How Does Mental Toughness Help When Managing Criticism?

Mental Toughness is often seen as a physical triumph over adversity.

For example, a football player who scores a 95th minute winner after needing treatment for cramp 5 minutes earlier in the game.

Or a gymnast who gets back up on the balance beam to complete her routine after a hard fall.

However, Mental Toughness is more than in-game performance. Mental Toughness is needed to deal with the pressure off the field and manage adversity.

In other words, Mental Toughness is more than the will to claim an accolade; it’s the ability to effectively handle all the challenges of being a referee.

One daunting challenge of being an official is handling harsh criticism.

Whether you are perceived to be having a good game or not, there will be criticism, judgments, and negative statements about you as a referee and your ability.

Thin-skinned officials will soak in the negativity and allow outside opinions to affect their in-game performance. 

When you buy into harsh criticism, you will often play down to the limiting views of others. The reality is that everyone has an opinion, and everyone gets criticised.

Unfortunately, opinions and judgments are highly prevalent when you’re a referee.

Mental Toughness is The Key to Blocking Out The Noise

You may still hear the negativity, but you recognise it is uncontrollable and unproductive to peak performance.

For example, if you hear someone say, “He always chokes over the big decisions,” it only affects your performance if you buy into it.

If you adopt that opinion as your own, you are telling yourself, “I always choke over the big decisions.” That type of self-statement becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, suppose you recognise that statement as someone’s opinion, not fact. 

In that case, it is easier to blow off the opinion as just noise and maintain a singular focus on your game, your ability, and your preparation.

Even positive opinions are just opinions, and it is important to recognise them as so. Praise can be fickle. The impact can be devastating when the person who praises you turns around and criticises you.

The biggest challenge for any official is to focus on improvement, not opinion.

In American football, Detroit Lions quarterback, Jared Goff, understands you cannot change the opinions of others. Instead, Goff focuses on his preparation and performance.

“It’s mental toughness, but to be on both sides of it, like I said, you can’t let praise or criticism get to you either way. It all doesn’t matter, and it’s all very fickle, and our league’s very week to week. You play poorly one week, play better the next week, and you’ll be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s the way our league goes, and it’s the way I’ve really approached it since I got in the league.” – Jared Goff, Quarterback, Detroit Lions

Your goal is to be the best referee you can be. You are the one who puts in the work. You are the one who puts yourself out on the field of play, to make the big decisions. 

You should hold yourself accountable for your preparation and performance.

The goal is to be the best official you can be for yourself.

Dismissing outside noise is difficult. However, you can take the sting away from harsh criticism by asking yourself the following questions:

• “Is this criticism 100% true?”
• “Is this something I can control?”
• “Will this help me perform better?”

If you answer “No” to any of these questions, dismiss the noise and move forward.

At The Third Team I work individually and in collaboration with different professionals where I have developed workshops and 1-2-1 sessions associated with Resilience and Mental Toughness Development to help referees. The workshops and 1-2-1 sessions are interactive, where referees are encouraged to open up and share their experiences to help themselves and each other.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about my workshops or 1-2-1 sessions and how I could help you or your officials.

Best Wishes,