Many of our kids were involved in the recent National age group swim championships. I make a point of asking every swimmer how their meet went and I am happy to say many gave me the only answer I hope to hear: they enjoyed it! Some - usually more experienced swimmers - rarely seem to have a rewarding experience.
This needs to be unpacked as there is a common response pattern: immediate response is negative, and relates to swim performance. When asked specifically if they enjoyed themselves (at the meet), most say yes. Probed a little further, and it's actually also common for these athletes to have achieved one or more personal bests. However, even when it's acknowledged that the overall experience was enjoyable and there was at least one best ever performance, the trend is to stick with the first response - it wasn't a good meet.
This response pattern to competition is common. It reflects an expectation landscape that is virtually impossible to live up to. It goes like this: I have trained hard and nothing less than a good personal best in my target event is acceptable. Is this reasonable? Not even a little bit. Young athletes rise to the energy of an occasion but it requires extraordinary control to pull it all together in one moment. It's more likely that conditions will align some time during competition week and more likely again over a series of competitions. What's vital in all of this is an understanding of what high performance is constructed from: a positive mood or attitude, a physically ready mind and body, pre-prepared skills, and practiced race strategies. If I can look back on a swim, or any sporting performance, and recognise that I managed all or most of these responsibilities then I have every reason to be satisfied because it's just a matter of time until it clicks.
'Bests' and 'firsts' are blunt measures of performance - all or nothing. If your concept of a positive experience is pegged on a binary outcome then you're asking for trouble. Most disappointingly of all, however, is the fact that there are often a multitude of things that go well during competition even if the big race didn't. Consider the big learning from the first reflections blog: athletes can't control the outcome but the factors that make the outcome possible. The better and more often we stack conditions in our favour, the closer we get to our strongest performance. The greatest battle for any athlete is the mental one, and the very last thing we should permit is a young sports person to be blind to their own achievements.
We build self-esteem and belief not with dramatic leaps ahead but with smiles every day for the small things done well.
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