Mental Toughness: The Key to Resilience in Tough Times

By Paul Jewitt Harris – practice director, Lane4 and

Professor Graham Jones, director, US.

The economic climate has rocked the legal sector.  No firm has been immune - from small local practices to the magic circle giants, most have been forced to make changes to survive.  In recent months we’ve seen billing rates frozen to 2008 levels, equity partners injecting more finance into their firms, reduced or frozen pay for both equity and salaried partners, redundancies from partner level to support staff and delays in implementing training contracts.  This is pressure indeed for lawyers at all stages of their career.

The ability to deal with what can seem like overwhelming change has never been more important, and is vital to business strategies in 2009 and beyond.

Mounting redundancies, tightened budgets, reduced deal activity and constant economic change make a firm’s ability to cope and survive in difficult times extremely challenging.  During these periods, it is lawyers’ mental toughness that will define their success or failure.

Imagine being under the spotlight.  Everything hangs in the balance or at least it feels that way to you.  How should you handle it?  The first thing to realise is that you’re not alone; pressure is an inherent and incessant part of the modern business world. 

Lane4’s work with performers at World Championships, Olympic Games and with business performers at the core of mergers, acquisitions, redundancies, management buy-outs, and flotations, has provided the company with first-hand experience of how enormous pressure can either make or break you. 

Pressure does extraordinary things to people – it can induce extraordinarily high performance or it can destroy performance in extraordinary and sometimes unexplainable ways. The key to being able to flourish and thrive under pressure is the development of mental toughness. 

What is mental toughness?

Research with some of the world’s best athletes shows that mental toughness is the capacity to respond positively to multiple, and sometimes conflicting, pressures in order to deliver consistently high levels of performance. 

It is underpinned by four core skills:

Handling pressure
Self-belief
Motivation
Focus
 

These skills have formed the foundation of Lane4’s one-to-one coaching with lawyers who have found themselves under increasing pressure in recent times.

Handling pressure and keeping your head under stress

Being mentally tough does not mean never getting stressed under pressure.  Everyone experiences stress but, accepting that it is an inevitable part of performing at the highest level is vital to enable lawyers to thrive on pressure. Top athletes continue to produce their best performances at times of intense media scrutiny and significant physical and emotional pressure because they have developed the skills to maintain composure in such circumstances. The same skills can be developed in business but are overlooked in favour of technical knowledge and skills.

In law firms, potential sources of stress include tough market conditions, client demands, the race for partnership and the tricky transition from lawyer to leader.

Handling these stressors effectively leads to sustainable high performance and there are a number of techniques that can be used to achieve this:

Finding ways of keeping any symptoms of stress under control

Stress can result in both behavioural and physical symptoms that are often difficult to manage.Identifying factors that exacerbate stressful situations are vital. For example, if you drink too much coffee or don’t eat properly during difficult situations, problems will worsen.
 

Learning how to reframe negative thoughts into positive ones

The starting point is the realisation and acceptance that you have a choice about the way you think, and that you can alter your mode of thinking. Catastrophising, overgeneralising and taking things personally are all negative thought patterns that, once identified, can be addressed.
 

Identifying what is within your control and what is not so you can exert as much control as possible
There are some things that are out of an individual’s control but, too often, people make the mistake of believing that most of their workplace issues, such as unrealistic performance targets, are out of their control. These are often assumptions which, with the right approach, can be challenged so that more control is achievable.
 

Mastering these skills will enable you to deal with the stress that can result from excessive and unrelenting pressure, allowing you to control the amount and nature of the stress to remain composed and make important decisions. 

Staying strong in your self-belief

Research shows that self-belief is an essential part of the make-up of the world’s best performers in sport and business. It underpins their ability to set and achieve stretching goals, take risks, control potentially debilitating fear, and to learn from mistakes - all of which are key components of a successful lawyer.

These skills enable you to maintain robust belief and confidence in your qualities and in your ability to achieve performance goals under pressure.

Strategies for developing self-belief include:

Identifying and believing in your skills and abilities

These are the reasons you have achieved what you have which often get overlooked in tough times. Listing tangible achievements can highlight evidence of professional and personal success. These can then provide the building blocks to self-belief.
 

·         Being passionate about your goals and truly believing that you can achieve them

Goals that motivate you to achieve your performance expectations are vital but it’s also important to focus on the process that underpins the outcome, as focusing solely on the outcome only adds to pressure. For example, reaching partnership may be the ultimate outcome goal but process goals like developing your leadership and coaching skills are fundamental components.

The role of a leader is particularly important in supporting teams to develop goals that are both realistic and appropriately stretching. It is far too common for successful lawyers to be thrust into leadership roles without any consideration of their abilities to manage people effectively. Strong leaders will not only demonstrate robust self-belief, but they will also be able to generate it in others and facilitate effective goal-setting with individuals and teams.

Making your motivation work for you

Skills and abilities alone will not deliver high performance that is sustainable under the immense pressure regularly experienced in the legal environment where even the tiniest error of judgement or ill advice can cost clients millions. Mentally tough lawyers will be able to bounce back and remain motivated despite sustained pressure.

They will do things because they want to succeed rather than fearing the consequences of failure and be energised and exhilarated by what they do rather than being desperate to succeed.  Extrinsic motivation, such as pay and reward, is unquestionably a source of motivation for many. But, research shows, that internal motivation and working for an inherent satisfaction leads to more enjoyment and consequently less pressure.

This skill ensures that desire and determination to succeed is founded on positive and constructive motives that keep you optimally-motivated and enable you to recover from inevitable performance setbacks and failures that may threaten your longer-term goals. The dynamic and unpredictable legal sector means that sometimes things will not go according to plan but, in order to succeed, individuals must be motivated and able to sustain performance during tough times.

Maintaining your focus on the things that matter

The world’s best performers are a testimony to the ability to deal effectively with many potential distractions and maintain focus on the things that matter. This focus involves focusing on the things you can control and the positive aspects of your role rather than the negatives and constant pressures.

This skill includes:

Focusing on the controllables

Mentally tough performers accept that there are factors in their performance environment that they cannot influence, identify what they are they focus on things they can control.
 

Focusing on processes

High level performance is about getting the process right. The key is for performers to focus on the processes involved in performance, like the steps necessary to close a deal, than the actual completed project. Focusing on the process will allow the outcome to take care of itself.
 

Focusing on the positives

If external distractions are not enough to disrupt focus, then internal ones lurk menacingly. Thoughts of past failures, consequences of failure or doubts about achieving goals are all negative thoughts that hinder performance. Mentally tough performers will focus on past achievements and personal strengths to realise their potential.
 

Conclusion

Being mentally tough really does make a difference in today’s pressured commercial world, and the good news is that it can be developed.  In the same way that Olympic performers thrive on the pressure of performing at the highest level in sport, so you, too, can develop a level of mental toughness that will enable you to deliver high performance that is sustainable.   

Paul Jewitt- Harris is Lane4's practice director. His areas of specialism include Performance Coaching, Performance Leadership, large group facilitation, working with executive teams and conflict resolution.

Professor Graham Jones is a renowned performance psychologist and business performance specialist who has published extensive research in the fields of Leadership, Mental Toughness, and High Performance in sport and business. His approach to people and organizational development is drawn from his accomplished academic background and vast experience of consulting with the highest performers. He works with individuals and teams by building on strengths and opening up opportunities and possibilities through challenging self-limiting mindsets.