WHAT IS MENTAL TOUGHNESS ACTIVATION?

The Mental Toughness Activation SystemTM is our unique methodology that allows you to quickly and permanently develop your Mental Toughness, so that you literally transcend your limits and live your peak performance, without hours of extra training time added to each day.

Let’s break this down even further so you can get a glimpse into what’s possible with our system:

Activation = the act of making something start working (Cambridge Dictionary); the action or process of making something active or operative (Oxford Dictionary).

Mental Toughness = The psychological edge that helps individuals perform at their best despite challenges, pressures, and stressors. It involves a combination of resilience, confidence, focus, and the ability to maintain motivation and self-belief in the face of adversity; A quality of mind or intellect characterized by, among other things, a refusal to be intimidated, a determination to finish a contest even when things are going badly, and an ability to control emotions and remain highly focused when under the pressure of intense competition (Oxford Reference)

It follows then that Mental Toughness Activation is the act of making one’s psychological edge ‘start working’ so that one can perform at their best, despite challenges pressures and stressors.  It is the act of ‘making operative’ one’s resilience, confidence, focus, self-belief in the face of adversity, determination, refusal to be intimidated and ability to control emotions and remain focused when under pressure.

And, when we say ‘Activation’ we are talking about a right-now phenomenon. In other words, anything we engage with in life is always either working or it is not working – the moment that thing we’re engaging with is ‘activated’, it begins working right then and there. So, Mental Toughness ActivationTM is a right-now phenomenon – the moment your Mental Toughness is activated, you reap the benefits of what it is to Be Mentally Tough right there in that moment.

There are so many Mental Toughness training programs out there that teach the theory and give some really good ideas on how to be mentally tough. These programs, while super informative and inspiring, are frankly impractical when it comes to the as-lived experience of high pressure, performance situations because this theoretical training requires way too much thought to apply (and we all know when we are thinking about what we should or shouldn’t do, in that moment our attention is on our thoughts and not in the present moment, where the opportunity to perform is actually happening).

In contrast, our Mental Toughness Activation System were developed in the field by Coach Kae who has used and continues to use these strategies at the highest level of sport – they are phenomenological, as-lived principles that allow for the transcension of your performance where it is now to Mentally Tough performance.  Short bouts (10-30 minutes) of consistent daily training in our Mental Toughness Activation System activates your Mental Toughness right-there-and-then; so pinpoint focus, calm under pressure, ability to handle tough situations and combat fear, resilience and self-belief are available at your fingertips when you need them the most.

What is most important is that you experience the Mental Toughness Activation for yourself, because just reading about it won’t activate your Mental Toughness – you need to experience it to for the Mental Toughness Activation System to go to work on you.

ABOUT OUR FOUNDER: KAE ZAKRZEWSKI (a.ka. Kara or Katherine)

Coach Kae has ‘been there done that’. She was a world-class athlete herself, ranked in the top 30 in the world at the peak of her career.  What kept her from being in the top 10 in the world and from qualifying for the 2012 Olympics was her own Mental Toughness.

In Kae’s words: 

“I can remember being on the court in Phuket, Thailand, with the soft sand between my toes, on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, totally miserable and afraid.  The score was tied, this game determined whether we would qualify for the main draw of the tournament, and I was so paralyzed by my fear of failing, by my attachment to winning, and by what it would mean if I lost, that I sabotaged my own success.

“Are you afraid of failure?  Do you feel anxious when you perform?

“And, as I looked out into the ocean, after losing the match, I said to myself: ‘There must be a better way.  There must be a way in which I can cause myself to be in the zone and to truly love the whole experience of performing – the good, the bad, and the ugly’.

“So, I started reading books, looking at what other champion performers were doing, I worked with my own Sport Psychologist, and I compared what I discovered for myself with other athletes from countries around the world.

“What did I learn?

“That champion performers train all areas of their performance, and that the best performers take their perceived weaknesses and turn them into their greatest strengths.  These champions look at what’s not working and, instead of dwelling on it, they find solutions to transcend their reality.  Every one of the greatest champions I studied spent consistent and dedicated time developing their Mental Toughness alongside their physical skills.  And almost all of them had coaches for all areas of their performance, including a Mental Coach or Sport Psychologist.

Coach Kae made it her mission to thoroughly understand what enables athletes and other high performers to be Mentally Tough in the heat of battle.
After retiring from professional Beach Volleyball, Kae went back to school and earned a Masters HK in Sport and Performance Psychology. Over the last 15 years, Kae dove deep into the field of human development, training herself to be one of the best Personal Development Transformational Leaders (a Forum Leader) in one of the best faculty bodies in the world.

In her career, Kae has worked with over 10,000 amateur and professional athletes, Olympians, actors, Fortune 500 Company Executives and CEOs, and other high performing professionals to produce sport and career-altering breakthroughs in their performance and in the performance of their teams.

Now it’s your turn…