On being tough-minded

On the wire this morning is a good example of the importance of mental toughness in sports and, in fact, all competitive endeavors (including the competitive aspect of the arts):

KOCHI, Japan - Michelle Wie had another terrible round in a men's event, shooting a 9-over 81 on Thursday in the first round of the Casio World Open.

The 17-year-old's troubles started early on the Kuroshio Country Club course. After teeing off in light rain on No. 10, she bogeyed the par-4 12th hole and had four straight bogeys starting with the par-3 14th.
...

"I don't think I was playing that bad," she said.

Wie is a champion of self-forgiveness and excuses. Here, after four straight bogeys, she still says she wasn't "playing that bad." Tiger Woods, in a similar situation, would be tearing his hair out. He misses a put he should make and you can see how upset he is. Even as a teenager Woods got upset with himself when he was playing badly. Until she changes her attitude, Wie will never live up to her potential and keep sounding like a silly teeny-bopper. Her gift demands more respect that she gives it. She needs to become more tough-minded.

Writers, like jocks, must learn to be their own best "worst" critics. High standards and accurate self-criticism. Don't let yourself get by with less than your best. If you screw up, back to the drawing boards. No excuses. No rationalizations.


In a phrase that William James used, be tough-minded and tender-hearted in everything you do.

In his most famous work, the series of lectures published as Pragmatism, James begins by distinguishing between two human temperaments: the tough-minded and the tender-minded. The tough-minded are those who are empirically oriented--those who "go by facts." By contrast, the tender-minded are rationalists who "go by principles." According to James, the history of philosophy is largely the story of the clash between these two attitudes: "The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists and softheads. The tender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous, or brutal." The tough-minded approach to philosophy has the virtue of being connected to "facts," but it tends to exclude religion. The tender-minded approach allows for religion but is unconnected to the realities of everyday life. The result is that for the ordinary person, "Empiricist writers give him materialism, rationalists give him something religious, but to that religion 'actual things are blank.'"

James believes that pragmatism is a method that reconciles these opposing temperaments.


Complete article.