Endtroducing...djball aka charleshui

Mental Toughness Mental Toughness I was recently asked how it is that athletes can drag themselves through unrelenting physical and mental suffering in events such as the mountain stages in the Tour de France. This topic came up when French rider Thomas Voeckler was trying to get the polka dot jersey and then retain it on two back-to-back stages with several challenging climbs during long rides in the Pyrenees. This reminded me of a paper published in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago (Jones, 2008). In it the author reported on studies of Olympic medalists and successful business people which revealed the following characteristics which may be defined as subsets of mental toughness. He wrote that the interviewees were found to: have the ability to psychologically manage pressure pay meticulous attention to goals have a strong inner drive to stay ahead of the competition be internally rather than externally focused be self-directed concentrate