Stop Protecting Your Mental Health – Start Training it for Peak Performance

When people talk about mental health, the dominant narrative is about protection. We talk about protecting our mental health from the outside world by setting boundaries, avoiding stress, and minimising discomfort. We go for mental health walks, take breaks, and try to slow down. 

But what if mental health isn’t something to be protected, but rather something to be trained, strengthened, and optimised?

At Sanctus Coaching, we shift the focus from shielding individuals from the unavoidable stress of life to equipping them with the tools to thrive under pressure.

Just as athletes don’t avoid exertion but train to handle it, high performers, whether they are leaders or early in their careers, must build the mental resilience to navigate challenges effectively.

A Performance Lens

Traditional approaches to mental health often centre around preserving wellbeing by minimising distress. While this is very important work that can help with stabilising our nervous system and bring it back down to baseline, this approach as a stand-alone one can create a fragile mindset, one where success depends on external conditions – which we cannot always control – remaining favourable. 

Sanctus Coaching takes a different stance:

• Mental health is not just about avoiding burnout; it’s about optimising capacity
  
• Resilience is not about avoiding stress; it’s about adapting to it
  
• Discomfort is not always a threat; it can be a tool for growth
  

When we shift our perspective, mental health stops being something to protect and becomes something to develop, an asset, a skill, a competitive edge in life and work.

A Case Study: Hannah’s Journey from Stress to Peak Performance

Hannah (not her real name), a senior project manager at a fast-paced tech company, had been feeling increasingly stressed at work.

A new colleague had been appointed to oversee her projects, and despite her years of experience, she felt constantly micromanaged. This led to tension in their relationship and growing frustration on Hannah’s part.

She found herself second-guessing her decisions, which impacted her confidence and overall performance.

The stress was taking a toll on her, leading her to seek out Sanctus Coaching.

Initially, Hannah tried to manage her stress by following conventional strategies, taking breaks, practising mindfulness, and setting boundaries with her colleague.

While these efforts provided temporary relief, they didn’t address the cause of the issue. Hannah found that her stress would return as soon as she encountered another challenging interaction with her colleague.

The issue wasn’t simply the external stress, but how it was affecting her internally, especially in a work environment. 

Hannah’s company offered 6 sessions on our Sanctus Sustainable Performance Coaching track.

In her first Coaching session, Hannah and her Sanctus Coach framed the conversation around how she could adapt to stress and transform her response to external pressures, particularly her colleague’s micromanaging tendencies.

With the help of her Sanctus Coach, she reframed the situation with her colleague as an opportunity to build her capacity for handling difficult dynamics in the workplace.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by her colleague’s actions, they worked on strategies that allowed her to remain composed, confident, and productive. 

By shifting her focus to what she could control, like her response, her mindset, and her communication, Hannah started to feel empowered, rather than overwhelmed. She practised active belief in her strengths and assertively communicated her needs, which helped reduce the tension and allowed for more collaboration with her colleague.

Rather than avoiding stress, she became more comfortable with it, seeing it as a natural part of the job.

By embracing discomfort and stress as opportunities for growth, Hannah became more adaptable and resilient in her role. She felt less controlled by her colleague’s actions and more empowered to manage the situation with confidence and professionalism. 

Incidentally, Hannah’s relationship with her colleague improved over time. While the micromanagement didn’t stop entirely, Hannah was able to approach the situation with a clear mind and focus on what she could control. Her stress levels decreased, and her performance at work improved as she adopted a more proactive and growth-oriented mindset.

Rather than seeing her colleague’s actions as a threat, Hannah learned to leverage the experience to strengthen her mental resilience and build a deeper sense of confidence in her role.

Performance Coaching: From Coping to Thriving

Our Sanctus Coaching approach focuses on:

1. Cognitive Endurance: Strengthening attention, decision-making, and focus under pressure
   
2. Emotional Agility: Learning to process emotions constructively rather than suppressing, exploding or avoiding them
   
3. Resilience and Adaptability: Developing a mindset that embraces uncertainty and sees challenges as opportunities for growth
   
4. Strategic Recovery: Just like athletes cycle between intense effort and recovery, high performers must master intentional rest to sustain excellence
   

The Performance Context

Mental health isn’t something we tap into occasionally. It is the lens through which we experience every challenge, opportunity, and decision.

The stronger our mental fitness, the more confidently we navigate the world. It is our internal context to navigate the world. And the skills we can actively build in Coaching will help to expand our sense of safety and self-efficacy and in turn expand our internal context. 

Strong mental fitness allows individuals to engage with challenges proactively rather than retreat from them.

Coaching, then, is not just about helping people feel better but about helping them perform better, in their careers, relationships, and personal growth. The goal is to cultivate the mental agility that allows individuals to step into discomfort, take on challenges, and sustain high performance over time.

A New Framework for Growth

The future of coaching is not about helping shield individuals from difficulty but about equipping them to use their mental capacity as a tool for sustained success and peak performance.

When we stop just treating our mind as something to be protected and start training it like we would any other skill, we unlock a new level of performance, one rooted in resilience, adaptability, and continuous growth.