This Twitter exchange begins with Lex Gillette’s response to the news that the 2020 Summer Olympic Games would be delayed, due to the worldwide pandemic COVID-19. Gillette is a four-time Paralympic medalist and three-time long jump world champion. The reply is from Aubree Munro Watson, a professional softball player with Team USA.
Their exchange is emblematic of the majority of comments from athletes who have made the Olympic team or who are training for the trials. Publicly, most are staying positive:
“As for now, the work continues and even though there’s many obstacles, I’m still going to work just as hard to shoot for more moments like this in the future.” Karissa Schweizer, a six-time NCAA champion and pro runner for Nike (via Twitter)
“It means I have one more year to practice; one more year to make myself a better player.” Nikhil Kumar, US Olympic Table Tennis Team (via USATT)
“Just one more year to get better #Tokyo2021.” Lilly King, 2016 Olympic champion in the 100m breaststroke and the 4x100m medley (via Instagram)
“Many uncertainties now, but we will get through this. Just need to focus on what we can control and keep working towards our dreams.” Sakura Kokumai, the first American to qualify for karate in the Olympics (via Instagram)
These responses are adaptive and what we expect to hear. This type of attitude shows resilience and grit.
But when you look deeper, you realize there is also fear, uncertainty, and frustration. Just like most of us feel. Socially distanced can feel like socially isolated. Even with all the Zoom meetings, FaceTime, and other virtual platforms, we can feel lonely and disconnected, struggling to find our energy. More so, what if most of your focus has been on the upcoming Games or Trials?
In a piece for the WSJ, Kate Courtney, professional mountain bike racer and Olympic team member, writes about the pandemic-disrupted season:
In the past few weeks, I have felt the entire range of human emotion. At times, I am fearful and uncertain, not just about suspended dreams, but about our suspended world. What is the point of training in a time like this? Though I can ride my bike and train in a makeshift home gym, my mind is loud and questioning where it is usually quiet and resolved. I’ve tried to stay focused, pushing hard and thinking “all in for Tokyo,” only to find my mind consumed with panic and disappointment rather than strength and motivation.
Courtney concludes her piece saying “For now, my only solid plan is to look inward, keep my head down, and focus on taking the next right step. I have to keep believing that, on the other side, I will stand on that Olympic start line. Hope and heartbreak can live side-by-side.”
This is the sweet spot that we need to find at this time: Hope AND heartbreak. I can have doubts and fears AND I can continue to focus on the things that are meaningful to me.
In fact, it is often in times of anxiety and upheaval that we most need to explicitly turn to hope, purpose, and meaning.
Vic Strecher, a psychologist friend of mine who teaches at the University of Michigan, has written extensively on the need for purpose in our lives. Especially when our lives are disrupted. Strecher’s was more than disrupted; it was broken. Ten years ago, he and his wife lost their older daughter, Julia, age 19, to a heart attack. Julia had contracted a viral infection when she was a baby that required a heart transplant. Vic and his wife committed to giving her a full and beautiful life, never knowing how long she would have. In 2014, I heard Vic tell his story at a conference, and he has shared it many times. (I like this version the best.) He moved me to tears, not only because of his own loss, but because I was dealing with the loss of my younger brother, Bill, less than a year earlier, also of a heart attack.
In a time of loss, sadness, and anxiety, we can retreat (which both Vic and I did for awhile). But in coping with adversity, focusing on one’s purpose can help with healing and moving forward. Having a strong purpose is vital to our psychological, emotional, and physiological well-being.
“The need for meaning and purpose is No. 1. It’s the deepest driver of well-being there is.” Alan Rozanski, Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
“Every life needs a purpose to which it can give the energies of its mind and the enthusiasm of its heart.” Saint Francis of Assisi
We are in a time of loss, sadness, and anxiety. AND we are in the position to move forward with purpose. Whether you are an athlete on the Olympic team or a basement ping pong player trying to stay in shape, you can use this time to remember why you play and to connect to something bigger than yourself.
My suggestions to Olympians, some of whom I’ll be speaking with in the next week, perhaps can be good reminders for us all:
- Be gentle with yourself. Practice self-compassion. This time IS challenging.
- When, not if, you get frustrated with reduced options for training/improving, acknowledge this. Don’t just brush that thought away. It’s okay to be affected by this and not to always demonstrate unshakable resilience.
- AND, you can use this time to work on your game. Especially your weaknesses.
- For many of us, this is a good time to improve our focus and attention. There is so much out there to distract us from our goals and purpose.
- Devote specific practice time to training your attention. Here are a few of my blog posts on focus
- Work on managing self-talk.
- Practice “defusing” from your thoughts and emotions, treating these like passing sensations rather than absolute facts of your situation.
- Breathe, stay grounded, and ACT
- Accept your reactions and be present
- Choose a valued direction
- Take action
Feel free to reach out and connect with me. I would love to hear how you are doing.
Be well 💗