Help your support team understand you (Anna Simcic)
She was just 18 years of age at her first Commonwealth Games but had a strong support team around her that not only helped, but also understood just exactly what she was trying to achieve.
Anna talks to us about how you can get your support team to understand you and how it was for her as a high performance athlete building to her pinnacle event.
When, as an athlete you are starting out working towards your long term goal of Olympic or World Championship success, there are a number of changes that happen in your life. You become more single minded, sacrificing other things in your life working towards that one goal. But it’s not just you that is adjusting to this new life of being a high performance athlete. It’s also the support team around you.
As Athlete Life Advisors we often spend time with athletes who find their family, friends, employers and others in their close circles at conflict with what they are trying to achieve. It may be parents who don’t understand why you might need to have certain foods at certain times of the day, friends that constantly want you to party on a Friday night with training planned for 6am Saturday, or an employer that is constantly making you feel guilty when you ask for time off. These are probably all things we can relate to at some stage – and not just athletes. Anyone working towards an end goal that they have become single minded and extremely focused about has probably had to deal with these challenges.
One point to remember is that usually the more single minded we become, the more insular we also become, finding it hard to think outside our sphere of our sporting campaign – the next training session, technical analysis, upcoming competition or finding that needed sponsorship dollar. But the reality is, there is plenty happening ‘out there’ in the world that is having an impact on us, on our friends, family and employers.
Too often the biggest mistake is a lack of communication. We head down a path at a million miles an hour forgetting to get others to ‘jump on the bus’ with us. That includes letting others know what our goal is, our plan to get there and stepping stones we hope to achieve along the way.
On top of this, there is a real need to have that conversation with those around us about what we might expect/hope they can help us with – not in monetary terms, but more in logistical, physical and emotional needs.
- Do you like to analyse post-race with Mum and Dad when you get home, or is the silent approach more suited to you?
- Do you have an expectation that Mum, Dad or your significant other will have dinner ready for when you come home after training at 8pm, and let you live rent free until you are 30?
- Do you want friends to keep inviting you out each week, knowing that you’ll say no 8 months of the year, but will want to have some ‘social time’ in your off season/down time?
- Do you hope your employer will give you time off whenever you need it for competition?
- How are you going to work with your coach?
Looking back, Brett probably acted as a bit like an Athlete Life Advisor for me and was most definitely a holistic coach in terms of recognising the bigger picture stuff with life balance.”
What goes hand in hand with the above that is just about MORE important - is what do your loved ones and support team expect of YOU?
- Your girlfriend may not care whether you win or lose, but they might want to hear about your time competing, especially if you’ve been overseas or out of town for extended periods of time?
- Mum and Dad might be really happy to indulge your high protein diet, but in return they might like some contribution to the cost, or at least appreciation in what they’ve cooked!
- What does your coach think when you arrive to training 5 minutes late at 6am, when he’s been up early enough to get there on time?
Have you ever invited your friends and/or family to walk in your shoes for a day? It’s pretty hard for those close to you to really understand why you want to go to bed at 8pm after two training sessions that day, 4 hours on the water, 3 hours of lectures and perhaps some part time work? Why not invite them to spend a whole day with you, so they can appreciate what you are doing is not some ‘joy ride’ but hard work?
This can be really useful, especially at the beginning of your campaign when it might be 6-8 years of training before you might hit your peak of winning on the world stage.
It’s worth taking the time to let those close to you understand in more detail how your campaign is going – what are your strengths, weaknesses, potential threats/challenges you are worried about. It can be all too easy to carry the burden of your campaign yourself, but in reality those close to us can be a wealth of assistance and support just when you need it.
“I believe I had a really solid support team and this evolved over two Commonwealth campaigns and two Olympic campaigns. My parents, coach and team mates were my immediate support crew as was my swimming boyfriend at the time. We would have regular case-management meetings with this whole support team including sponsors and discuss any issues regarding our plan. Not only was this very helpful but it was also empowering knowing that all these people were investing their time and energy into me as an athlete. Knowing they fundamentally supported my crusade in the Swimming world and that they had faith that I could achieve my goals showed just how important it was to bring them on board.”
A common conflict area for athletes and parents is the time in one’s life when athletes are about to head off to university and instead of studying full time want to do 1-2 papers full time and put all their energies into being an athlete. Mum and Dad might have different ideas, envisaging full time study is the only option for you. As an athlete you’ll be clued up on the windows of opportunity in your sport but have you chatted this through with others in your lives?
You might be in a sport where the most opportune time to achieve on the world stage is aged 20-24. It might be in that sport, at 25 most athletes are retiring. Therefore your window of opportunity is between 17-25 years of age. That makes it even more important that you invest your time and energy in earlier rather than later. If your sport peaks at 30, a different situation and plan will apply.
“I learnt to be a little wiser (through trial and error) with my whole life balance and learnt to communicate my intentions much better with University and teachers College, articulating my plans for both swimming and study. This worked well after my first year of harsh reality of studying full time at university and Teachers College, while swimming full time and trying to succeed at World Champs and Pan Pacific’s in the same year! Ouch”
“I eventually found my way with the right balance of study that worked for me around the very demanding day to day training schedule of being a top swimmer.”
Learning what is going to work best for you is important as every individual and every sport is different..
