Mental Toughness in Athletes: A Review

Abstract

Every athlete experiences a variety of stressors, obstacles, adversities throughout their career. Injuries, self sabotage, emotional balance, performance pressure, hostile audience, fear of the opponent etc are some of the very few hurdles every athlete has to surpass in their athletic journey. Some sail through it smoothly and some struggle a lot. However, there are winning moments too. Leading a team, scoring the highest score, winning streaks etc are some of the positives too that every athlete experiences. But there’s not much gap between these highs getting converted into lows. Overconfidence, ego, impatience, lacking empathy etc are some of the traits that develop when an athlete doesn’t handle the success positively. Both negative and positive experiences persist of good and bad outcomes. Having the ability to balance both positives and negatives is what makes one different from the entire crowd. This review considers how important mental toughness could be for athletes and what attributes contribute in making a person mentally tough. Qualitative and quantitative studies on mental toughness are evaluated. Future directions for research are offered.