What’s your excuse?
Can we really change who we are and how we think and behave? Can a leopard change its spots? I recently had this conversation with someone who wondered whether a therapist is merely painting over the “leopard’s spots” and that underneath we all stay the same. Well, the ... Views: 1157
Five Key Principles of Mental Toughness and Resilience
Throughout our lives we face change and challenges. Nothing stays the same; the good times don't last but neither do the bad times. People and places come and go; the world changes and so does our place within it. To survive the changes ... Views: 3875
Mental Toughness and The Meaning of Life
Here at Mental Toughness HQ we like to go after the “big fish” and ask the difficult questions. So along with the usual questions about their health and circumstances I will often ask clients “what and where is the meaning in your life?” In short, ... Views: 1514
Mental Toughness and Commitment
Recently, I have been interviewing people to work on a nightshift, for company in London. In addition to the candidates’ skills and experience I am keen to find out what thinking, beliefs and attitudes they hold and get some insight into what makes them tick. ... Views: 1485
Bad events do happen, unpredictable events happen. For mental toughness we need to strive to keep negative events, together with our responses in proportion. We need to gain perspective, as some events are clearly worse than others. We are responsible for how bad we perceive events to be and it ... Views: 1780
Here is an essential principle of Mental Toughness
We all experience frustration when our needs, wants and demands are not met, or when we are faced with obstacles that impede our progress. Frustration is a fact of life; therefore our ability to tolerate frustration is crucial to the ... Views: 9797
The following article looks at "demanding" and "preferring". Understanding the difference between these types of irrational and rational thinking is key to Mental Toughness. Demands are rigid thinking patterns and rules, where we insist that others, the world and ourselves must be a certain way, ... Views: 1310
Wake up to reality
It is true that we are all hypnotised to some extent. We can become conditioned to react in certain ways and adhere to old beliefs about the world, others and ourselves that are no longer helpful or useful. Some people may worry that they cannot be hypnotised, when in fact ... Views: 1325
You may often hear the phrase “you are what you eat” and clearly there is some truth in that; we are constantly reminded by the media and government to eat healthily. However, what we think is more important and in particular, that inner critical voice which we hear all day long. Our inner voice ... Views: 1397
We are all encouraged to have goals – to set objectives and have targets. When we think of goals, usually we only consider the big long-term goals, such as buying a home. However it is often our everyday goals and actions which we need to focus on in order to increase our happiness and make life ... Views: 1372
Many people head their articles or book chapters with a quote; this lends gravitas, authority and authenticity to whatever follows. On the whole I like a good quote, although seeing the same quotes and anecdotes repeatedly, (Edison and his light bulbs, Colonel Sanders and his chickens) starts to ... Views: 1558