Being an entrepreneur is tough. Clients will test your patients. Vendors or suppliers will challenge you. Employees may not perform as expected. You might lose an important account or find yourself losing confidence in your ability to reach your goals. Mental toughness can get you through these sorts of issues, but you also need mental endurance in order to keep facing those obstacles as you meet them. Here are five ways that you can build mental endurance while holding true to your beliefs and sticking with your passion for your idea.

1. Identify Your Fears

Before you can face your fears, you need to identify them. Maybe the idea of giving a speech in front of 500 business people scares you, but you don’t know why. Imagine yourself in the situation. Think about what feels uncomfortable. It could be the attention, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of making a mistake or even fear of tripping over your own two feet. Once you know what you’re afraid of, face the fear head-on. Little by little, expose yourself to your fears.

2. Move on From Failures

One bad result should never get in the way of your next opportunity. You also shouldn’t let one failure get in the way of your dreams. Self-pity has no place in business. It serves no purpose. Look at your failure as a bump in the road. As time passes, that bump will seem smaller and smaller until it completely fades into the scenery of everything that you have accomplished. A great example of this is in playing poker. You won’t win every hand but those poker players who have the mental endurance to stick to their game plan will have a much higher chance of winning over time.

3. Avoid Reacting

You can’t develop mental endurance if you’re constantly reacting to everything that happens. Reacting to everything is exhausting. Focus on leveling your emotions. When you’re able to maintain a levelheadedness, you have more energy to do what needs to be done. Shift your focus of attention away from the drama. Interpret the event in a different way. For example, if you discovered that a competitor just wooed your top client, a strong emotional reaction is natural but not productive. Refocus on what happened. See it in a different way. You can also actively alter the negative aspects of the event and turn them into actionable steps that deliver positive results.

4. Keep an Open Mind

Mental endurance requires an ability to be open to new ideas and new information. It’s possible that new data or a new technology could come your way. If you’re open to trying it, you could reap the rewards. When you’re stubborn and set in your ways, it’s difficult to adapt to problems. You might not see the opportunities that come your way. An open mind also allows you to respond quickly when action is needed.

5. Ignore What Doesn’t Matter

Not every piece of information you come across in a day will be useful. It’s okay to let go of the mental clutter. You can’t worry about everything. Thinking about the minutiae will overwhelm and exhaust your brain. By letting go of what is trivial, you can focus your limited time, energy and resources on the aspects of your life and your business that will make the biggest impact going forward.

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