As this winter Olympics closes, I found there were powerful lessons to take away from watching the incredible athletes compete on the world stage. Two events were particularly compelling.
I happened to be watching when Ester Ledecka completed her surprising run down the mountain in the women’s super-G to win the gold. The expression on her face was priceless as she was genuinely surprised by her time. It was lovely to watch the disbelief turn to joy. She said on her thoughts at the top of the gates, “I was standing there as a snowboarder a little bit in my heart, and all the girls are just (Alpine) specialists and there was a lot of pressure on them. I was just, `C’mon, just do the best run you can, skier.’”
“Just do the best run you can.”
When Nathan Chen skated his way from 17th up to 5th in the men’s figure skating, achieving the highest free skate score in history, he said, "Putting down such a rough short program and being so low in the placement, it just took all the pressure away from me. I no longer felt like I was even striving for that first-place spot. It was mostly just me being on the ice and enjoying myself." He has repeated he had nothing to lose. “I allowed myself to just completely forget about expectations and just allowed myself to be myself.”
“Just allowed myself to be myself.”
What if all of us lived this way every day, allowing ourselves to be who we are, letting all the pressure and expectations fall away, striking out into our life experience just doing the best run we can?
What could we achieve?
How much happiness and satisfaction could we experience taking this approach?
I encourage you to find one thing today and try it. I bet the results will surprise you.