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

TOPIC
What is Mental Toughness? 

As a 2x Olympic Medalist I understand what it means to be mentally and physically tough. What I learned during my transition into coaching was that there are two ways to build mental toughness….

The effective way is called the Build It approach. It prepares athletes to succeed in sport and life by teaching, modeling, and reinforcing good habits.  The ineffective way is called the Fix It approach. It leaves athletes to their own devices as long as they’re performing well. Then, when they reach a higher level or transition out of sport, their lack of mental training is exposed. 

Every adult that comes into contact with youth sports must have an understanding of the Build It approach to mental toughness. It is our job, as adults, to respond to the mental health crisis in sports and pave a better way for the next generation. Continuing to rely on the Fix It approach is bad for performance, harmful to personal development, and detrimental to mental health. 

To succeed in sport and life athletes must have effective mental skills taught to and modeled for them by the people in power. These skills include motivation, well-being, focus, quality practice, and resilience.

What is the Build It Approach to Mental Toughness?

The Build It approach to mental toughness is a strategy for how to implement mental skills training into everyday sports. It promotes the following (Zulegar, 2014):

Why is Building Mental Toughness Important?

Building mental toughness is important because all athletes need mental strength to respond to the demands of sport and life. Currently, coaches using the Build It approach are the exception, not the rule when it comes to building mental toughness. This may be due to the misconception that mental skills training is weak or “soft”. 

To the contrary, you can think of it like this… all athletes use the weight room to develop physical strength, not just the ones who are physically weak. In fact, it is often the most physically strong athletes that buy-in and benefit the most. The same is true for mental strength. It is not for the mentally weak, it is for everyone and the ones who buy-in benefit the most. 

We’ve seen time and time again with professional athletes like Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, and Naomi Osaka coming forward to say that, despite exceptional performance in their sport, they still struggle with trauma, addiction, and mental health. These struggles indicate that the Fix It approach to mental toughness is not preparing athletes for success in life after sport.

MENTAL PERFORMANCE TOOL
How to Practice the Build It Approach to Mental Toughness

The way an athlete learns mental toughness has major implications on their performance, development, and experience. Below are examples of how (and how not) to teach mental skills like motivation, well-being, focus, quality practice, and resilience to athletes:

Motivation

The Fix It approach to mental toughness relies on external drivers and extrinsic rewards. For example, a coach or parent may drive athlete motivation by focusing on external factors like what’s best for the family, team, or sports organization. Another tactic is to encourage motivation by providing extrinsic rewards like prizes, money, or approval from others (McGuire et al, 2020). This teaches an athlete to chronically look outside of themselves for motivation and is detrimental to living a life of meaning outside of sport.

While there’s room for external and extrinsic motivators in life, they must be balanced with internal drivers and intrinsic rewards. The Build It approach teaches drive by encouraging athletes to focus on what they like about their sport as opposed to what others want or expect. Athletes are rewarded by a sense of pride in their effort, the joy of accomplishment, and the connectedness that comes from contributing to a team. 

Well-Being

The Fix It approach to mental toughness defines well-being as happiness, and people are happy when they win, right? Following this method, athletes learn that confidence comes from success. This creates a need for external validation and approval, which is not where well-being comes from. 

The Build It approach defines well-being as a combination of 5 traits described by the acronym PERMA - Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships that are positive, Meaning, and Achievement (Seligman, 2012). While winning (achievement) is fun and can lead to happiness (a positive emotion), it cannot provide the other traits of well-being. Traits like engagement, relationships that are positive, and meaning give the athlete an opportunity to develop a true sense of self-worth. In other words, confidence comes from how a person thinks and feels about their own qualities and characteristics, not from results (What Is Self-Esteem?, 2022).

Focus

The Fix It approach to mental toughness teaches focus by waiting for an athlete or group of athletes to become unruly or under-perform and then yelling at them to, “FOCUS!!!!!” This tactic assumes that the athlete knows how to focus, has the awareness to realize when they’ve lost it, and responds effectively to being yelled at. 

