This article by Kath McCarthy of Metis Pathways was published on the NSWLS Careers Hub website in 2011
“It’s not a physical hardness, it’s a mental hardness and we’re still developing as a club and as a group of players [and learning] that we just can’t have those sort of lapses because when the best play the best … the best don’t do it.
Craig about the Crows after loosing to Collingwood in the September finals 2009.
AFL coaches believe success is as much a mental challenge as a physical one. At the critical moments, a winning team will play harder, make the right decisions, go the extra mile and deliver the necessary result. Mental toughness is also an important component of success in legal practice and this is not surprising given the parallels between the demands on top lawyers and the demands on elite athletes –performance under pressure in a highly competitive environment.
The mental side of performance cannot be under emphasised and over the past decade the term mental toughness has been increasingly used to describe the set of attributes which are considered necessary to sustained achieve excellence in elite sport.
Mental Toughness in Sport
Over the past mental toughness has been the subject of numerous studies by sports psychologists
Jones et al (2002) provided a useful definition of mental toughness which many researches have since drawn on:
Mental toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to
- Generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer
- Specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure. (p. 209)
The main features of this definition are that it involves the ability to maintain the necessary mindset in the context of multiple external demands. It is also noteworthy that while some individuals were described as naturally ‘tough’, it is acknowledged that developing the necessary mindset to support sustained superior performance is possible. It also noted that mental toughness is a quality understood relative to others and therefore requires a constant striving in order to achieve and maintain mental toughness associated with success.
Numerous studies have confirmed common and somewhat overlapping behavioural characteristics that can be consistently observed in mentally tough individuals such as intense concentration, high motivation, strong self-belief, love of competition, handling pressure, bouncing back from set backs, a positive attitude, effective goal setting, determination, perseverance and commitment (eg Jones et al, 2002, Bull, 2005, Fawcett (2005))
More interesting still is that while much of mental toughness is something a person is either born with or has been fostered in the formative years, most researchers agree with Jones et al (2002) that it is possible to enhance and even develop mental toughness in adult athletes (Bull, 2005, Jones et al, 2006).
Mental Toughness in Law
There are many parallels between the performance in sport and peak performance in law.
Think of the lawyers you believe are at the top of the game. Better still think about the times you performed at your peak in your legal practice.
You will find that during these times, something more than intelligence and technical expertise were at play. Such times were also associated with feelings of competence and confidence. At such times, despite the presence of competition and task pressure, a high quality result was delivered for the firm or client.
Certainly technical expertise is always a necessary precursor to professional excellence but the ability to perform under pressure requires something else.
In truth, great lawyers don’t just perform on the odd occasion but are able to do it again and again and again.
A lawyer who operates with sustained professional excellence is able to maintain performance under relentless workload, high pressure and despite set-backs.
Despite the obvious parallels between performance in sport and performance in business, relatively limited research closely examines the applications of mental toughness training in sport, to the business world.
Jones and Moorhouse (2006) drew on the knowledge gained from researching mental toughness in elite athletes. They describe “pillars” of sustained high performance. These are the ability to keep your head under pressure, staying strong in self belief and confident, remaining motivated to achieve what is important, and maintaining focus on the things that matter.
Keeping your head under stress does not mean high performers do not experience pressure. Instead, they do not let it distract or overwhelm them. In fact, high performers find ways for stress to invigorate them and use it to their advantage.
Staying strong in self belief means that instead of being concerned about high visibility or exposure, high performers are able to continue setting stretch targets, are able to accept criticism, are able to continue making decisions despite possibilities that you are wrong and can rebound from setbacks.
Making motivation work is finding ways to set goals that are intrinsically motivating so that the high performer is reaching towards a goal rather than stretching away from something considered threatening or undesirable. Both attitudes can be motivating, but high performers approach challenge rather than avoid problems.
Maintaining focus on things that matter is being aware that time is limited so that time is spent in highly effective and highly important activities rather than activities that can be actitivi4es which may be urgent but are unimportant. Here, Jones and Moorhouse (2006) overlap with the work of Steven Covey in his work on effectiveness.
Bull (2006) also applied the knowledge he gained from examining toughness in elite cricketers to develop a model for performance in business. The advantage of his work is that it focussed on performance of English cricketers. Given cricket requires a chronic high performance rather than the more the more specific high performance required in athletics, his work is arguably closer to the environment of peak performance in the context of law.
Bull considered mental toughness at work is marked by four primary characteristics: self belief, clear thinking and resilience. He argues that sustained peak performance requires what he describes as turnaround toughness, critical moment toughness, endurance toughness and risk management toughness.
