Building Mental Fortitude
- Raven
- Sep 10
- 5 min read
Mental fortitude is the ability to have a clear mindset, maintain one's goals, and retain mental strength in the face of adversity or hardship.
Everyone has some level of mental fortitude, but some people have stronger mental fortitude than others. These people tend to be athletes, law enforcement, emergency service people, specialized military, and other people who specifically train for it. These people have the ability to identify the challenge at hand, formulate a game plan even on the fly, have the confidence to take on the challenge, make a commitment to see things through to an end point, and the self-control to handle the challenge mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Key components:
Self-Control
Confidence
Commitment
Constructive View of Challenges
The development of mental fortitude has been shown in psychological research to help with enhanced performance, an increase of resilience, maintaining a positive attitude, reducing stress through better coping mechanisms, higher rates of productivity, improved wellbeing, heightened creativity (as a cognitive process), and better leadership skills.
How To Develop Mental Fortitude
There are two methods for developing mental fortitude: inside work and training. The greater the effort, the more you'll develop your mental fortitude.
Inside work can be done inside. It consists of practicing visualization techniques, positive thinking exercises, planning what you would do in certain situations, practicing emotional control, revisiting past experiences and reflecting on how you could do better next time, acknowledging the need for training, etc. The basis for inside work is education, reflection, and planning.
Training is the practical application to help increase mental fortitude. This could be physical training, aiming to perfect training and reactions, developing a schedule for training, setting/surpassing/new goals, etc. The basis for training is testing, performance, goal setting, and development. Training may be difficult at first. Take as small of steps as you need, as long as you are pushing yourself.
In a previous post (Question of Performance) it was suggested that RLSH have a suggested level of performance. Let's use that as the base for this example.
Step One. Figure out where you’re at. Let’s say that there is a 1.5 mile run, a 300 meter sprint, pull ups, push ups, and sit ups - which are common performance test factors. Let’s use the table below as an example of goals and where you may start off at the beginning of your training.
What could you do better? What will you need to focus on to reach the minimums? Could you develop a smart plan of action after seeing these results?
Step Two. Implementing a plan. By creating and implementing a plan will help you reach your goals. Your plan should be well thought out, but if you need to switch things up, it should be flexible enough to allow for that. Also, plan for a future test time, giving you a firm training range. If we're looking at the beginning numbers, working towards the goal numbers, it would be smart to aim for:
Increasing your 1.5 mile run to the outside minimum which is 12:30 minutes. This can be done by aiming for a 16 minute 2 mile run, increasing elevation, wearing a weighted vest while running, and speed walking for 60 minutes (rather than for distance).
Increasing your speed for the 300 meter sprint to reach the outside minimum of 60 seconds. This could be done by doing heavy sled pulls/pushes, frequently practicing a 300 or 500 meter sprint, adding plyometric activity to your workout, practicing explosive movements, and adding resistance to your sprints (weighted vest, parachute, etc).
Increasing your pull ups to the inside minimum of 15. You can already do more than the outside minimum of 1. Your goal should be to increase the amount of pull ups you can do to failure. A good next step would be to aim for 5 pull ups. Pull ups utilize the back and bicep primarily, so work on training those.
Increasing your push ups towards the inside minimum of 50. You can already do more than the outside minimum of 20. You could set your next goal to 25 or 30 within a 1 minute time frame. Push ups utilize the chest and triceps primarily, so work on training those.
Increasing your sit ups, timed for 1 minute, to reach the outside goal of 30. This could be done by doing decline sit ups, Russian twists, lying leg lifts, weighted crunches, weighted back extensions, and other resistance training for the core.
Step Three. Re-testing your abilities. After 1 or 2 months, you should consider re-testing to assess where you are at. You may find that it only took you that short training time to reach all the minimums or to meet most of them. This is where you can set some new goals. You should gain self-confidence as you do this because you are aware of your own abilities. You've made the commitment to become better. Your plan is firm but flexible, allowing for a constructive view of the challenge. You gain self-control because you see the progress you've made so far. Self-control often increases hand-in-hand with the other key functions.
Step Four. Increase training and plan on future re-testing. It goes without saying that you will need to train some more and then re-test again. This is how personal improvements occur.
If you are trying to figure out how to increase your mental fortitude, but are having some difficulty, then ask your fellow RLSH for suggestions. If you need to connect with your fellow RLSH, please contact Raven for information.
As an RLSH, you may want to consider the following to help increase your mental fortitude:
Have your performance levels at "above average" levels.
Go out on poor weather patrols
Increase your medical/first aid knowledge
Learn de-escalation and practice scenarios before applying it to your patrols
Learn how to take on multiple attackers at once
Learn how to blend into a crowd, essentially "disappearing"
Common questions to help you:
Can I train for this and how?
Can I improve the training I already have?
How could I have done better? Can I practice that?
I don't know how to do this. Can I learn to do that?
Are there multiple ways to get to the same end result?
How can I increase the difficulty level to make myself better?
I need to learn to deal with X situation or X type of persons. How can I do that?
Let me know what your thoughts are by leaving a comment below.
On an entire other note, if you are an RLSH, please take a moment to fill out this RLSH 2025 Demographics Survey. It's anonymous. Just looking to gather some general information to study (data analysis is just something I like to do). It will probably end up becoming an article in the future.
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