The reality is that focus can be broken down into 5 skills, including time orientation, positive self-talk, composure, concentration, and confidence (McGuire et al, 2020). The Build It approach teaches athletes to focus by assessing which specific skill is lacking, teaching the theory of that skill, modeling its application, and reinforcing the effective use of that skill over time. 

Quality Practice

The Fix It approach to mental toughness teaches that mistakes are not ok. This is reinforced through yelling, belittling, and punishing in response to mistakes. The athlete learns not to push themselves or take risks. They learn to play it safe in order to avoid negative feedback. 

The Build It approach teaches not only that mistakes are ok, but that they’re commonplace. Especially when learning and practicing new skills for the first time or performing under pressure. When a mistake needs to be addressed, the coach or parent can “park” that mistake and circle back to it later when a teaching opportunity presents itself. A coach or parent can also encourage their athlete to “flush” that mistake down the toilet, keep their head up, and get back to pursuing effort and growth (Flush and Park Mistakes with a Mistake Ritual, n.d.).

Resilience

In the Fix It approach to mental toughness, athletes learn that to show weakness, or any form of vulnerability, would be “soft.” While I understand the sentiment in the heat of training and competition, there is room for vulnerability on the mental side of sport and life. 

The Build It approach teaches that vulnerability is the starting point for resilience. Only when a person sees the bottom can they make a U-turn to come back up. Positive coaches help athletes rise by accepting them where they’re at and teaching them how to view LOSS as a ‘Learning Opportunity, Stay Strong’.

In Conclusion

It is imperative that we as parents, coaches, and administrators insist on implementing the Build It approach to mental toughness within our youth sports organizations. The current state of mental health in sports makes it clear that there’s a problem. We can be part of the solution by teaching and modeling effective mental skills like motivation, well-being, focus, quality practice, and resilience. We can stop winning sports with kids and start winning kids with sports.

Sources

Flush And Park Mistakes with A Mistake Ritual. (n.d.). PCA Development Zone®. https://devzone.positivecoach.org/resource/article/flush-and-park-mistakes-mistake-ritual

McGuire, R., Loeb, B., Selking, A., & Ivy, P. (2020). The Athlete’s Playbook: Building a Culture of Mental Toughness: The Pyramid Model. Championship Productions Inc.

Seligman, M. E. P. (2012). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. Adfo Books.

What Is Self-Esteem? (2022, July 31). Verywell Health. https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-self-esteem-5205044

Zuleger, B. (2014). Mental strength model: Mental dynamics of athletic performance.

CONTRIBUTOR
Katherine Reutter-Adamek, Mental Skills & Nutrition Coach, 2X Olympic Medalist

Katherine is an Olympic medalist and trailblazer in American speed skating. At the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, she won both silver and bronze, solidifying her place among the world's elite. In 2011, she became the only American woman to win a World Cup Overall Title and the first American woman since Bonnie Blair in 1986 to claim a World Championship.

Her career took an unexpected turn after sustaining a severe injury that led to three hip surgeries, countless injections, and years of rehab. Forced into early retirement, she transitioned into coaching, determined to help the next generation of athletes.

By 2016, her injuries had become manageable, reigniting her competitive fire. She embarked on an ambitious comeback for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, facing both triumphs and setbacks along the way. Through it all, her message remained clear: success has no secret formula—it's built on disciplined work and the mental skills that separate good from great.

Now a world-class coach, Katherine blends her experience as an elite athlete with her deep knowledge of sport psychology to teach the mental skills that drive performance. She believes coaching is about guiding athletes to places they can't reach on their own—because better coaching leads to faster improvement, and faster improvement unlocks new levels of success.

Skills like focus, resilience, and emotional regulation can either make or break an athlete. By mastering these mental tools, athletes bridge the gap between knowing what to do and executing it at the highest level.

Work with Katherine

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