Adding Value beyond Sport
Wouldn’t it be good to have wonderful role models out there in the sporting community, filling the newspapers and television news with stories of their positive exploits. Imagine all high profile athletes inspiring the next generation of athletes and the whole community to be better people themselves. Sadly, that is often not the case, with the media jumping on to any bad boy image, or social misdemeanour by an athlete.
I believe it takes a combination of desire to BE a true champion, and understanding and living by the values of champions. Values are what are important to someone.
How often have you heard, or even used, the excuse – “That’s how I am!” This was a regular line used by a high-profile football player to excuse his behaviour off-field when he consistently over-stepped the boundaries of his team. Despite requests to tone down his behaviour, he continued to be outspoken and speak his mind, because “That’s how I am!!” I guess teamwork didn’t figure as high in his values as fame or perhaps, expression.
In actuality, we don’t have to resign ourselves to being the way we currently are. Isn’t that fantastic news! If the way you are is not serving you, your team and the results you are getting, than you can take steps to make changes. Create a new you.
Our unconscious mind is a wondrous and flexible thing, and once we become aware of thoughts, behaviours and even values that are limiting us, we can go about changing them. We can create a set of values more suited to how we want to be and the results we want to achieve.
When I first looked at values in the context of my career, I had financial reward ranked very low. I was more focused on working hard, being responsible, teamwork, making a difference to others, and fulfillment. It was no wonder I wasn’t getting far financially and that I was in a work environment where people were more devoted to helping and contributing than getting paid well for it.
Through undertaking coaching and courses aimed at the mindset, I emerged with a new set of values where “Making a difference” and Financial Reward could sit alongside each other very comfortably. In the past I thought that I had to sacrifice my own well-being for the good of others. What I discovered was that not only are they compatible, they are truly connected. What better way to make a difference, than to be financially abundant to be able to give my time and money to others.
I looked into the values of the world’s best known and best loved champions. From reading biographies on Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Greg Norman and Tiger Woods, to name a few, I have found that they all share the following common values: Integrity, Responsibility and Family. I consider these values a solid foundation to becoming a positive role-model for future athletes as well as having a successful post-sport career.
To find out what values would serve you best, look at others that have created success for themselves and discover what they value. Perhaps it is someone close to you or perhaps it is someone publicised in the media. You can either guess what they would consider important to them in life, or read biographies. Find out what makes other people tick so that you can add value to your own life and create similar success.
Annette Huygens Tholen is a former international beach volleyball player and participated in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. She experienced the difficulties of transition from sport and is now a Master Results Coach and International speaker using her learnings and experience to empower athletes to reproduce emotional and financial success in their life after sport. Annette also teaches seminars for the world's biggest NLP Coaching and Training Organisation -The Christopher Howard Companies. For more information on how to successfully transition after sport, please visit www.annetteffect.com and sign up for the free mini-Ecourse.
If at first you don't succeed, find out how
One of the biggest lessons I learned over the years of striving for my goal was the power of persistence. On my journey towards playing for Australia in the 2000 Olympics, I never would have gotten over the setbacks of injuries and partnership changes without persistence.Persistence is really just another word for spirit. Everyone has things they dream of becoming. We all experience setbacks and failures along the way. The person with the most persistence, however, always ends up reaching their goal.
It helps to have a clearly defined goal and remaining focused on it. My dream to be an Olympian was like a magnet pulling me through and gave me the courage to keep going for it. Along the way I would often reassess the goals, questioning them and determining if they were really what I wanted. In my heart I believed I was good enough to succeed at the international level and play at the Olympics – even if nobody else did!
Every champion has achieved their personal goal through persistence – persistence in training, persistence through the hard times and even persistence through the good times, striving to be even better.Michael Jordan needed to call on the power of persistence early in his career. As a sophomore in high school, Jordan was initially cut from his high-school basketball team in Wilmington, N.C. Although Jordan felt heartbroken for a time, this setback compelled him to work even harder and this is what it took for him to realize his dream.
Every great athlete has had their fair share of setbacks and it is how you deal with these setbacks or obstacles that will determine your fate.
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. One can learn the most from one’s failures – finding out what didn’t work and trying something different will, over time, ultimately lead to success. We do this from the very beginning of our lives learning new skills as a baby. Learning to sit-up, to crawl, to walk, etc. If we gave up on the first attempt at walking, we would all be stuck crawling around. We learn from each attempt, each mistake.
Through-out life then we will get results or outcomes. Some results we like, especially if they match our goals, and some we do not like. Our interpretation or judgement of the results will determine our next step – whether to continue as we are, to make some changes and still strive for our goal, or to change direction.
How do I know that a poor result, or repeated poor result, is an indication to make some modifications and still continue on the same path OR an indication to change course all together??
Firstly, a poor or undesired result is definitely an indication to make some change. It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expect to get a different result. “Perhaps if I just try harder next time!”
The best question we can ask ourselves is “How?” “How can I achieve my desired outcome?” When we pose this question to our unconscious, our unconscious can come up with the correct response when we are open to the answers. We also need to explore how important the end goal is to us. Is it something that is really what we want? If so, we must continue. Is it something that is achievable? I believe we all have the inner resources to do ANYTHING we set our mind and intention to. Marcus Aurelius said “Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.”
What is important is how much you want it. How important is it that you achieve your goal. What is the value to you of achieving the goal? What is the cost to you if you quit now and go on a different path?
