What do you think inner strength is?
Someone who has thick skin, fears nothing and is strained of any emotional reaction?
Military training, elite sport science, and psychology are all pointing in the same direction – and it’s not what most of us were taught.
The Old Model of Resilience Is Making Us Fragile
Many coaches, parents and even schools and workplaces encourage the “fake toughness” archetype: suppress emotions, never show doubt, push through no matter what. They are controlling and demanding, leading with fear.
Studies show that this leading style is making kids, students and athletes dependent, aggressive and higher likely to abuse substances.
The authoritarian style creates the appearance of discipline without actually fostering it. It creates fragile and dependent individuals. What does a child who is taught to follow rules unquestioningly out of fear do when the parent is not there to dictate its behaviour?
They are sending the message to do something out of fear of not being punished instead of internal motivation. They create obedience, not resilience.
What Real Mental Toughness Actually Means
Real inner strength is the ability to make good decisions under discomfort like stress, anxiety, fatigue. It’s having the toolset to handle difficult situations, feeling our emotions and being able to handle them as information to guide us. It’s not really grinding through, but choosing how to experience and handle challenges.
Our brain functions as a prediction machine and wants to reduce uncertainty at a high cost. This means that in high stress situations we tend to take the easiest path to maintain order in our brain. Sometimes it means giving up when we cannot see an end on the horizon – which lets the unknown become the known. Other times it means changing our expectations before even beginning the task. Or it could mean exploring, accepting or avoiding whatever it is that has led to unease or discomfort.
Being mentally strong means training your mind to handle uncertainty long enough so that we choose the right path, not the next quickest solution. This requires training like in the military: First learning the needed skills to handle difficult tasks, then applying them in the wild, testing out in a practical environment which strategy works best.
Toughness is a decision, not a personality trait.
The Science of Hormones – You Have The Control
At any given moment in our life we have an internal map proximating how hard the situations should feel. Our body makes the best guess of what is needed to survive the task, releasing the hormones even before we step into it. That’s why our heart starts racing before going on stage for our presentation.
The mix of adrenaline, testosterone, cortisol and oxytocin can in one situation lead to fear and anxiety and in another to excitement, depending on the expectations we have of this particular situation. How we see the world shapes how we respond to it.
Evaluating the situation as extremes:
- Underestimating the situation leads to the need of course correcting. We overcompensate, which leads to giving up. Like a runner starting strong with reckless confidence and realizing there isn’t enough energy along the way, spiraling to failure.
- Overestimating leads us to giving up before even trying. The task seems to be so outside of our capabilities, that there’s no point in starting.
So How to Embrace Reality?
- Set appropriate goals by analysing past achievements and set the challenge just beyond your current capabilities.
- Set authentic goals that reflect your true self – not your public image. Get to know yourself and find out what you care about and why.
- Define the expectations by shifting your focus on progress oriented goals, not outcome oriented judgment. This also provides feedback that allows you to grow in the future. Judge yourself by how much effort you gave or whether you executed your plan.
- Count in stress and fatigue. What we think we are capable of changes depending on our level of stress and fatigue. We see the task as overwhelming instead of manageable because the costs of acting within it went up. Learn how to navigate when tired, fatigued and anxious.
- Prime your brain before the challenge by doing what you’re good at. It alters your hormonal state to search for opportunities instead of threats. Right before the difficult task is NOT the time to review your mistakes or weaknesses. Do them far before the battle.
About Performative Confidence and Ignored Doubt
“Fake it till you make it” is currently the No 1 strategy when talking confidence-improvement. And while it works on easy tasks where only a little extra motivation is needed, it backfires when stakes are high, leaving us questioning ourselves.
The mask we put on while we act confident, ignoring doubts and insecurities is fragile and leads to low improvement. We rely on others’ validation, praise and rewards and give away control to external factors. Hesitating, doubt and showing weakness are demonized and seen as a sign that you can’t handle tough situations.
Fake confidence might help in comparison with those who lack any confidence but fails when compared with those who have real inner confidence.
10 Exercises You Can Start Today To Build Real Resilience:
- Lower the bar: Average out your five most recent performances. This is the setpoint you know is achievable no matter the circumstances. Aim for consistency instead of trying to beat your best performance ever.
- Accept your insecurities, embrace who you are. It’s the way to disarm your weaknesses and take control back.
- Develop a quiet ego: Your ego wants to be liked and protected. If it’s overactive we misinterpret reality, blaming others. Ask yourself what causes you to ruminate, pull away and default to defensiveness. Do you dismiss criticism directly or do you consider and evaluate it? This creates self awareness, reflection and quiets down your ego to a reasonable volume.
- Label your emotions: Naming what you feel (specifically, not just “stressed”) dampens the amygdala and activates the prefrontal cortex. Use an emotion wheel.
- Practice positive self-talk: Speaking out loud trains your inner dialogue.
- Reclaim small choices: Learned helplessness starts when control is taken. Even small acts of autonomy (deciding when to check emails, giving yourself permission to miss the gym twice a week) restore agency.
- Create space before you react: The pause between stimulus and response is where toughness lives. Practice sitting with your thoughts for 5 minutes without distraction. Notice where your attention goes without judging it. Gradually increase the time.
- Get your 3 basic needs fulfilled: Being in a supporting environment and allowed to make mistakes, having the ability to make progress and to grow and feeling belonging by having people you trust and can be vulnerable with.
- Find fulfillment: Meaning gives our performance an extra kick and drives us to success. Meaning can also alter your intrusive rumination to become constructive rumination, that is focussed on problem solving, reflecting and dealing with the situation in a non-destructive way.
- Train and trust: Real confidence comes from building your fundamentals and practicing them over and over again. Put the work in from a place of growth, not fear. Then your boldness is deserved, not assumed.
Toughness isn’t always pushing forward. Sometimes the toughest decision is to turn around.
What Leaders Get Wrong And How To Fix It
We learned that the authoritarian leading style leads to fear based performance. More direct: You micromanaged your employees to helplessness.
The three needs every resilient team requires are autonomy, growth and belonging. Here’s how to get there:
- Create an environment where your employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and you act as the guide to nudge them in a certain direction. You are there to support them to reach their potential and they have to take ownership of their actions.
- Paint the brighter picture and create opportunities for growth and mastering. Provide pathways to moving up in the workplace. Give room for failure.
- Great leaders create space for genuine connection instead of hostility between colleagues. Mandatory team dinners are not the way. When one feels accepted and seen, oxytocin is released, the amygdala is turned down and cooperation goes up, leading to trusting relationships and less cortisol spikes.
As a leader ask yourself: “Am I building motivation through fear or through meaning?”
Conclusion: Redefine What It Means to Be Resilient
The toughest people aren’t those who hide the most — they’re those who see clearly, feel fully, and choose the right (not the easy) path deliberately.
Vulnerability isn’t weakness. Accurate self-assessment isn’t doubt. Asking for help isn’t fragility. Be who you are. Embrace your feelings and emotions as information. Fulfill your basic human needs and find purpose and meaning in life that carries us through challenges.
What would change if you stopped performing confidence and started building it?
As always: I’m proud of you, you go girl!
