Midline Monday: olympics and self mastery
Mastering yourself is true power.
Weekly Reflections
I love the Olympics.
Over the years, what I have come to enjoy most isn’t any particular sport, it’s watching exceptional humans rise to the occasion on the world stage.
Every Olympic athlete is physically elite. That’s the entry fee. The margin between good and great physically is very narrow.
What often separates the great from the truly exceptional isn’t strength, speed, or technique. It’s self-mastery.
The best athletes don’t avoid pressure. They don’t need perfect conditions. They don’t shrink in the moment.
They step up and thrive.
The single biggest difference maker is mental.
So is true in life.
Our “competition” is internal.
Anxiety. Expectation. The need for approval. The belief that things should be easier, fairer, smoother.
Therapist Dr. Albert Ellis described how we make ourselves miserable:
When you rigidly hold certain irrational beliefs, when you dogmatically command that you must do well, have to be approved by others, have got to have people treat you fairly, and always ought to live with easy and enjoyable conditions, you will tend to make yourself needlessly miserable and will probably defeat some of your most cherished goals.
In other words, the pressure isn’t just happening to us. We often generate it ourselves.
As I reflect on my journey, I’ve learned that while I can obsess over physical health, financial goals and career progression.
There’s one lever upstream of everything; just like in the Olympics, the biggest difference maker is mental.
How can I better tolerate discomfort, regulate emotion, detach from approval, stay composed under pressure?
That’s what separates good from great in life, not just athletics. Improve the mental game and everything downstream gets a little better.
That’s the work.
Onward 🖤