R is for Resiliency
R is for Resiliency
Mental toughness is as much about our reaction to an event as it is our preparation for that event. There are going to be times when your race doesn’t go exactly as planned. There are going to be times when you fail, you struggle, or you have to return from injury. This newsletter focuses on resiliency, a necessary mental skill that can help you to cope with the obstacles sport and life throw at you.
So what is resiliency?
The best way to demonstrate the concept of resiliency is by using a rubber band. Take a rubber band and stretch it as far as you can. Now release the tension. After being stretched, it returns back to the form it started in, loose and ready to be stretched again. This is what resiliency is. It’s the ability to bounce back to where you started after your limits are tested or if you’ve been stressed in some way. In golf, they have a statistic to measure a player’s ability to be resilient. They call it the “bounce back.” Basically, they look at times when a golfer shoots over par on a hole and then how often he gets par or better on the next hole. Essentially, they are looking to see whether they let a bad hole affect the next one. A good example of this in swimming is if you add time in one event how often you are able to drop time in the next event. Ask yourself, “If I swim poorly in one race, do I let this carry over to the next one, or am I able to ‘bounce back’ and reset my mentality?”
How do I become more resilient?
I have a friend we call “Teflon,” because any problem he faces never seems to stick. Something bad can happen and he acts like it never affected him. Not everyone is so impervious to stress. Resiliency is a skill that can be learned. One way to become more resilient is to be realistic rather than making everything a reality-show-caliber drama. That is, a bad race is not the end of the world. You will live to race another day. Yes, you are disappointed, as any competitive person should be. You may not have qualified for a bigger meet, or maybe you feel like your hard work didn’t pay off. Regardless of how you feel at that moment, make sure those feelings are based in reality. All that happened is you didn’t do as well as you wanted in a swim meet.
Let’s assume, though, that the event was important and you can’t just brush it off as easily as you would like to. If this is the case, it’s helpful to have an established post-race routine that allows you to assess how things went and why you succeeded/or failed, and that allows you to put that race behind you and refocus on the next one. For example, after a race, regardless of the outcome you may want to make a habit of asking yourself three questions, 1) what did I do well?, 2) what can I improve on for next time?, and 3) what is my physical and mental plan for my next event? These questions allow you to realistically assess the last race and make sure you know your plan for your upcoming event.
Another way to recover from an unsuccessful performance is to examine how you attribute success and failure. Some people may swim a great time and attribute it to luck or win a race and believe it’s because they weren’t competing against anyone good. Make sure if you have success you know that you are the cause of this success and give yourself credit for working hard and swimming well. If you have a poor race and think there is never going to be anything you can do to get better, or lose and believe it was entirely your fault (rather than crediting competitors), it will be difficult for you to bounce back for the next event. It’s important to be optimistic and to understand that even though you may have “failed,” a new race is a clean slate. You have control over your own performance, and that there is always something you can do to improve.
Finally, to be resilient you need to be confident in yourself and your hard work. Believe that you are good and be optimistic that all of the hours you log in the pool will pay off.
Resilience is simply readjusting
Whether it’s after a poor performance, an injury, or any other obstacle from which you are trying to mentally or physically recover, remember that all it takes to be resilient is to readjust your mindset. You may have suffered a setback, but you have the ability to view this setback as a challenge that can make you stronger, more motivated and mentally tougher. Instead of telling yourself you failed or that you will never recover from the situation, simply remind yourself that you can take control over what happens in the future but can’t go back and change the past. Once the milk is spilled you can’t unspill it, but you do get to choose to either cry about the mess or grab a paper towel and clean it up
So what is resiliency?
The best way to demonstrate the concept of resiliency is by using a rubber band. Take a rubber band and stretch it as far as you can. Now release the tension. After being stretched, it returns back to the form it started in, loose and ready to be stretched again. This is what resiliency is. It’s the ability to bounce back to where you started after your limits are tested or if you’ve been stressed in some way. In golf, they have a statistic to measure a player’s ability to be resilient. They call it the “bounce back.” Basically, they look at times when a golfer shoots over par on a hole and then how often he gets par or better on the next hole. Essentially, they are looking to see whether they let a bad hole affect the next one. A good example of this in swimming is if you add time in one event how often you are able to drop time in the next event. Ask yourself, “If I swim poorly in one race, do I let this carry over to the next one, or am I able to ‘bounce back’ and reset my mentality?”
How do I become more resilient?
I have a friend we call “Teflon,” because any problem he faces never seems to stick. Something bad can happen and he acts like it never affected him. Not everyone is so impervious to stress. Resiliency is a skill that can be learned. One way to become more resilient is to be realistic rather than making everything a reality-show-caliber drama. That is, a bad race is not the end of the world. You will live to race another day. Yes, you are disappointed, as any competitive person should be. You may not have qualified for a bigger meet, or maybe you feel like your hard work didn’t pay off. Regardless of how you feel at that moment, make sure those feelings are based in reality. All that happened is you didn’t do as well as you wanted in a swim meet.
Let’s assume, though, that the event was important and you can’t just brush it off as easily as you would like to. If this is the case, it’s helpful to have an established post-race routine that allows you to assess how things went and why you succeeded/or failed, and that allows you to put that race behind you and refocus on the next one. For example, after a race, regardless of the outcome you may want to make a habit of asking yourself three questions, 1) what did I do well?, 2) what can I improve on for next time?, and 3) what is my physical and mental plan for my next event? These questions allow you to realistically assess the last race and make sure you know your plan for your upcoming event.
Another way to recover from an unsuccessful performance is to examine how you attribute success and failure. Some people may swim a great time and attribute it to luck or win a race and believe it’s because they weren’t competing against anyone good. Make sure if you have success you know that you are the cause of this success and give yourself credit for working hard and swimming well. If you have a poor race and think there is never going to be anything you can do to get better, or lose and believe it was entirely your fault (rather than crediting competitors), it will be difficult for you to bounce back for the next event. It’s important to be optimistic and to understand that even though you may have “failed,” a new race is a clean slate. You have control over your own performance, and that there is always something you can do to improve.
Finally, to be resilient you need to be confident in yourself and your hard work. Believe that you are good and be optimistic that all of the hours you log in the pool will pay off.
Resilience is simply readjusting
Whether it’s after a poor performance, an injury, or any other obstacle from which you are trying to mentally or physically recover, remember that all it takes to be resilient is to readjust your mindset. You may have suffered a setback, but you have the ability to view this setback as a challenge that can make you stronger, more motivated and mentally tougher. Instead of telling yourself you failed or that you will never recover from the situation, simply remind yourself that you can take control over what happens in the future but can’t go back and change the past. Once the milk is spilled you can’t unspill it, but you do get to choose to either cry about the mess or grab a paper towel and clean it up
