I’m engaged in an interesting study at the moment on behalf of Canoe Kayak Canada in which we’re looking at our past medalists at the Olympic Games or World Championships going back 30 years or more and identifying common traits and experiences they have had which might have helped lead to their success. In theory, if we can identify common psychological and personality characteristics it can help shed light into the type of athlete we’re looking for when we’re recruiting new athletes to the sport at a young age. If we can identify common features in their daily training environment, we can perhaps do a better job of tailoring the training environments of young athletes to maximize future success.
To me a study shouldn’t really be required. I think we can all identify at least some of the differences between champions and participants. However if you’re going to publish your results and use them in a publicly funded business like Canadian Olympic sport, you’ve got to do the study.
While we’re still waiting for all the results of our contacts with these past champions to come in, we’ve been having a lot of discussions about the characteristics of top level athletes (and for that matter, top-level performers in any field) and one of the things that always comes up is the concept of “grit”. Quite simply, we’re talking about the mental and emotional toughness of a person and their ability to persevere, overcome and deal with any challenge thrown at them. It’s a measure of a person’s resilience, determination and willingness to chase down seemingly impossible long-term goals.
We’ve all seen the top SUP athletes race and we’ve watched in awe as they combine incredible skills and fitness with mental and physical toughness. The confidence they show isn’t some false confidence quickly earned by a few successful attempts at whatever it is they are doing, rather it is a hard fought, deservedly earned and deep rooted belief in their abilities that is as much the result of past failures as past successes. When they’ve failed they’ve gotten right back up and tried again, always learning along the way. They aren’t afraid of challenges and, though they don’t like failure, they certainly aren’t afraid to fail. They’ll willingly put it all on the line, knowing that only by doing so will they get stronger, better and faster.
There are more athletes that I respect than I have room or time to mention here, but consider just a couple that we all know. Jamie Mitchell won ten consecutive Molokai to Oahu paddleboard titles. He won in all sorts of conditions and for a decade repelled whatever challenge the world’s best paddleboarders could throw at him. It wasn’t easy. There were huge challenges in each race and the preparation heading into them. Just to be able to train at the level required for a decade, without losing interest or intensity is an amazing feat. Winning an event like that once is insanely hard, to dominate for a decade is almost incomprehensible. Winning is fun, but all the work that leads to it isn’t quite as much, and it certainly isn’t as glamorous. And now Jamie chases swells around the world and rides some of the biggest waves on the planet. I know him. He’s not crazy. He’s found something he loves doing and does it very well. And he definitely has that mental toughness that for lack of a better word we can call “grit”.
Among all the SUP athletes I find so impressive, another worth mentioning is Annabel Anderson. Here’s an athlete who was a high performance alpine skier, training for the Olympics, who unfortunately spent as much time visiting the orthopedic surgeon as she did standing on podiums. It took six or seven knee surgeries to finally knock her off the slopes and into triathlon, where I think she ended up on the surgeon’s table again. After sort of stumbling into SUP she found she enjoyed it and was pretty good at it. So she put herself out there and traveled the world for a couple of years, visiting all the gnarliest patches of ocean to improve her skills and bring her level up to that of the world’s best. She’s paid her dues, been pounded by the ocean and in a way, as an outsider, had to fight to gain acceptance within the SUP community. Yet she’s overcome it all and continues to put it all on the line in races as the world’s number one women SUP racer. Nothing along her pathway has been easy. She’s definitely got tons of “grit”.
Angela Duckworth is a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has conducted a lot of research into high achievers and people who overcome adversity and has established the idea of “grit” as a predictor of achievement. She has devised a short test called the “12-Item Grit Scale” that can be used to determine a person’s “grittiness”. You can find this test and take it yourself - click here.
For most of us paddling is only a small part of our lives. Even if we’re competitive, we’re recreationally competitive. We’re not professionals, and although we want to do well when we compete we’ve got myriad other priorities that interfere with the type of commitment the top athletes are making to the sport. However that doesn’t mean that at the level of commitment we’re making we can’t harden up a little and dig a little deeper when we train or race.
Many of us might well score high on the “Grit Scale” even though we don’t think of ourselves as particularly tough paddlers. Many people demonstrate “grit” in far more important areas of life than sport. But if we score low on the “Grit Scale” does that mean we’re condemned to mediocrity when we race, or worse still in life? For those of us who aren’t quite as superhuman as Jamie and Annabel, does that mean that we don’t have “grit”? NO!! I contend that we all have the ability to persevere and overcome, to deal with disappointment and adversity, and to dream big and then chase that dream single-mindedly until we achieve it. It’s just that for various reasons most people don’t demonstrate that ability it in their daily lives, at least not in sport.
Did you take the test? If you scored poorly have you reflected on the test and what it says about the way you approach life? Can you do better at sticking to it, persevering, taking risks, focusing and following through? If you scored well on the test and have demonstrated “grit” in areas of life other than sport, can you transfer the toughness you’ve demonstrated to paddling? I contend you can.
Stop taking the easy path in training. Challenge yourself. Go out in lousy weather, take the necessary safety precautions but don’t shy away from paddling in bad conditions. Don’t always wait till it’s nicely “lined up” to do your downwind paddles. Push yourself a little more in training. Join a training group and push others knowing they’re pushing you at the same time. Hold them accountable and expect them to hold you accountable for your effort. Paddle when you’re tired, not just when you feel great. Enter races and scratch and claw to beat every single person you can, knowing that even if you get beat there is always another race to beat that other paddler you’re always chasing. Go for it and understand that losing is only failure when you don’t learn from it.
I honestly believe that most of us think we’re working hard, when in reality we could actually be working a lot harder. I see it in athletes I coach in canoe/kayak every day. Setting higher standards in training (or whatever else you are doing) and sticking to them on a day-to-day basis makes you a higher-level performer in a surprisingly short period of time. Being honest about the effort you make and recognizing a soft effort for what it is can be the biggest step you take towards success. The truth is it’s not that hard to “harden the fuck up”. You just have to stop being so soft and do it. It’s actually fun and it makes you feel great, invincible. And you will see a difference in your performance. Guaranteed.
