In 2019, I had the opportunity to work with several great people and workplaces to assist individuals, teams and organisations to grow and develop their mental toughness.
One of the organisations I worked with was Margaret Ives Community Children’s Centre Inc. Following is the right up that they put together for their intranet. Or you can see the full write up and link here.
In 2019 we replaced a couple of our staff meetings with training on Mental Toughness through Bakjac Consulting. Our whole staff team engaged in the two sessions with Michelle Bakjac and we each got something different out of the training that had unique meaning for ourselves.
The first sessions focused around the difference between resilience (adapting) and mental toughness (preparing). We investigated the structure of the 4 C’s model: Control, Commitment, Confidence and Challenge.
Control was one that we focused on for a while as often people believe things are out of their hands. However, control can be managed when you look at it through the “ABC” model. A stands for the Activating Event that starts our mental thinking process, many people jump straight to C the Consequence or emotion and believe that the activating event triggers their response. We learned that it is in fact B the Beliefs/thoughts in between that trigger the consequence or emotion, this is where control exists and can be managed. An example is when a group of people have been told the same thing. For example, “there will be a 20 minute wait for your order”. I can guarantee that not all people will react the same way and that is because they are influenced by their individual beliefs or thoughts. One may be frustrated as they believe that they are paying for a service and it should be ready, one may be furious and demand their money back, one may not care as they need to waste time before their next engagement, and another might think great I have time to pop down to the bank.... You see the activating event didn’t trigger their reactions, it was their individual beliefs and thoughts that set off the consequence/emotion. Mentally we need to be aware of our own beliefs/thoughts and train our minds to create solutions, to see the positive side and not the negative. Think, what is the worst that will happen? How will I deal with that?
We explored how to keep ourselves above the line and support our colleagues to be above the line. This was done by looked at turning ANTs into PETs (not in the literal sense), simply focusing on our Automatic Negative Thoughts and reframing them as Performance Enhancing Thoughts instead.
To make permanent change in regard to our mental toughness we need to rewire our thinking to change our habits, but we can explore temporary change. Power posing is a great form of temporary change, positioning our body in a way that makes you feel stronger, just like a superhero (testosterone goes up and cortisol goes down). We have been engaging in some power posing with our Coral Room children and it makes everyone perk up and feel good. Remember that everyone is born confident, but if you don’t use your confidence, it will fade.
Wellbeing was also a word that we unpacked, offering up words of meaning that resonated with everyone and discussing how it looks for individuals. The consensus was that there are some core ideals for wellbeing like mental health, relationships, physical health etc. What that looks like for each person and how they balance the important aspects of their life is unique to them. It is important that we investigate what wellbeing looks like for ourselves and others and recognise the physical, psychological and behavioural warning signs of stress that our unique to ourselves and the people around us. We also need to make sure that we fill our own bucket of wellbeing before we can start to fill anyone else’s.
It was bought to our attention that mindfulness is about putting our thoughts and feelings down and focusing on our five sense. Right now, in the moment what can I see, smell, taste, touch and hear? Mindfulness can help us reset our thinking.
There are 2 quotes from the session that really resonated with us…
“Stop focusing on the impression you are having on others and start focusing on the impression you have on yourself”
“Reflect on WWW – What is working well”
Remember we can:
· Change our perspective by realistically scaling our problem from 0-10 (with 10 being death)
· Change our physiology by focusing on our breathing
· Change our problem with one achievable step at a time.
Want to build you team’s mental toughness in 2020? Contact Michelle on 0412047590 or via email michelle@bakjacconsulting.com
Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Organisational Consultant, Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness practitioner. Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing.
