66. Confidence is the Answer to Fear with High Performance Coach Rebecca Smith
Today, Laura welcomes Rebecca Smith, the Founder and CEO of Complete Performance Coaching and PerformHappy, who has been helping high achievers thrive under pressure for more than 20 years. A former gymnast herself and a fellow recovering perfectionist, Rebecca understands very well the mental health challenges that professional athletes have to go through. Having struggled with mental blocks for years, she eventually quit her gymnastics career and decided to move on. Now, she’s committed to helping young athletes nurture their mental health while still winning competitions. Her unique evidence-based approach helps fearful young athletes discover the confidence to stand up for themselves when faced with the notorious toxic culture of youth sport.
On this episode of the Pursuit of Gold podcast, Laura and Rebecca discuss mental blocks and how to overcome them. Rebecca shares her own story dealing with perfectionism, how mental blocks destroyed her gymnastics career yet helped her to uncover effective tactics for getting over them. She explains the two main parts of overcoming a mental block: the physical side and the mental side. Once you overcome the physical part, you need to work on maintaining a healthy relationship with yourself, meaning build your self-awareness and inner confidence. These two are fundamental to your self-growth. Rebecca goes on to share a few more useful tactics for overcoming mental blocks, such as turning nervousness into excitement, practicing mindfulness, and front-loading confidence. Finally, Laura and Rebecca wrap up the episode by touching upon the importance of having a supportive coach, emphasizing the fact that a positive environment sets the tone for success.
Episode Highlights:
Rebecca’s gymnastics background and moving past mental blocks
Winning the battle against perfectionism
The importance of praising effort versus talent
The incredible power of imagination and creativity for your competence
The two parts to overcoming a mental block
Increasing and front-loading confidence to avoid mental blocks
Turning nervousness into excitement
Practicing the mindful warmup and being present
Dealing with injuries as a professional athlete
Mental health and motivation during COVID
The importance of a supportive and positive environment for athletes
Supporting young athletes as a parent
Quotes:
“Their parents are like, ‘She’s the best tumbler anyone's ever seen, why can't she just go do it?’ And there's this because there's just such a combination of factors that lead to mental block. One of them is that it's the pressure of being amazing, being perfect.”
“Our brain only cares about keeping us safe. That's the only thing. It doesn't care about competitions. It doesn't care about scores, or metals or places, or deadlines, or any of that stuff It only cares about ‘keep the body alive.’”
“She was the kid who was a hard worker with heart. She was not the most talented kid on our team. But so, with that being said, if you want to move forward, you can't wait for your magic talent fairy to bless you with the ability to do your skill again, it just isn't going to work.”
“There is this huge kind of internal component that's all about connecting with your own joy and your own choice. Because if you don't, if you feel like you're doing it for anybody, but you, you're going to get burned out, it's just the way it goes.”
“Excitement and nerves are both high arousal, physical states. So, your heart's beating, you're a little more fidgety, you've got a little more energy, it is a lot easier to go from nervous to excited than it is to go from nervous to calm, especially when you only have moments before you compete.”
“Injuries, just like mental blocks, are part of the deal. For a lot of athletes, it's just a setback. And so, the worst thing you can do is compare yourself to where you should be or could be or where your friend is or where you would like to be because all that does is create self-pity.”
Pursuit of Gold Podcast is brought to you by Kaatsu Global
Links:
Life at 10 Meters: Lessons from an Olympic Champion
Laura’s Social Media:
Connect with Rebecca:
63. Talking Injuries, Underdogs and Epic Advice with Olympic Gold Medalist Laura Wilkinson
We’re changing things up this week with a slightly different episode from usual, in which our host, Laura Wilkinson, answers some questions gathered from our Instagram followers. The questions cover topics including starting sports at an older age, dealing with injuries and mental blocks, epic advice that Laura’s received, being an underdog versus a favorite, and having purpose.
Episode Highlights:
How Laura got into diving at an older age
Is it ever too late to start diving and compete?
The best advice Laura’s ever received
Being the underdog vs. the favorite
Moving forward from a loss
Laura’s favorite and least favorite dives
How Laura feels watching her kids play sports
Using injury time as an opportunity
Dealing with mental blocks
Setting goals and having purpose
Quotes:
“I wanted to continue learning and pushing boundaries and trying things, and I just kind of realized it was time to move on. But that dream of the Olympics was still in the back of my mind. I just recognized at that point I needed to find a new sport.”
