One thing I have learned over the years managing cancer and paralysis is that no two days are the same. Certainly no two weeks are. But one of the key ingredients for performance sport is consistency - as we watch the opening ceremony for Paris 2024 one of the defining characteristics that will help athletes achieve success is their consistency in training and competition.
There is no getting away from it - if you do not have consistency then to perform at the highest level it’s going to be almost impossible. It reminds me of the saying: “Hard-work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. I’d like to change the word hard with smart as most athletes I have met work hard but not always smart.
And I definitely fall into this category. I was never scared of working hard and pushing myself but I wasn’t always smart about my approach. However, my work ethic has helped me through some of the dark hours of cancer to be able to dig in and just keep pushing and to not give up.
And it’s the same perseverance we will all see over the next few weeks of sport. If it was that mindset which kept me going through the dark hours it was also that mindset that has made the last week almost unbearable. Having found a huge amount of motivation after listening to the high performance podcast, I went hard rather than smart.
I was consistent every day on the golf course at the driving range, hitting 200 balls a session. I was flying but as last Saturday reached I started to feel unw.