Turn around toughness refers to the ability to bounce back from setbacks and so bears much similarity to concepts of personal resilience and it an important concept. Many lawyers are perfectionists and pessimists where failure can be personally devastating. This type of toughness accepts that mistakes, failure and setbacks are part of business and the lawyer who demonstrates the ability to bounce back is developing a performance mindset.
Endurance Toughness is closely linked to turnaround toughness and is all too familiar to lawyers in private practice. It is the ability to stay mentally focussed during times of relentless workload.
Critical moment toughness is the ability to execute a performance at a specific time under pressure. This is really saying that the lawyer will actually produce a high quality piece of work or outcome when required to do so.
Risk Management toughness is the ability to make a call on a file or transaction to maximise performance even if it is a high risk strategy. It is closely linked to critical moment toughness.
Developing Mental Toughness
While many articles in business magazines are full of suggestions for improving mental toughness, it must be recognised that a large proportion of mental toughness is programmed into personality and is a product of early childhood conditioning (eg Bull) this means by the time a person becomes a lawyer they will have a degree of inherent mental toughness. This has implications for selection of staff.
However there is also clear evidence that mental toughness can be developed and fostered through a combination of socialisation and training
Implications for Selection of Staff
Given mental toughness is something often inherited or developed in formative years, it has implications for recruitment. Law firms should actively seek out lawyers who have demonstrated some of the key characteristics of mental toughness:- independence, demonstrating perserverence under pressure or following a setback, maintaining confidence (not mere bravado) about the ability to maintain goals, displaying the capacity for honest self-reflection and appraisal, demonstrated competitiveness with self or others to succeed, the capacity to remain focussed on the task at hand despite distractions (internal or external).
Mental Skills Training?
Coaches and sport psychologists engage in mental skills training to help athletes develop mental toughness. These can be applied to the practice of law and include:
- Build confidence. Before a big event (client meeting, negotiation, mediation, or hearing) first audit your strengths and weaknesses then strategically plan how you will minimize your weaknesses and maximise your strengths
- Tune into your thoughts. Lawyers are often exposed to high levels of stress. At times self belief can become brittle, pressure can become overwhelming. Listen into the thoughts you have about failure. Accept they are there. Decide that these thoughts will not distract your from doing what needs to be done to achieve the result you are aiming for. Choose to perform.
- Use visualisation techniques. Think of an athlete who plays with all his or her heart, determination, and full focus and visualise yourself performing the same way
· It can be useful to deliberately use confident goal oriented statements starting with “I will, I can, I am going to instead of “I’m want to… or “I wish that…” - Focus on those things you want to occur, rather than things you’re afraid might go wrong. Setting goals based on a desired outcome are more intrinsically motivating that goals based on avoiding something you don’t want to occur.
- If necessary develop a systematic pre-performance routine (like tennis players bouncing the ball before a serve) that clicks on desired mental-emotional state of mind
- You will make mistakes or experience setbacks! Accept this. Let it go quickly. Move on to plan B or C. Remember the long term so that you can place setbacks in a bigger context.
- Be aware when a peak performance is required and then step up to deliver it.
- Another method is to identify times in your life when you have displayed mental toughness. What was it like, how did you act and what did others see in you Then imainge you are mentally tough now. What would be different, what habits would you have, what would other see?What is one small step to develop mental toughness? Who can support you in this developimg and what would theses people do to help? Then do one step towards mental toughness and note what it was like.
Developing a mentally tough culture
If a law firm is able to develop a culture where mental toughness is displayed and rewarded it is likely to help individual lawyers develop their own mental toughness. Modelling of behaviours by a group is a very powerful way of shaping behaviours in individual members of the group. The more mental toughness is displayed by partners and other leaders in law firms, the better mental toughness will permeate the organisation.
Conclusion
Mental toughness is as important to a lawyers success as any set of technical skills or any amount of substantive legal knowledge. It can be developed. A great starting place it to make a choice to be tougher in the way you approach and respond to stress, competition and pressure. With support from peers and appropriate coaching, high levels of mental toughness are within your grasp.
References
Bull, S., Shambrook, C., James W., and Brook, J. (2006), Towards an Understanding of Mental Toughness in Elite English Cricket. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 2009- 227.
Bull. S. (2006). The Game Plan. Your guide to mental toughness at Work. Chichetser, UK: Capstone.
Jones, J. G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D. (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An
investigation of elite performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 205–218.
Jones J. and Moorhouse, A. (2007). Development Mental Toughness Gold Medal strategies for transforming your business performance. Oxford, UK: Spring Hill