“I’m not sure if it was ever that I recognized my own potential. I just wanted this thing so badly that I was going to pursue it. Whether it was switching sports or, you know, I was just going to pursue it no matter what. I was going to find a sport that I could go to the Olympics, and I was going to find a way to the Olympic Games.”
“If you are interested in diving and competing at any age, give it a whirl. I think, at the very least, you’re going to try something new, you’re going to learn something, and you’re gonna have a blast.”
“Soak it in. You’re at the Olympics, you’re in your dream, you’re getting to do all these things, just live it up. But when it’s your time to dive, when it’s your time to compete, that’s when you just let all that go. And at that point, you’re just at another diving meet against competitors you’ve competed against so many times, doing dives you’ve done a thousand times, you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“When I was kicked off my high school diving team for being a waste of space, yes, obviously, it still gets under my skin today, but I am so glad I was told that because it lit a fire. And sometimes, we need that kind of fire lit under us.”
“We want adversity, we want obstacles because that’s when we rise to the occasion. So I don’t think being labeled an underdog is a bad thing. I think fighting for something, it gives you that fuel—it’s just such a perfect description—that fuel to push forward and to overcome. Because you want this thing, and you’re fighting for it.”
“It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to just lose it, and just kind of want to cry or vent or whatever, like, make sure you are allowing yourself to experience that emotion. If you are stuffing it in and trying to avoid the emotion of what happened, it will come out later in a much uglier way.”
“Don’t sit in the grief for, like, forever, you know, but give yourself a few days, a few weeks, whatever the timeline is, a little bit of time to process it. Then begin to create a new game plan and analyze and work on what happened and what is going to come next.”
“My other kids are still kind of figuring out what it is that they’re going to do. One has said she is not an athlete, she is an artist, and I respect that, although she will run sprints with me, and so that’s really cool, maybe one day she’ll go for track. But you know, I love, I love, absolutely love watching them find the thing that lights them up the way that I feel like diving lights me up.”
“Don’t be afraid to get more than one opinion on what your injury is. You know, one doctor doesn’t always have the answers or may not pick up everything, like, it’s okay to get two or three opinions on things to make sure you’re making the right choice.”
“When you have injuries, this is the number one thing I will tell people to do: take care of your injury and then train mentally. Everybody says sports is 90% mental, but no one trains that way. Not one. I can pretty much guarantee you that.”
“When you close your eyes as you start implementing all of your senses, you’re not just seeing it with your eyes, you can actually feel what you’re doing. You’re actually firing muscles, like, from the neurons in your brain, you’re starting to react with the right muscles that are going to be doing all of these skills. You’ll be blown away by what you can do if you do this consistently in that time.”
“A lot of times, the issue is not starting in the pool or in the gym. Sometimes, the issue is starting at home or in your personal life. We have this way of carrying stress and anxiety, and it begins to burden us so badly that it comes out in our sport, looking like mental blocks and things like that, or this ultimate fear that is overwhelming. And it’s actually not coming from your sport.”
“A lot of times, our sport, even if you’re a sprinter, the whole process is a marathon, not a sprint. So have that long-term vision and hang on to that.”
“I’m very, very goal-oriented. And so, even when I’ve done really awesome things, I’ve always wanted more. I’ve always strived for more, like, my whole goal wasn’t… I mean, I wanted to win the Olympics, but I also wanted to find out what I was capable of, how good can I be, how hard of dives can I do and do them really, really well, for like nines and tens.”
“I love training as much as I love competing. Competing is exciting and it’s fun. But the hunt to get there is almost better. Like sometimes, when you get to the meet, you’re like, man, I kind of wish it wasn’t here because I love that process. And that hunt. And that work. There’s just something so fulfilling about that to me.”
“My purpose doesn’t just lie in having goals. And it’s not just in what I’m doing. I know that I have worth and value because God created me, and he told me that. And, you know, for me, diving has always been a beautiful way to feel really connected with God. Because that is a gift I know he gave me, and when I do it with everything that I am, it feels like worship. And it feels beautiful and completely fulfilling to me.”
“I’m still learning how to not just juggle all these things, but how to, you know, shift my priorities to where diving isn’t my number one priority, my family is, and then diving will come after that. And learning that I don’t have to be so intense all the time, but I can actually just fully embrace it and enjoy every step of the way.”
Pursuit of Gold Podcast is brought to you by Kaatsu Global
Links:
Life at 10 Meters: Lessons from an Olympic Champion
Laura’s Social Media: