World Champion Jeroen Nollet advocates a strategy to turn the stress that comes with competition into success...
Why compete?
Ask a kid why they join in on a competition and most likely they give you a straightforward answer: to win a medal! Yes there might be pushy parents with unfulfilled dreams, or a kid who just wants to join with a friend. Even then the answer to why they are competing probably still sounds the same: to win a medal, to win!
The dictionary describes a competition as follows:
‘competition’. [ kom-pi-tish–uhn ]
noun: a situation in which someone is trying to win something or be more successful than someone else.
You’re asking me why I still compete? The short answer is ‘I want to win, and take a medal’. Over a decade I filled up three shoe boxes of (mostly) gold medals. Medals won in 4way skydiving from national level competitions to multiple world championship titles, all kept in those shoe boxes… But hey, wait a minute! If competition was about winning a medal, surely you wouldn’t put them in a box to be stashed away, right?!
Right!
Since you’re asking: why keep on competing for so long? This is question I have been asking myself for a while, I try to come up with an answer. Why would I want these stressful competitions and situations anyway? It is surely more enjoyable to just ‘Netflix and chill’. Putting yourself in a stressful situation however is key to achieving big things in life. Think back to your own best achievements and most likely stress has been part of them.
- Without the stress of a marathon training block we wouldn’t be able to run a new personal best.
- Without going through the stress of learning to play a music instrument we wouldn’t be able to play it.
- The stress of a deadline can motivate us to work harder.
- Preparing a sales pitch might be stressful, but without putting in the work we wouldn’t close the deal.
- Feeling the stress response in our body before competing, can help us to focus.
Strategy for Stress
Framing these kinds of stresses in a positive way can give us the motivation we need. The mindset and how we view the stress here is key.
‘You could view stress as negative, harmful and debilitating, or positive and enhancing’ says Dr Alia Crum. She talks about two kinds of possible mindset to look at stress:
- Stress is enhancing (SIE)
- Stress is debilitating (SID)
‘The body’s stress response was not designed to kill us; it was designed to boost our body and mind into enhanced functioning, strengthen our immunity, and promote growth at the physiological level.’
Dr Alia Crum, Associate Professor of Psychology and Medicine, Stanford University
Now, when stress acts as a boost for body and mind, that’s a great thing for competition. The situation where we want to be at our best for sure! This is the time to use the stress to our advantage and see what it can do for us.
Changing Mindset
How do you change from a “Stress is Debilitating” to a “Stress is Enhancing” mindset?
Dr Crum outlines three steps to go from SID to SIE:
- Acknowledge you feel stress. Say to yourself ‘I feel the pressure and the symptoms of stress’.
- Welcome it. The stress you feel means you care about what you are about to do. Feeling that pit in your stomach? Great! That means blood is being drawn away from your digestion and used for the upcoming performance. Dry mouth? Well, saliva for digestion isn’t necessary now, says your body. It wants to be ready and keep its resourses for either fight or flight. (A bottle of water can be handy if you are getting ready for public speaking!) Feeling your heart racing? Perfect! I want my blood to be flowing to my muscles.The stress response can boost your energy and focus.
- Use it. Now this is where the magic can happen. If we are able to harness the energy from the stress for positive, that’s how we can truly excel!
Personally, after I have acknowledged the stress right before a competition round, I visualize it to be extra energy that can run all though my body. Letting it flood my body from my stomach all the way to my fingertips. I lean into the experience and use the extra energy and focus to my advantage.
The additional stress leading to that focus might even be a trigger to get yourself into the perfect state of ‘Flow’; a state where we feel our best and perform at our best.
Use Stress to Give Success
So, again to the question, why do I keep competing if not for the medals? To me the answer lies in the feeling I get during those intense moments of competition. Not only during the meet, but also the stress that builds up beforehand. Stress is simply part of it, necessary even to be at my best.
If you can learn to channel the energy stress can give, you could become better than ever before!
Looking for growth? Look to your fears and jump towards them. That’s where the gold is!
Jeroen Nollet
Article by Jeroen Nollet, Hayabusa team member and multiple 4-way FS World Champion. Originally published on Jeroen’s website here, reproduced by kind permission
