Jessica Ennis was the golden girl of the London 2012 Olympics. Upon winning the gold medal in the heptathlon, she was widely accepted as the greatest female athlete on the planet.
This post is to explore how being a champion does not necessarily mean you have to break records. Let’s dig deeper to understand…
Here is a picture I have created showing Jessica’s personal best and the world record for each of the seven events in a heptathlon. Have a peruse….
Looking at the stats, Jessica Ennis personal best at each event are considerably off the world record standards. In fact, the strength events of javelin and shot putt, are miles off. So what’s the message here…
Most Olympic disciplines, are one specific event, where you build and focus all your efforts to that end. For example, the 100 metres. The heptathlon is a different kettle of fish all together, where you need to compete in multiple events, all requiring different skills and aptitude.
Here is the key point to note. Life in general is much more a multiple event environment, than a single event environment like the 100 metres. You have to balance loads of priorities, executing different skills to successfully navigate a productive life.
If you look at the individual events, Jessica Ennis is much stronger at the speed based events, the 100m hurdles being her best event.
The strength events are her weakest, where she is miles off the world records. There are probably athletes at amateur level better than her.
The probability is, that if Jessica builds the muscle to be a Olga the Russian shot putter, her speed events will suffer and she won’t win gold.
What’s the optimal solution then. Introducing Life Champion Mentality…
This is a really simple 2-step approach to ensure you get better….
- Work out your strengths and tune them up, then tune them up again
- Work hard to strengthen the weak areas that matter, and importantly, ensure it will build your overall capability towards your goal
- Stop looking at things purely insolation, look at how everything fits together
- What are the core strengths you have at your disposal?
- What are your weak areas that are affecting you achieving your goal?
- What is the likely impact on your strengths of focussing on your weak areas?
- How often do you get frustrated or emotional looking specific stuff instead of looking at the bigger overall picture?
- Working within your team, who can throw the javelin, if you do the hurdles?
I was listening to a blog by Seth Godin and he mentioned a quote that really resonated with me.
Think about it. It’s a great quote. Modern life provokes us constantly and the daily grind can get us stressed and frustrated.
Anchoring this quote is a great idea. Whenever you are getting angry be curious instead. Try and understand what is happening, what is the other persons agenda is and then consider you next step.
Listen Mad Max, I am not proposing you become the Dalai Lama in the space of an X Factor ad break, just bank it in your bonce and give a twirl.
