Resilience

Resilience 

I have been spending a little more time than usual watching tv due to my training for a triathlon starting to ramp up. This means that whatever free time I have is spent sitting, watching tv or doing work. I recently watched the Tiger Woods documentary on HBO about his life. In the documentary, they did a great job putting into perspective just how dominant he was, especially in the years 2000-2008. 

Throughout the production’s entirety, the narrator or someone being interviewed would throw out a ridiculous stat to help people grasp that idea of pure dominance. The one that stood out to me first was that between 1999-2003, Tiger Woods won 32 events, while no other golfer won more than 8 times in that span. Another one was that Woods won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots. No other player in the last 100 years has won a U.S. Open by more than nine shots. These stats had me looking through the internet for some more ridiculous Tiger Woods stats.

Upon doing research, I found one particular stat that made my head turn. From 2000-2008, if Woods ever scored a Bogey on a hole (1 stroke above par, or the normal), he shot an Eagle (2 strokes under Par) on 63% of holes that immediately followed a bogey. This means that Tiger woods was at his best directly after an error or inconvenience. We call this resilience. 

Resilience is the ability to rapidly return to one’s baseline emotional and mental state after a stressful, traumatic, or even triumphant event. This could be trying to give a presentation on Zoom to your peers after someone has torn you apart for an error you’ve made. It could be finding out a way to perform well on a test after getting devastating news. In the case of this weekend, it can mean focusing on your next event after either gaining time, or getting a new cut time. 

For this weekend, make sure you’re mentally/physically  prepared for every single one of your events, and Ailey focus on the task at hand. Regardless of the outcome, you have to make sure you’re preparing yourself for what is to come after that. If you spend time feeling sorry for yourself after a bad swim, will you be able to properly cool down and then warm up for your next event? If you spend too much time celebrating a new cut time, are you going to be mentally locked in for the next event and what it takes to successfully execute the race plan for that next event? High or low, we have to come back to baseline after every event to make sure we perform at our best. 

Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and the rest will take care of itself. 

Let’s have some more fun this weekend! Go SMAC!

Julian