Practical coaching and athlete development
Mental Toughness and Mental Skills in Sport
Understand the difference between broad descriptions of mental toughness and specific mental skills that athletes can practise.
What do we mean by mentally tough?
When a coach asks an athlete to be tougher, the intended meaning may be to stay engaged, recover after a setback, make a decision under pressure or maintain effort. These are different demands. Unless the conversation becomes specific, the athlete may be left with a judgement rather than something they can work on.
Begin by asking: “In which situation, and what would you like to see?” An observable description creates a starting point for coaching. It also helps the athlete explain what makes the situation difficult.
A broad quality and a practical skill are different
Mental toughness is a broad way of describing how athletes respond to demanding circumstances. Mental skills are more specific activities, such as goal setting, imagery, self-talk and managing attention. These give the athlete something to rehearse.
An athlete might have strong motivation while making limited use of a preparation routine. Another might use imagery regularly but feel uncertain in an unfamiliar competitive setting. A broad label alone can hide these differences.
The SPQ20 brings several areas into the conversation
The SPQ20 combines personality characteristics and mental skills across four areas: Achievement and Competitiveness, Confidence and Resilience, Interaction and Sportsmanship, and Power and Aggressiveness.
This makes it possible to explore work ethic, emotional responses, relationships and practical preparation within the same profile. Read each scale using its specific definition, and consider combinations as questions to investigate rather than explanations that have already been established.
Athletes can look strong in different ways
One athlete may be visibly intense and outspoken. Another may be quiet, prepared and able to return attention to the task after a setback. Appearance alone tells us little about which approach is useful in a particular sport.
Likewise, competitive determination should be considered alongside adaptability, relationships and sportsmanship. An effective response may involve accepting feedback, changing a plan or asking for support. Coaching should leave room for those behaviours.
Replace a label with a practice opportunity
Consider a player who withdraws after a mistake. “You need to be mentally tougher” offers no clear method. A more useful conversation asks what they notice, which thoughts persist and what would help them re-engage in the next phase of play.
The agreed action could be to use a short cue and identify the next responsibility. Rehearse that response during drills where mistakes occur, then review whether it helped. This turns an abstract demand into a specific skill-development task.
Different models organise the subject differently
The manual’s comparison of frameworks shows that mental toughness, resilience and mental-skills models share themes while placing different emphasis on them. Motivation, confidence, emotional regulation, relationships and psychological techniques all feature in the discussion.
The model comparison on the Research and Evidence page explains how the SPQ20 relates to Fletcher and Sarkar, Jones, Clough and Lesyk. For coaching, the useful question is which framework helps you describe the athlete’s situation clearly and choose relevant work.
Allow for the conditions around performance
Fatigue, preparation, unfamiliar demands and the training environment can change how an athlete responds. Discuss these conditions alongside the profile. A difficult day should not become a permanent statement about someone’s character.
Invite examples that challenge the first impression. When has the athlete handled a similar demand well? What was different? Their answers may reveal strengths and practical supports that a label would overlook.
A better way to frame development
Ask what the athlete wants to handle more effectively, which skill could help and where it can be practised. Agree how progress will be reviewed through behaviour and sporting experience.
If AI is used to prepare questions, ask it to avoid fixed character labels and ground suggestions in the report definitions and the athlete’s context. Persistent distress requires appropriate human support; neither a toughness label nor an assessment profile explains every difficulty.
Explore SPQ20 coaching applications · Read the evidence overview · All articles