Thrive Global: How Improving Your Mental Fitness Can Help Boost Your Productivity and Success

Mental fitness starts with the recognition that the real drivers of your leadership results are the hidden habits of your mind—the powerful, unseen, and entrenched perspectives you hold about yourself, others, and your world. These patterns of thoughts and beliefs (formed by your many experiences in life), whether you are conscious of them or not, drive you to behave in certain habitual ways. And that leads you to produce certain results—for better or for worse.

When you’re triggered, your leadership performance suffers because your brain is running an internal script rather than clearly assessing and optimally responding to whatever is actually happening.

TRIGGERED LEADERS CAUSE PAIN

Perhaps it’s a toxic environment. Perhaps there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. Perhaps you feel stressed or overwhelmed, and those around you do too, compounding your own sense of pressure.

With mental fitness, you can keep yourself out of these unproductive emotional states so that you are leading, as much as possible, from a position of optimal performance—so you can lead lightly. You do this by very rapidly applying a set of learned skills and choices—the five “muscles” of mental fitness—to change your perceptions and internal reactions:

1. Choose Personal Accountability
2. Choose Helpful Beliefs over Impeding Beliefs

3. Accurately Self-Assess Your Internal State
4. Hold Multiple, Disparate Perspectives
5. Modulate Your Own Physiology

As you apply these five muscles, you intentionally change your perceptions and internal reactions. You break yourself away from those reflexive, automatic reactions that limit potential and possibility in your leadership.

A BIG BENEFIT: YOU WILL FEEL LIGHTER

Leaders often feel overwhelmed and weighed down with stress.

My message here is simple: if you develop your five muscles of mental fitness you are going to feel lighter. You will feel more in control. You will lead yourself and others lightly. Many of the negative interactions, feelings, and emotions you are currently experiencing will soften and eventually go away. Rather than getting triggered, you won’t take things personally; you’ll counter challenges with adaptability and curiosity rather than defensiveness.

A PROVEN APPROACH TO IMPROVEMENT

It’s normal to believe that everything around you—circumstances, events, and other people—create the conditions for your leadership performance.

With mental fitness, you let go of the impeding belief that everything and everyone else is the main problem.

[Developing a high level of mental fitness] is a radically different approach to creating and sustaining high leadership performance— as well as personal well-being—especially when the conditions around you are challenging or even painful. Over time, and with practice, this method will lead to you to fundamentally change who you are at your core.

A LACK OF MENTAL FITNESS