tough-minded

comparative more tough-minded · superlative most tough-minded

1. Not distracted from actual facts by enticements, intimidation, or sentimentality; steadfast in one's actions, beliefs, commitments, etc.; realistic.

   They considered themselves tough-minded realists, and regarded doubters as fuzzy-minded whiners.

   2003 March 28, Paul Krugman, “Delusions of Power”, in New York Times, retrieved 05 Jul 2012

   2 more examples

   [T]his was the Society of Jesus, founded in Spain five hundred years before by a tough-minded soldier who trained men to hold a breach or a salon, preach a sermon or write a treaty, and do it and not argue …

   1920 September, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “Benediction”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, part II, page 197

   Britain's Peregrine Worsthorne, 36, is a tough-minded Tory journalist with scant regard for preconceived opinions—his own or anybody else's.

   1960 August 29, “Great Britain: Somebody Out There Likes Us”, in Time

   Synonyms: realistic, unsentimental, unwavering