Dear Team Velocity Members, I have some revelations that have come from within myself, and that I need to share with you because I believe you will benefit a great deal from them, they certainly have changed my life. Firstly I would like to talk about identity, which will then be followed by stress. Our identity is defined as ‘the fact of being who or what a person is’. Yet we continually fall into the trap of associating what we like to do, with our identity. We have all been asked the question whether at school or social gathering ‘tell me something about yourself’ how many of us answer with ‘I am an athlete’ or ‘I am a triathlete’? In actual fact, you are none of these things, you may ‘do’ athletics, and you may participate in triathlons, yet outside of your training or competition who are you then? In being confused about our identity we can often let our passions consume us, and this can add an overwhelming amount of pressure, and a loss of who we are as people. As a result we might find ourselves in the trap of coming across as arrogant, selfish, obsessed and might not be as liked by as many people as we would like to be. The truth is we are not one identity, we are a mixture. If you consider the amount of emotions you might feel during one single day you will realize that we cannot be termed a single emotion, for example I cannot say that Abbie is an angry person, because the truth is yes she has been angry, yet in the same day she has also experienced hunger, tiredness, appreciation, fondness, love, joyfulness, anticipation, respect and disappointment. The same can be shown with identity. If we consider our pass times, hobbies, and talents we come to realize that who we are as a person is made of a range of abilities and passions. For example Abbie is; Abbie, the polevaulter Abbie the swimmer, Abbie the academic, Abbie the pet lover, Abbie the daughter, Abbie the best friend. Abbie as a whole is made up of all these characteristics. Yet the common denominator with all these is ‘Abbie’. Because at the end of the day the swimming, the pole vaulting, the school has all impacted on Abbie, but she is still Abbie. The negative approach to identity is often adopted by athletes and high achievers. It involves seeing yourself as only a makeup of abilities. There is a remedy though, and its not a difficult one, it has just been overlooked. The truth of the matter is there are two kinds of people in life, I like to call them ‘wet cement’ people versus ‘concrete people’. Wet cement people are aware of the fact that they are a range of different people depending on different circumstances, yet maintain their own personal values. For example around an athletics track Abbie is a pole vaulter, but she is still polite – a fundamental characteristic of her personality, but around a swimming pool she might be Abbie the State Swimmer – but she is still polite. In this example we can see that an individual is in control of who they want to be permanently – such as a polite person, and who they want to be circumstantially – athlete versus swimmer. A concrete person however has branded themselves as either a runner or a swimmer, and that is who they have become. These kinds of people cannot see themselves as a valuable contribution to a friend group, or a polite person, they are so focused on being ‘Abbie the Pole-vaulter’ that if they do not succeed in competition they mentally suffer, because they are automatically not a good person because their identity has become only that of a pole- vaulter. No one is immune to concrete behaviour, and it is not an indictment on your personality, but it is however dangerous. We need to realize that at the center and core of us as a human being we are a molten mess of emotion to which we can mold to whatever we need at the time, whether it be polite, kind, brave, giving, selfless, funny, hardworking or loving. This is who we are as a person, this is our identity. We then take this identity and apply it to our interests, such as athletics, soccer, tennis. Tennis is not who we are, nor is soccer or snowboarding, it is merely what we enjoy doing. When we take this approach to ourselves we begin to realize that if we do not succeed at our sport or hobby we still have our identity, we are still kind, we are still brave, still funny and it is these attributes that make us friends and allow us to socially interact. I can say this from personal experience, when I was unable to train to the best of my ability and needed rest I was afraid to tell people I had stopped athletics, I was afraid of the taunting ‘its such a waste of talent’. And I did get those taunts, but I had to realise in myself that I am much more than ‘Sam the athlete’, I am Sam who did athletics, worked hard at athletics, but I am still Sam who works hard, and I am still Sam that will achieve, regardless of whether I apply myself to athletics or painting or school. My identity has become that of a passionate person, a hard working person, not an athlete or an artist, or an academic. Too often do young athletes excel in a sport and get so caught up in the pressure to keep achieving, that they forget who they are as human beings, and the damages of pressure and stress can be debilitating. Perhaps this is why we see so many overworked, burnt out sportsmen and women at such a young age, through the fear of failure. I encourage you to do this little activity, it may take merely a moment but its impact could last a lifetime. Stand up, think of your passion (eg/ athletics, soccer, snowboarding, academics) and then step to the side and see (imagine) that version of yourself standing next to you, (maybe they are wearing spikes, or a jersey or have a snowboard). Look at them for a while until the picture becomes clearer. Then ask yourself, who is this person, marvel at their achievements, feel their determination, maybe critique their style for a moment or two. But leave them there, and look at you now, what is left when that part of you is gone? For some we may experience panic, because we cant see anything when our hobby self is not there. For a lot of us our hobbies are not going to last forever, we do get old and we do get tired, and we do change our mind. I encourage you to build yourself, as a person, be courageous, be kind, be fascinated, but always remember to keep your sporting self and your true core self separate, and in doing this we safeguard our mental strength to face all manner of adversaries. Stress, the very word evokes unease and wormy stomachs. For some it is sweating, you can feel your heart beating a thousand miles per hour, you feel light headed, you feel dread. Stress can occur as a result of many different things, stress of exams at school, stress of competition, pre race nerves, a fear of confined spaces, an uneasiness about meeting someone new or having to speak publicly. In actual fact stress can take years off of our lives. But what if I told you that it could also add years? For hundreds of years, dating back to the hunters and gatherers, as human beings our bodies have developed a ‘flight or fight’ response to the challenges we face. You might notice this if you were to go for a lovely walk amongst a beautiful garden, you notice the flowers and the trees and the blue sky, but then you see a snake. All of a sudden you are fixated on that snake, you don’t notice the flowers anymore, you don’t notice the sky. This is because our brain is designed for self preservation, therefore it focuses on the danger at the impairment of every other sense. As a result of this, our bodies go into survival mode, or stress. Adrenaline churns through our bodies and we are being prepared to fight or flight. It turns out that this is very much true, yet we seem to see stress as debilitating, as a bad thing. Studies have shown that when people view stress as a good thing, their blood vessels dilate which sends more oxygen to the brain and actually helps the body function. But how can we view stress as a good thing? Well, as athletic people our anxiety/ stress often occurs at the time of competition, the same way it does before an exam. However what our body is doing is preparing us to meet a challenge. We need to see these symptoms of funny stomachs, increased heart rate, sweating as all signs that our body is ready to go, you are being geared up, saddled up. What we need to do is be aware of these symptoms and think ‘where is the challenge?’ be aware that it might be the gun going off, the starting blocks, the race ahead and think ‘my body is getting ready’. It means you are fired up, fuelled up and this is when you need to say key words like ‘Bring. It. On.’ When we can learn to view stress as a sign of our body getting ready to achieve new heights it enables us to fuel our brain with oxygen and can even increase our life expectancy by ten years. So bring the stress on. - Sam Little
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 11:05:55 +0000
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