In August 2012 the greatest show on earth came to the UK.
Like everyone else, that summer I spent the majority of my time watching the exploits of Team GB, with amazement and admiration.
Inspired by their performances I listened to their post event interviews with great interest and found them full of helpful advice and wisdom for us mere mortals.
Sometimes creating a career doing what you love can feel almost Olympian.
The tears, the triumphs, the moments of joy and the setbacks. The hardest work you’ll ever know, for just the possibility of making a living doing something meaningful.
If, like me, you’re an aspiring artist, working hard to build your audience, sell your work and find galleries to represent you, I think there is much to learn from those who tirelessly and anonymously make huge sacrifices to get to the top of their game.
Here’s what I’ve learned from the successes, failures and almost successes of Team GB.
There’s no substitute for hard work
We hear a lot about “talent,” “natural ability” and “physiological advantages,” but even the most prodigious talent will only get you so far. Each and every one of the athletes interviewed talked about the personal sacrifices they made to get to where they are. Day in, day out, for years, they kept their gaze firmly fixed on their goals.
Some talked about it in the context of success and some in the context of failure but make no mistake, not one Olympian was there without having worked bloody hard.
Mo Farah summed it up best when he told us all that his success was down to “just hard work and grafting.” Over 120 miles per week in his case.
Overnight success only exists in the media
We all adore the underdog who comes from nowhere to take the gold medal and, at least for me, the 2012 Olympics were marked by incredible performances in sports where the average Brit might not have been expecting it. Taekwondo, Dressage and Shooting spring to mind.
But, as much as these victories may have seemed surprising to us, you can be sure that it wasn’t a surprise to the competitor involved. They can personally count the cost of a gold medal. Missing time with their partners and sacrificing their attendance at family functions, they weren’t hanging out with their mates down the pub but were dedicating themselves to their craft and making sacrifices for their future success.
Right now there are millions of anonymous athletes, artists, musicians, businesspeople burning the candle at both ends to put in the hours required for “overnight success”
The lows are part of the highs
Over those couple of weeks in August 2012 we heard stories of agonising defeats, of twitter abuse campaigns, of injuries coming at the worst possible moment. We also heard stories of success after the tough times, of walking through the fire and coming out on the other side.
The story of Katherine Grainger springs to mind. Britain’s most successful female rower, she had won three silver medals at three successive Olympics but had never won a gold. Although a silver medal can never be considered a failure, I am sure there were moments of despair when she wasn’t sure that the elusive gold was coming. And I am quite sure that, when it did come, it felt all the more sweet because it required an almost superhuman dedication to a cause that may have seemed lost.
Surrounding yourself with positivity is key
Perhaps it is Team GB’s press training that has meant that, win or lose, every competitor mentioned the support of a huge team of physiotherapists, masseurs, sports psychologists, alongside the support of friends and family. Or perhaps they all recognised that they simply could not have succeeded without a support team.
We all know that we can’t do it alone and that we need to find our support “tribe.” What is perhaps less obvious is the sometimes painful need to separate ourselves from anyone who saps our positivity. Even well meaning friends and family can make a poorly timed comment on our life and, in the throws of a low, we are all susceptible. Energy expended on such exchanges is energy that we don’t have available to devote to our goals.
Failure is to be respected, but not feared
Most winning athletes seem to instinctively understand that fear of failure is one of the easiest ways to undermine your performance and let nerves get the better of you. For those of us finding our way in business it can be easy to believe that we’re being rightfully cautious with our livelihood, when in actual fact we’re staying in our comfort zone.
Fear of failure paralyses us to the extent that it makes success that much more unlikely. We make safe business choices that cost us money and sales. We make safe artistic choices that make us dull and generic.
The irony is that it is only when we throw ourselves into something wholeheartedly that we really know whether we have failed or succeeded. Otherwise we are merely avoiding finding out. And is there really any shame in having tried your best and just come up short?
Pain is temporary but success lasts forever
We all have a pain threshold. For the athletes this is a physical thing but, for those of us in a creative business this pain threshold can come in the form of how long we can survive when sales are slow or how long our ego will allow us to continue being rejected.
From my experience, your pain threshold is a lot higher than you think it is. With a meaningful goal in mind we can all do more than we think and survive longer than we believe.
For the athletes, the triumph of success will live long after the lactic acid has dispersed and for us the success of a meaningful life will live long after the temporary pain of financial struggle or rejection has subsided.
Pressure is a privilege, not a burden.
There was a lot of discussion during the Games about pressure and how it affects athletes. During one such discussion the conversation turned to how Usain Bolt copes with creating history. For most of us this idea of feeling the pressure of history seems perfectly reasonable but, as one commentator pointed out, elite athletes succeed precisely because they don’t think of it as pressure, but rather a privilege.
And this is the comment that has stuck with me the most. Because no matter how hard it can be, no matter how frustrating, it is still the greatest privilege of all to be out there trying to make your dreams come true. To be afraid of everything that goes with it, is to miss out on the opportunity to enjoy it.