is the Mental Toughness definition, in numerous public forums last week. Thank you to the business support team at Accountability for hosting their personal development breakfast for clients, to Brad and Adam at The Outperformer for their seminar held in Sydney with a webinar broadcast to a global audience, and to those attending at the Reinvent Your Career Expo on the weekend.

It is the “survive and thrive” mental toughness definition developed by Professor Peter Clough and Doug Strycharczyk, mental toughness is a combination of:

• Resilience – the ability to bounce back from adversity and failures and
• Confidence – the ability to take advantage of opportunities.

Both Resilience + Confidence represent two pillars of success each from the MTQ48 4C’s mental toughness framework.

Resilience is Control (self esteem and strong emotional management) and Commitment (reliability and focus) while Confidence is represented by Challenge (personal growth and drive) and Confidence (self belief in ability and in influencing people).

View two-minute video description of this mental toughness definition from The Outperformer seminar.

Mental Toughness describes the mind-set that every person adopts in everything they do and it is critically important and valuable for everyone at two levels.

Firstly, it explains why people and organisations behave the way they do. Personality can be defined as an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting and one’s personality can explain individual differences and how individuals act in specific situations.

Mental Toughness is a personality trait which describes mindset. It examines what is in the mind of the individual to explain the way why they behave the way they do. So there is an obvious link between mindset and behaviour.

One can describe mindset as both the pre-cursor to behaviour and the explanation for much behaviour.

Secondly, research and case studies from around the world show that Mental Toughness is a major factor in most of the important outcomes for individuals and organisations.  Read more