When we think about “toughness,” most people immediately think about the physical nature of the definition. We conjure up an image of physical strength, facial expressions of “hardness,” or watching someone bear pain without giving up. However, the most important part of our fitness we can work on each week is mental.

Evidently, we are good about breaking down our physical routines into strength, endurance, mobility, and other categorizations of movement. What we don’t give enough credence to is how we structure our mental skills.

Here are three mental skills (and their definitions) for work this week.

1) Resilience

“the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” (Oxford)
We know that challenges and hardship are inevitable. It would then be (seemingly) negligent to assume we’ll never need to learn how to “recover” from difficulty. We can practice resilience by joining a hard workout, then assessing how our mind responds to this challenge. What does our self-talk sound like? How is the conversation we are having with ourselves progressing? Are you negative? Positive? How can we get ourselves back into a positive headspace as if the challenge had never occured? As they say, “take it in stride” (which would require you to keep going).

2) Grit

“courage and resolve; strength of character.” (Oxford)
Someone who is gritty has resolve, meaning in spite of the hardship they come back for more, time and time again, ready to perform the necessary actions. This shows strength of character, which is useful whether we’re talking about your job, playing sports, or trying new things; everyone will want you on their “team.” Courage is harder to define, but you certainly know it when you see it. Grit is the day to day mentality that keeps you moving forward.

3) Empathy

“the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” (Oxford)
Can you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes? Empathy is one of the strongest, most important mental skills we can develop. It shows extremely high EQ to be able to put aside your judgment, bias, and opinion to really listen and understand the perspective of someone else; take a look out into the world and you’ll notice how difficult of a time people have with this (…politics?). Truly, we must learn to agree to disagree without angry, vindictive consequences. Practicing empathy helps us to shape our perspective, while also being open to new ideas or ways of doing things.

Certainly, the “best day ever” takes work, and that includes taking on new, unforeseen challenges in your life. This week’s three mental skills are resilience, grit, and empathy. Break out your journal and begin by writing down your strengths and weaknesses in your actions for each skill, then make a plan to work on each of them throughout the week.

Practice makes progress.

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