The Mental Fitness Self-Diagnostic Tool

Frustrated? Distracted? Defeated? This tool shows you what to do next.

By Rob Shaul, Founder

Mental fitness isn’t about how you feel. 

In the fight, you’re going to get frustrated, impatient, discouraged. You will feel sorry for yourself. You will consider quitting. That’s not weakness. This comes with doing hard things.

If you could avoid these thoughts and emotions, you wouldn’t need mental fitness.

Mental fitness is demonstrated by what you do when these moments show up. Do you stay in the fight, or do you drift? Do you correct, or do you quit?

In my earlier essay, The 8 Core Attributes of Mental Fitness, I outlined the distinct, trainable traits that define mental fitness:

Resilience — Bounce back from setbacks and re-engage. A firefighter fails to save a victim but leads the next call. An entrepreneur fails in one business and starts another.

Perseverance — Sustain effort despite adversity or slow progress. A soldier pushes through a 48-hour mission despite exhaustion. A surgeon endures a decade of training to earn certification.

Discipline — Execute consistently regardless of comfort or emotion. A paramedic follows protocol in a chaotic, mass-casualty scene.

Focus — Lock in on what matters. A pilot ignores alarms to land a damaged helicopter. A chef holds composure in a packed kitchen.

Emotional Control — Regulate reactions to avoid panic or overreaction. An Air Force Controller calmly calls in air support while under fire.

Mental Endurance — Maintain clarity and intent through long durations of stress. A mountain guide makes sound decisions after 12 hours in a storm.

Cognitive Flexibility — Adapt thinking and pivot strategy in real time. A team leader changes tactics mid-raid when intel proves wrong.

Performance Self-Awareness — Catch and correct internal drift. A backcountry bowhunter notices rising panic and re-centers before taking the shot.

This article focuses on that eighth attribute—Performance Self-Awareness: the trainable ability to catch yourself drifting internally and act before the breakdown becomes failure.

The Scrum and the Mountain Awareness Tool

Years ago, a tactical leader sent me a note with a powerful insight: if we could shorten the journey from rookie to battlefield or mountain “aware,” we could eliminate costly mistakes and save lives.

During our first MTI Scrum, I asked the participants to create a field-usable mental tool for that exact purpose—a simple method for catching changing conditions in the mountains and responding accordingly.

The tool we developed was simple:

1. Notice the change. *”Something’s changed.”
2. Pause.
3. Confirm you’re safe. *”I’m okay? You’re okay?”
4. Reevaluate the plan and act accordingly.*

Here’s the scenerio. You and a backcountry ski partner begin a backcountry ski mission in mid March. Avalanche danger is mild and you’re hoping to find some untracked powder on a shadowed, north-facing slope. 

You make the alpine start, and begin the skin up in the dark under a clear sky and bright stars. The route tracks up an east-facing timbered ridge, but to get to the summit you must traverse a cross a short, open, south-facing section to avoid rocks. 

At 0900 you reach the south face traverse section and break out of the shaded timber. Immediately, you notice a signficant increase in temperature. The morning sun is intense. 

Something has changed – the temperature. Using our tool, ideally the skiers would heed this change, pause, ensure both were safe, then re-evaluate the plan. 

In this scenerio, the snow on the short, open, south facing slope had possilbly warmed up and become unstable – and avalance risk. The short traverse could trigger an avalanche and tragedy. Time to re-evaluate.

The key here is noticing the change, pausing, and re-evaluating. 

A Tool for Mental Fitness

Mental fitness doesn’t fail because we lack resilience or discipline entirely. It fails when we don’t act while those attributes are slipping. We notice we’re off—and do nothing.

What we need is a reliable, repeatable internal tool that catches the slip and prompts correction in real time.

The tool must be simple enough to use under pressure, and sharp enough to make a difference. It must detect drift and drive action.

That’s the role of Performance Self-Awareness. This core attribute must stay constantly alert for internal signs of degradation.

Frustration. Distraction. Defeat.

These are the signal states.

When one of them hits, you begin the loop:

1. Pause. Stop what you’re doing.
2. Diagnose. Identify the feeling. Which attribute is slipping?
3. Correct. Choose a small, deliberate action to reset.
4. Re-engage. Return to the task with restored intent.

You don’t need deep reflection. You need a shift from reaction to correction.

Most people recognize when they’re frustrated, distracted, or defeated. The problem isn’t awareness. The problem is inaction.

They:

• Rationalize it.
• Avoid it.
• Numb or distract themselves.
• Push forward, hoping the feeling will pass.

What the Signals Mean

Each signal correlates with specific mental fitness attributes:

Feel the signal → Pause → Diagnose → Correct → Re-Engage .

Field Examples

Example: You’re a rookie backcountry bowhunter on the 6th day of a planned 7-day high alpine mule deer hunt. Early in the hunt you saw and stocked two nice bucks, but got busted and haven’t seen a buck since. You’re sunburned and beat up. Mid day at lunch you check the weather and a storm is forecast. You were up at dawn glassing and saw no good bucks. The thought of quitting and going home a day early springs up – “no sense hunting in the storm, right?”

• Signal: Defeat.
• Name It: Fading resilience. 
• Act: Recommit to the hunt. Know it can change in an instant.

Example: You’re a company executive tasked with researching the product/market fit for a new initiative. You’re making a presentation on your findings at 0900 and it’s 0200. You’re tired, wired on caffiene, and feeling unappreciated. You’re mind starts to drift to a coming weekend, and you open your internet browser to VRBO.com with the intention of searching for places to stay. 

• Signal: Distraction.
• Name it: Splintered focus. Mental fatigue.
• Act: Close the browser. Return to the report.

Example:  You’re 6’5″ Army 2LT and are slated for Ranger School in 4 weeks. You’re good on all the  RAP week PFT events except push ups. Push ups are notoriously difficult for tall athletes and after training different methods for 8 weeks you can only max 35 when you need 50. You’ve been following a push up improvement plan built around volume and your daily push ups have increased significantly, but your max effort number in 2 minutes has plateaued. 

• Signal: Frustration.
• Name it: Perseverance + Cognitive Flexibility.
• Act: Change your training method. Don’t repeat what isn’t working.

This is the functional description of mental fitness in real-time. The self-awareness part is necessary, but insufficient. Mental fitness is demonstrated in the correction.

Reflection Helps. But Real-Time Action Matters More.

We’ve all looked back on mental failures and promised to do better. Reflection matters. But it doesn’t replace in-the-moment correction.

Again, the goal isn’t to avoid frustration, distraction, or defeat. That’s impossible.

The goal is to notice, pause, diagnose, correct, and re-engage.

Build the Habit of Correction

No one fails because they’re never distracted, emotional, or exhausted.

They fail because they don’t self-correct when those things happen.

This tool is designed to close that gap. To shift you from knowing you’re off, to acting on it with precision.

You noticed you were frustrated, distracted, or defeated. Good. That means you’re awake.

Now pause. Diagnose. Self-correct. Re-engage.

That’s how you build mental fitness where it matters most—in the moment.