What is Mental Toughness – Learning Through Pressure

posted on: March 3, 2013
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.

I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career.

I’ve lost almost 300 games.

26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.

And that is why I succeed.

– Michael Jordan

This quote from Michael Jordan is familiar to most and it highlights his own understanding that failing is part of the learning process, and without failure there can be no success.  Even though the topic of this quote seems to be about failure, how do we remember Michael Jordan?  We remember the game winning shots (like this one vs. Cleveland in ’89), the numerous championships and the many great performances.  It’s not only about failure leading to success.  It’s deeper than that.  Michael Jordan wasn’t afraid to fail in the big moment.  He played to win and he played with no regrets.  He loved the pressure moments.

Recently, I asked a group of young tennis players what they thought the mindset of the top pros was in pressure situations.  I was asking this question because about 80% of these young athletes feared the critical pressure moments of a match and so I wanted to see if they had observed different behavior in the sport’s best.  The answer I heard from one young player was remarkable.  He said “the top players see pressure as an opportunity to prove themselves.”  I was stunned and asked him if I could quote him on that because he was right on.

The top athletes in the world don’t fear pressure moments, they embrace them.  They enjoy them because that’s what competition is all about.  Whether they experience success or failure in that moment, it’s an opportunity to learn about themselves and further their skills as a competitor.  To become a great competitor, you have to want to experience these moments or else you’ll never reach your full potential.  You will be denying yourself a tremendous learning opportunity.  In this interview from the 2012 Australian Open with Novak Djokovic, you will hear him express gratitude for his fellow competitors, namely Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, for making him a better player because they forced him to learn how to earn major titles.  The relevant quote starts around 3:45 in the video.

Young athletes don’t like making mistakes and they certainly don’t like losing.  And because of that, they often play it safe or conservatively.  In a team sport, you may see them hanging out on the fringe of play and never really getting involved.  In an individual sport, they are similarly risk averse and build their whole performance around “no mistakes”.  In order to help these athletes, we have to encourage risk taking and when they inevitably make a mistake, discuss the mistake in the context of learning and getting better.  Sports are like a giant laboratory for learning.  We try things out, see what works and doesn’t work, and try again.  Sounds a lot like the rest of life, doesn’t it?  If we can make this learning process enjoyable, we can help create a lot more great competitors.