Inspiring book helps you face challenges, manage negativity and adversity

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

This quote from Thomas Jefferson launches you into The Mental Toughness Handbook by Damon Zaharaiades.

“Mental toughness,” he writes, “is required to overcome hurdles that threaten to derail us from our goals. This state of mind can literally mean the difference between success and failure,” he adds.

He continues by noting that “mental toughness is durability in the face of adversity.” Faced with stress, “do we crumble or persist? Do we give up or stay the course?”

There are emotions, too, notes Zaharaiades. “How do we deal with our anger and disappointment when life seems unfair to us?” Are we resilient – “do we dust ourselves off and get back on track, or complain and blame others for our predicaments,” he asks. Finally, there’s grit – “do we press onward or concede defeat” when goals are going to be hard to achieve.

The book outlines some of the attributes of those who have mental toughness, while also offering steps we all can take to boost these qualities in ourselves.

An example is adopting “practical optimism,” he explains. “Mental toughness is usually found in those who have a positive attitude… optimistic about the future,” and striving “to make the best of every situation rather than being ‘gloomy and pessimistic.’”

Among the challenges to combat is listening to hard to your “inner critic,” writes Zaharaiades. “It’s the voice in our heads telling us that we’re not good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough… it finds fault in everything we do and asserts that others will do the same.”

The book outlines ways to “showing your inner critic who’s the boss,” he continues.

Other things to overcome include fear, laziness, perfectionism, self-pity and self-doubt, emotionalism, and self-limiting beliefs.

Zaharaiades notes that self-awareness holds great value. We need, he writes, “to be acutely aware of our thoughts, beliefs and convictions.” Rather than trying to be detached from our emotions, he continues, we need to “embrace them… by acknowledging our fear, frustration and other negative emotions when things go wrong, we’re able to evaluate them, determine their veracity, and regulate the ones that are unrealistic,” he writes.

With emotions, control is possible through reflection, scrutiny of negative emotions, meditation, and confronting “your inner critic whenever it `speaks,’” he explains. Recognize “circumstances you can influence and circumstances you can’t influence.” Finally, take action, even when you’re uncertain of the outcome. This will train your mind to be proactive,” he notes.

On catastrophic thinking, he notes that “if we fail to prepare psychologically for the challenges we’re sure to face every day, our minds will slowly perceive every obstacle to be more consequential than is true.” He advises us to “push back” against any catastrophic thoughts as they emerge.

He presents a technique to use to develop good habits – “start small.”

“For example, suppose you’d like to start exercising on a daily basis. You might be enthusiastic and tempted to start your new habit with a 45-minute workout on Day 1. Don’t do that. Instead, take baby steps. Start with a five-minute workout…. (then) make slow, incremental progress.”

Near the end of the book, in a chapter focusing on tactics to boost your mental toughness, Zaharaiades suggests we “stop spending time with negative people… they complain, criticize, and can put a negative spin on anything… guard your time. Don’t allow negative people to monopolize it.”

The book concludes by noting if you build up the “muscle” of mental toughness, “you’ll be able to rely on it whenever life presents you with unanticipated challenges and obstacles.”

This is a really well-written, well-researched and helpful guidebook, well deserving of a spot on your bookshelf.

Many people know they should be saving for retirement, but never get around to it, perhaps because they think it will require a big effort and/or a big outlay of cash. As the book suggests, an approach is to start small and build your savings rate incrementally.

This is entirely possible for members of the Saskatchewan Pension Plan as you, the member, decide how much the contributions will be. You can start very small and ramp things up over time. The heavy lifting of investing your contributions in a professionally managed, low-cost pooled fund is done by SPP. And when it is time to turn savings into income, your SPP options include a lifetime monthly annuity payment or the more flexible Variable Benefit.

Check out SPP today!

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