How To Work With The 4 C’s of Mental Strength

Before we get into the four “C’s” of mental strength let’s look at what mental strength is.

Mental strength is the capacity for an individual to deal effectively with stressors, pressures and challenges and perform to the best of their abilities irrespective of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Mental strength is the quality which determines in some part how people deal with challenge, stressors and pressure.

There is a very strong link between Mental Strength issues like Stress Management and Peak Performance Development and behavior. These are all interrelated.

Applications of the 4 C’s of Mental Strength

The sports world provided one of the two main origins for the development of mental strength (the other being health psychology and the concept of resilience which mental toughness embraces). In many ways, mental strength is reasonably well understood by most coaches and trainers in most sports.

Various models have operationalized the awareness of mental strength and its value in the sports world by creating an accessible definition in terms of the 4Cs and through the development of assessments.

• Challenge
• Commitment
• Control
• Confidence

The structure of assessment enables coaches, trainers and athletes to understand why they perform or don’t perform under the pressure of competition, when they know they can perform well away from that pressure.

Understanding mental strength also explains why some athletes are better suited to contact sports and why some perform better in team sports than in solitary sports.

Most importantly it helps to explain why an athlete of lesser ability can often beat (and often will beat) an athlete of greater ability. Described as winning mentality, mind-set, learned optimism, etc., these all describe the same or similar notion…Winner in their mind. That’s where losers lose too.

Challenge

The Challenge indicates if the individual will be able to cope effectively with most of life’s challenges and may use these as away on enhancing their personal development.

If they may at times seek “change for change sake”, but are reasonably accepting of a degree of routine. If they will be most comfortable in an environment that provides them with a balance of predictability and flexibility, but they will usually be able to react quickly to the unexpected when necessary.

Occasionally some individual may take on more challenges than they can handle which might mean that they struggle to complete tasks assigned to them.

Suggest Mental Strength Coaching Tips:

• Risk taking (outside comfort zone)
  • What’s one thing that you’ve wanted to do, but held yourself back?
• Learning from the experience (regardless the outcome)
  • After doing this one thing, what have you learned?

Commitment

The Commitment section indicates if the individual will usually complete his or her tasks even under difficult conditions, finding different ways to motivate him or herself. Also, if they have high levels of internal resources which allow them to sustain high levels of effort.

If they are resilient and tenacious. Once this person has begun a task they will usually see it through to the end, tending to go round, or occasionally through, obstacles that are blocking the achievement of their end goal.

There may be occasions where the high degree of focus may mean that others may be bruised by this individual’s commitment to achieve – particularly where weaknesses are ruthlessly criticized and strengths and achievements taken for granted.

While this behavior may be acceptable for the “crisis” assignment, sometimes these individuals do this for all assignments – and may acquire a reputation for being “hard”. In this circumstance others will increasingly seek to avoid working with this individual because the experience is unpleasant.

Suggest Mental Strength Coaching Tips:

• Goals
  • What is your one-month goal?
    • Not a task
  • Sticking to them
    • Become aware of your pattern
    • Research more deeply
    • Know yourself and try to be realistic
      • Under estimate how long, over estimate how much
    • Make a time line
    • Ensure you main motivation is intrinsic

Control

The Control section indicates if the individual will tend to feel in overall control of their lives and has a belief that they can make things happen. The overall control orientation can be split into two distinct areas: Life Control and Emotional Control.

Often, individuals will become frustrated – “knocking their heads against a brick wall” or they will simply react negatively to the obstruction.

Suggest Mental Strength Coaching Tips:

• Life
  • Establish personal boundaries
• Emotional
  • Become aware of triggers

Confidence

The Confidence section indicates if the individual has high levels of self-confidence and is self-assured. Typically, they are seen as high achievers and will often succeed where others will give up or fail – but they may “go for it” when this is not really warranted. They can be determined to try to succeed even when the task is unachievable.

Suggest Mental Strength Coaching Tips:

• Abilities
  • SWOT
• Interpersonal
  • Begin to express yourself