As they pace to the start line, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, even the world’s best athletes can be struck by the niggling voice of self-doubt. But while in the past competitors were urged to silence negative thoughts, in this Olympics Team GB athletes have instead been encouraged to give their inner gremlin a name.
Naming the internal critic is one of a handful of mental strategies deployed by Team GB’s lead psychologist, Jess Thom, that she hopes will give athletes an edge in Paris.
“We all have that voice that is there beating us up that might not be helpful on competition day,” said Thom. “To take the power out of those impostor syndrome thoughts, I tell athletes to give them a name.”
“Frank’s my go-to,” she added. “I’m like ‘Thanks Frank, but not right now.’ It just diffuses the power. Athletes love it.”
The advice typifies a progressive approach to performance psychology spearheaded by Thom, who rejects the need for a trade-off between sporting achievement and personal wellbeing.
Rather than drilling athletes to ignore nerves, Thom suggests that confidence is overrated. “One of the most powerful things to understand is that it’s normal to have those unhelpful thoughts and feelings,” she said. “Even athletes have self-doubt at times. They get anxious or frustrated and still go on to win Olympic gold. Those thoughts and feelings don’t have to dictate how we behave.”
Mindfulness may have replaced the stiff upper lip, but accomplishing the required level of self-awareness still requires training, discipline and grit, Thom said.
“Notice your feelings, accept them, come back to the present moment. That’s the general strategy,” she said. “It sounds super easy on paper, but doing that in a high-pressure environment is impressive.”
Thom encourages athletes to think about their behaviour when they are at their best. “If that means strutting your stuff to the start line, then do that,” she said. “Behave like you would when you have that supreme confidence even if you’re not necessarily feeling that right there.”
She points to Usain Bolt’s showboating as a prime example. “He had his own way of remaining in the right headspace and it looked really casual, but underneath he knew exactly what he was trying to do,” she said. “He was an expert at it.”
To manage fears, athletes are asked to write a “what if” list, that serves as a contingency plan for worst-case scenarios. This typically includes challenges such as getting a bad start in a race or going a set down in tennis. Some athletes extend the list to personal superstitions, such as forgetting a lucky teddy or not being able to pick out their family in the crowd. “We plan for everything,” Thom said.
Elite sport has not always been kind to participants, with recent scandals involving abuse in British gymnastics and bulling and racism in swimming. But Thom believes Olympic sports have turned a corner. “You might have heard horror stories a bit like Strictly in previous Olympic cycles, but that’s just not the case any more,” she said. “There’s a realisation that we can have wellbeing and we can have performance. You can have both and you need both.”
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There has also been an increased focus on managing the post-Olympic period, with “performance decompression” plans in place for athletes, who sometimes feel rudderless in the aftermath of the event that has provided an unerring sense of purpose for years.
“You’d think that medal winners don’t suffer from that post-Olympic blues, but they really do – sometimes more so than the people who come fourth, which you’d think would be the hardest place,” said Thom. “The mismatch between the expectation of what it means to win gold versus the reality can lead to some really challenging times.”
On the eve of the Olympics, Thom’s work is all but done. “The athletes are prepared, they’re ready, they know what they need to do,” she said. “I’m just there as backup. A good Games is when I don’t have to do anything.”
“I’m in constant awe at what these athletes go and do and the odds they battle against and succeed,” she added. “They experience an incredible amount of pressure and their ability to go against what they might be feeling in that moment is insane. I’m the expert in how you do that, but I wouldn’t be able to actually do it as well as they do. They’re incredible at managing their minds.”
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