Each time you take steps forward and dare to fail, you move closer to your end-goal. Even if it is two steps forward and one step back, you are still getting closer to the goal. Once you expand your awareness to new possibilities, you can never go back to your old limitations.
The picture I like best to describe this is one where you imagine pushing something through a small hole in a wall. There is great resistance in getting through this hole and you may need several attempts to break through. You might even need some help from others to build up enough force to push through the barrier. Once you do push through the resistance goes away and you are into a larger room of possibilities.
Though at times it seems futile to push through a barrier in your life, once you do, it opens yourself up to even greater success, more than you perhaps even imagined.
Stop Competing and Start Winning
Did you know that by flying in a V formation, geese increase their flying range by 71% more than if each bird were to fly alone?
Successful athletes by their very nature are competitive. Some play sport for the love of it, but for any top-level athlete, they need to be competitive and to have that competitive edge. Its how you deal with competition, how you thrive on it or are challenged by it that will determine the results you will get.
In order to be the best, athletes look for a competitive edge – the difference that can make the difference between winning and losing. This can mean not giving anything away, no sharing of ideas, and keeping everything to oneself - because we don’t want our competitors to have that edge!
Though being competitive can spur one on to greater success, it can be less effective in the business arena where success and winning is built on collaboration, networking and support. Let me explain.
I started in competition very young, at nine years old, with gymnastics, and then later became involved with volleyball and beach volleyball. I realised my dream of becoming an Olympian when I represented Australia in Sydney, 2000.
I’ve always been fiercely independent. Even as recently as 2006, I prided myself on my independence believing that I had achieved so much on my own. Even getting to the 2000 Olympic Games, I remember thinking specifically, “I did this, and I did this myself.”
I was independent and I was competitive, even off the volleyball court. It was a struggle for me to enjoy the success of others, including that of my friends. Rather than being happy for them, I was envious when my friends experienced success and I didn’t. I was creating, in my mind, a sense of “scarcity of success,” as if there were only so much to go around. The problem with this thinking was that the more I resented their success, the more I was focusing on my own lack of success—all this did was produce disempowering pictures and feelings I continually sent to my unconscious mind.
According to the Law of Attraction that was what I would create more of…lack of success.
“If They Can Do It, I Can Do It”
I now come from a sense of abundance so I actually enjoy seeing friends, and even strangers, succeed. If they have attained something I haven’t, I now think it means that, “If they can do it, I can do it!” As a direct result of changing my thinking, I feel much more empowered to go for it, because I choose to believe there is room for everybody.
Imagining a limitation on success in your mind will create that limitation in your results.
Being competitive and independent also limited me in other ways. My foolish pride and independence stopped me from asking for help. I thought I could do it on my own but no one has achieved greatness on their own. I did work in teams and was a valued team player, at times even a leader within organizations I worked for, yet I wasn’t enrolling people in my dream.
I’m now an entrepreneur constantly developing my business as a coach, a speaker, and an internet marketer. There is no way I could do all that without help. I enjoy finding more and more people to support and assist my business with their skills that I don’t have. Through business and social networks, I meet people who know someone who, in turn, know someone, etc. I have become more confident in asking help and asking questions to learn what I don’t yet know.
How can you build your network and create a team to succeed in life?
Who are you now that you no longer play sport?
A retired athlete can face challenges in moving on beyond sport regardless of how prepared they think they are. A life committed to sport can result in a strong identification as an athlete or sportsperson and even specifically with the sport that they play.Rather than looking forward towards a new career, a retired athlete might find themselves looking to the past at how they were, and what they did achieve. They may even make the mistake of thinking that’s all there is.
An individual’s identity has a strong influence over their actions, decisions and even beliefs. Identity is an “I am” statement and a person can have several. A person may identify with their job (I am an electrician), their hobby or interests (I am a good cook) or even their emotions (I am depressed).
Your identity has overarching control over everything you do. All too often, people limit themselves by putting a label to who they are or what they do. Their identity may be attached to their behaviour, for example having made a mistake, a person might identify with being bad, or a loser, rather than limiting the label to the action/result. Have you ever heard a parent calling their child ‘naughty’ rather than stating that what they did, (their behaviour) was naughty?
A change of identity can have the most transformational impact on one’s behaviour and results. When I realised that I was more than a sportsperson and that with my skills I could easily identify with being a business person, it completely changed how I spent my time and what was important to me. Consequently my results started to change and I have been focused forward on my business since.What does it take to change? Awareness is a start and a desire to change. Being open to realising that how life is today or has been in the past does not have to be how it is tomorrow. Knowing that change is possible opens one up to the curiosity of how to change.I work with individuals to discover their current strengths and then create change through transferring skills and talents to a new context and new mindset.
Identity is about your ‘being’ and being precedes what you do and what you have in life. Often people will wait to ‘be’ something when they have done something or have something in their possession. For example, “I’ll BE happy when I have…..”, or “I’ll be successful when I do….” The secret is to be whatever it is you want to be right now, or act as if.
Be happy now to create the results you want.
Be a business person now to create success in business.
Your actions and possessions will change in accordance with your being and identity. It is important to understand your identity as it can be the difference between attaching to your past results as an athlete or to moving on successfully with a new expanded and well-rounded identity.
To re-create success in a new career requires an individual to identify with their new role (eg business person) so that their beliefs, values and actions are all congruent to produce the results they want. Who do you need to BE now to create your success beyond sport?
