Mental Toughness with Ryan Ford, CMPC, CSCS

Hello! Welcome to the Monkey Mind Newsletter where we provide you with the tools to be a more successful and resilient athlete and human. 

CONTRIBUTOR
Ryan Ford, CMPC, CSCS

Ryan Ford CMPC, CSCS, moved to Denver to pursue a master’s degree in sports and performance psychology after spending several years as a teacher and coach in Baltimore, MD. Ryan has extensive experience facilitating multi-week expeditions through the North Maine Woods as a wilderness trip guide. Ryan has worked with several youth, collegiate, and professional athletes to enhance their athletic performance and attain their goals.

Ryan’s philosophy for working with athletes and performers has been developed through guiding on wilderness trips, teaching in the classroom, and coaching in the weight room & on the sports field. He believes that behaviors are motivated by two guiding forces: 1. developing abilities that serve to maintain or enhance one’s self, and 2. finding meaning in what one constructs as an authentic existence. With athletes, he trains them to develop focus, inspiration, and trust by utilizing evidence-based tools that increase self-awareness, improve self-regulation, and enhance psychological flexibility.

Website: https://fortitude.coach/
Newsletter: https://rgfperformance.substack.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_ryanford24
Email: [email protected]

TOPIC
Mental Toughness

Mental Toughness is the ability to act in a way that is consistent with your goals, values, and the things that are important to you, even when standing face-to-face with adversity. Difficult situations and experiencing pressure, doubt, worry, and adversity are natural and unavoidable parts of sports. The mentally tough athlete accepts these experiences for what they are and chooses to act in line with who they want to be as a competitor, even when it is difficult. 

Mental toughness is often incorrectly thought of as burying or suppressing thoughts and emotions rather than accepting them. This can lead to stigmatized thinking about mental health and mental performance training that only incorporates this necessary work once things are going wrong. 

Breaking away from this unproductive view of mental toughness is necessary for whole athlete development. Effective mental performance is a proactive pursuit and demands consistent training that is a natural part of an athlete’s daily routine. Learn how to take ownership and responsibility for your training with the tool below.

MENTAL PERFORMANCE TOOL
The 3 R’s

Many layers go into becoming mentally tough. Identifying who you want to be as an athlete, what your values & goals are, and the subsequent actions that take you toward those values & goals is a necessary step. As you go through this process, I encourage you to utilize the following tool to build awareness of your experiences and actively work on engaging in the task at hand as the athlete you identified:

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