Our greatest threat to living into what we are capable of is not our lack of ability, it is the error of being seduced by delusion.
Many years ago now I was coaching a young swimmer who was seeking to go to the Olympics. She was an incredible talent, quality person and a fantastic competitor. You honestly could not have hoped for better qualities in an athlete to coach.
At the time I was based in Melbourne, but the qualifying swims were being held in Sydney, where she was swimming in eight events, each one a chance to qualify for her first Olympics.
The first day she didn’t swim at her best, so that evening I chatted to her on the phone to get to the heart of where her effort needed to go the next day. She felt she hadn’t slept well, was too stressed and needed to eat better. I didn’t feel these things were the core issue, I gave her my thoughts but her stress was limiting what she could hear.
The next day she under-performed again and of course the pressure was starting to build. Everyone in her circle, and those beyond it, offered well intentioned advice, along with an opinion and a strategy to get her back to her best. And once again that evening I tried to help over the phone, however I was just a small voice amongst the noise of fear and confusion she was trying to navigate. This went on for four nights. Eventually she concluded she just needed a change and the next day she was going to shop for a new bathing suit.
The next morning I woke from having not slept with the concern of her under-performing. None of the areas she was focusing on were the answer and I wasn’t getting through. So I drove to the airport, hopped on a flight to Sydney, and waited for her on pool deck. Her jaw hit the floor when she saw me.
“What are you doing here? Did you fly up just to see me race?!” she asked bewildered.
“No, not to see you race, I have to go back in an hour. I am here to tell you it’s not your bathing suit!”
We sat down and chatted. “I came because I could tell with all the pressure, fear and confusion you couldn’t hear what I was saying. So I’m here to tell you in person. You are the best swimmer in all the events you are swimming in. The reason you are not winning is because you came here hopeful. ‘Hoping’ to go to the Olympics. While your competitors have made the decision to go to the Olympics. They have ‘decided’ to go while you are waiting to ‘see what happens’. It is normal to protect yourself from the hurt of maybe failing, by handing it over to ‘the Gods’ to let them decide if you deserve to go. And there is a time for doing that in life, but this is not the time. It’s time to swim as fast as you can with all the ferocious competitive nature you can muster. Then let ‘the Gods’ work out the rest from that point. This is a competition, it’s not your bathing suit, it’s you’re resolve.”
She got it quickly, her eyes lit up, she no longer cared what she was wearing or how well she had slept, she became single minded again, qualifying for her first Olympics over the next two days of racing.
Now it is easy to hear that the moral of the story is ‘attitude’ or ‘resolve’ but that is not my point. I am not writing this to fire anyone up. The moral of the story is to look for the ‘truth’ in the situation so you can have the best chance of achieving the outcome you desire. To create anything real, anything of substance, anything authentic, it is crucial we begin with something real. We must begin with the truth. Like it is written in so many religious texts, the truth sets us free!
Yet in life we slip into untruths and sometimes we outright avoid the truth. We do it to avoid being uncomfortable. We do things like blaming reduced customer spend for our businesses downturn, instead of our lack of company innovation. We ignore how we cut corners in training and instead blame our equipment. We get angry at our loved ones for hurting us, ignoring that for a long time we have forgotten to be kind to them. We avoid the truth to avoid the embarrassment of our mistakes. Yet our victory is only available in the truth and it isn’t as scary as we think, it is only short-term discomfort. When we eventually admit ‘I could be doing more to help the situation’ we aren’t scared anymore, we now just have a task to do.
My swimmer was certainly not looking to avoid the truth, she was looking for it, she wanted it so she could win. Unfortunately amid the noise of fear and overwhelm, she couldn’t see it.
Others however, get seduced by the pleasure of delusion. Concluding that if they look through rose coloured glasses, fudge the figures, bluff through the meeting, lie to their partner, they can enjoy the victory without doing the work. That is the seduction of delusion – that we can look good without actually being good.
The best feeling you ever have in your life, however, will be found in things that are true. In being the real deal. In being brave enough to admit the truth and put your effort where it is needed. I am not suggesting any of us need to open wounds. Just be aware, facing the truth sets your dreams free.