My first memorable experience of being placed in a situation requiring mental toughness occurred when I was conscripted into the Australian Army at the age of 20 for two years of military service.

On the first morning of my 10-week recruit training programme, I found myself with 1,500 other recruits at the Puckapunyal Army camp in Victoria in the middle of a very cold winter.

At 5.30am the light went on in the hut where I and 15 other recruits were assigned, and we were hustled onto the parade ground for roll call in our pyjamas with our bed sheets under our arms. It was pitch black outside and the sub-zero temperature ensured that the parade ground was covered in ice and mist.

I was far from prepared for all that I would experience in the next 10 weeks of recruit training and soon realised that my greatest need would be to give attention to the muscle in my mind that would result in rapid growth in my mental toughness.

For it seemed that my mental toughness, more than my IQ and my skills, would help me complete the training that would begin to prepare me for life in an arena of war. In fact, it seemed that my development in mental toughness would increase the effectiveness of my IQ and my skill level.

The more I study the Scriptures, the more I see the need for the quality of mental toughness for spiritual leaders if they are going to fulfil God’s purposes in their life time.

Mental toughness is a characteristic of self leadership, without which a person will not be able to lead others.

As we develop mental toughness, we learn to become comfortable with that which is uncomfortable and we learn how to handle such difficulties as setbacks, disappointments, dangers, rejections, discouragements, fatigue and many other challenges along the way.

Here are 8 ways to develop mental toughness:

1. Prepare early

J Oswald Sanders wrote: “Discipline in early life, which is prepared to make sacrifices in order to gain adequate preparation for the life-task, paves the way for high achievement.” 

Or as Jeremiah wrote: “It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.” (Lamentations 3:27)

Over the years, experience has shown me that the issue that is not in doubt, is that we need to go through a programme of mental toughness preparation.

Sometimes we will take the initiative to develop our own program as Hudson Taylor did, or alternatively God will prepare His own program for us. Somehow we need to develop this strength.

And once we start, the programme never usually stops if we want to live our lives in fruitful service for the Lord.

2. Be faithful in the little things

Developing the quality of faithfulness has a lot to do with living a life of mental toughness.

The words of Jesus: “You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in change of many things” (Luke 16:10), has been a recurring theme in my own Christian experience.

Being faithful in the little things made me conscious of the fact that I would always have a heavenly audience of One and that I needed to bring my ‘A’ performance with me in whatever I did.

This would test my mental toughness at times when I felt tired or discouraged or overlooked. But it also reminded me that God is in the habit of testing people’s faithfulness before He approves them to undertake greater responsibility. (1 Thessalonians 2:4)

3. Find your calling and live by your convictions

It is always too soon to give up when God has called you to serve Him. 

There is a big difference between doing something that is a good idea and doing something that is God’s idea.

A deep sense of God’s calling leads to a strong conviction and a strong conviction is something people will die for.

Great leaders have strong convictions. Paul, on trial for his faith, testified: “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.” (Acts 26:19).

People with mental toughness develop the ability to be led by their convictions and not by their feelings or opinions.

It was written of Jesus that “when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly (resolutely) set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). This is a great description of mental toughness.

4. Travel light

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles …” (Hebrews 12:1)

So often it can be the good things that get in the way of the best things.

Travelling lightly involves living a life of discipline and in his book, A Resilient Life, Gordon McDonald lists the following four benefits of living a life of intentional discipline:

1. Discipline strengthens the will.
2. Discipline brings the spiritual gifts and skills of a person to the highest possible level of effectiveness.
3. Discipline develops stamina.
4. Discipline produces excellence in life and work.

5. Choose your company well

I learnt at a very early age that leadership was more caught than taught.

I decided to choose my company carefully because I wanted to get close to people on whom I could model my life.

(It has been said that people of mental toughness are contagious and will attract others to join them and in turn cause them to grow in mental toughness.)

In all of my life I have endeavoured to carefully choose my company.

6. Live in the sustaining grace of God

We are taught much about the saving grace of God, but not as much about the sustaining grace of God.

And the sustaining grace of God only comes to us when we are in situations where we need it; it comes to us not too early and not too late.

Paul speaks of how he came to experience the sustaining grace of God in a time where his own resources were insufficient for the challenges he was facing (2 Corinthians 1:8-11).

On another occasion he describes how a thorn in the flesh was given him so that he might learn how to live in the sustaining grace of God.

God will stop at nothing to teach us this lesson.

During this experience the Lord spoke to him: “My (sustaining) grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

He continued: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me… For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

An important element in the development of mental toughness is the sustaining grace (power) of God.

7. Determine to leave a great legacy

Perspective is a great help in living a life of mental toughness which includes being willing to go through times of delayed gratification for a greater long term benefit. 

Jesus modelled a life of delayed gratification for us in order that He might leave a great legacy. (Hebrews 12:2-3).

To leave a great legacy means living for things that will outlive you and things that will only emerge in the lives of the next generation.

To leave a great legacy means living for the things that are eternal.

Moses lived such a life.

“He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.” (Hebrews 11:26)

8. Be filled with the Spirit

The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) is love – to help us love those that are hard to love; joy – that lifts our spirits when the way ahead is difficult; peace – that can keep us calm in stormy times; patience – that keeps us focused and resilient when opposition arises; kindness – that helps us respond graciously; goodness – that keeps us from compromise; faithfulness – that lets others know that we can always be relied upon; gentleness – that keeps us from being self-assertive; and self control which I find is a helpful definition of mental toughness.

The race is on

The Christian, above all others, should be characterised as a person of mental toughness.

Paul was willing to pay the price of self-discipline and went into strict training to win the prize that will last forever. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

Paul warns us that not to live a life of mental toughness can disqualify us from the race that God has marked out for us.

We all are running a race right now, the race of life that God has entrusted to us. We are to run purposely. We are to run with an eternal perspective. We are to run with discipline.

“Therefore, with minds that are alert (prepared for action) and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at His coming.” (1 Peter 1:15)

This article was first published on Rod Denton: Equipping The Next Generation and is republished with permission. 

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I was a failure but a family gave me a home; today I’m the National Director of YWAM Singapore