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The winter Olympics are always a hit. From graceful ice dancing to the thrills of alpine skiing or bobsledding, there is something for everyone to love. When the Winter Olympics – also known as the Milano Cortina – opens in Italy on February 6, 2006, there will be 2,871 athletes from 93 countries participating.
Not all the participants, in fact only a small minority of the athletes, will take home medals, Even fewer will take home gold medals. If winning medals was the only standard for success at the Olympics, reported AP News, then most of the participants would be considered failures. Fortunately, Olympians have a different way of defining success and failure
Defining Olympic Success
If only medal winners were considered successful, and all other participants failures, being an Olympic athlete could be a big blow to your psyche. That’s why it is important for these athletes to be able to interpret what it means to be successful. In fact, which is the job of Emily Clark, a clinical psychologist with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
Clark is part of a 15-member team that provides psychological services to the athletes. The team deals with mental health and mental performance including motivation, anxiety, handling pressure, as well as anger management.
“A lot of athletes these days are aware of the mental health component of, not just sport, but of life,” Clark told AP in an interview. “This is an area where athletes can develop skills that can extend a career or make it more enjoyable.”
Since so few Olympians become famous and successful, Clark stresses that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. The participants need to focus on the process and savor the moment.
“Your job is not to win a gold medal, your job is to do the thing, and the gold medal is what happens when you do your job,” she said.
“Some of this might be realigning what success looks like,” she added. “And some of this is developing resilience in the face of setbacks and failure.”
How to Become a Successful Failure
Athletes train for years but one of the key things they bring to the game is the understanding that failure can lead to success, according to Neways Somatic Psychology & Coaching website.
While failure can be discouraging and embarrassing, successful people understand that failure is essential for success.
A 2015 study interviewed 10 Olympic Gold Medalists and found that all of them considered failure essential to them winning gold medals. According to the study: “The majority of participants stated that if they had not underperformed at a previous Olympics, they would not have won their gold medals.”
This also applies to everyday life, a blog on Psychology Today stressed. Nearly half of the new businesses opened in the UC fail, only one quarter of the people who apply to college are accepted. If you don’t try, you have no chance at success. Sometimes you must set aside a path that doesn’t work and try something new.
It’s all in the mindset. Enjoy the process, savor the moment, and understand that getting there is a success even if you don’t get a gold medal at the end.
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