All round celebrations this week – celebrating Olympic and GCSE results.

Are you joining in?

There’s plenty to celebrate – with our Olympic athletes returning from the Games in Rio, and the GCSE results arriving too.

Like many people, I’m enormously proud of our athletes, and utterly amazed that our little country has done so well.

And in such a large variety of sports too.

Second place…

In the WORLD?

Phenomenal!

It’s the opposite of the attitude displayed by so many participants of the reality TV shows, when asked why do they think they’ll win, for example, The X Factor. The answer is often something like, “Because I want it so much.”

Not, “Because I have a modicum of talent and I’ve worked and worked at my craft. I’m going to see how I do this year, take the advice I get, and come back even stronger the next.”

What does watching a reality show say about you?

“It’s thought winners have a certain amount of talent that the can just pull out on any given day. But that’s not how it works. Getting to the finish line is a very rigorous process. You get up early and you go, even when you don’t want to. You put in the hours and simply try to get better by tiny, tiny fractions.”   

Victoria Pendleton CBE

(9 world cycling titles, including Olympic gold, and recently having ahem, ‘changed horses’ is now a champion jockey in the making.)

I wonder how our athletes would get on in competition, if they only “wanted to win so badly” and didn’t bother with the hard work!

That puts me in mind of someone I knew who sat around at home for a year, ‘manifesting’.

And then went out and got a job!

Notwithstanding misguided and ineffectual strategies, actually, it never ceases to amaze me what’s possible, often when popular opinion, often masquerading as ‘common sense’ would have it unthinkable.

It’s about hanging on to your vision, in the face of ‘no possibility’.

And as I’ve said before, sometimes that’s a reliable indication of madness!

But sometimes, and it only takes the one person (eventually, perhaps) and the world’s paradigm changes.

You know what happens then?

The ‘world’ forgets it ever doubted!!

Oh, we’re a funny lot!

But you’ve got to feel for those athletes who didn’t quite achieve a medal – by a fraction of a second, or just because we’re Human, and our best on the day, isn’t the best we can do.

And in the light of the enormous and record-breaking British medal haul, it must be even more disappointing.

It’s the same for our young people getting their GCSE results this week.

For some, it’ll be enormously distressing. Like the Olympians, they’ll have worked their socks off – and for some reason, haven’t achieved their goals.

Very often, the reason they didn’t do so well, is because they don’t (yet) have an effective revision strategy. They’re simply not doing the things that will have them remember what they’re learning.

Clearly – people passing exams do.

But the worst of it is that, often they come to the conclusion that they ‘can’t do exams’, and the additional fear, anxiety and pressure, only makes things worse. They mess up next time too – all the evidence they need – and their theory becomes ‘fact’.

They think it’s about who they are (or worse, aren’t), rather than what they do.

Any idiot can change what they do. (I should know!) But have you ever tried to change who you are?

Good luck with that!

The upshot is, our youngsters spend the rest of their lives trying to prove to ‘someone out there’, and themselves too, that they’re ‘good enough’, but because that little voice inside them continues to remind them they’re not, nothing they ever achieve, will do the job…

And an over-achieving perfectionist is born.

Or…

They give up on themselves and their dreams, and play small, never risking anyone ever finding out how ‘useless’ they are.

But there is, of course, a third way.

Recognising the patterns, decisions and processes that your brain does automatically, in an attempt to make sense of the world and keep you safe – and steering them carefully and safely – to get better results.

So whether it’s your emotional stuff or simply your revision strategy, the results you’re manifesting become information to inform what you do next. Smart, eh?

So instead of your life’s mission being to prove you’re not useless, while deep down ‘knowing’ you really are, simultaneously hiding your worthlessness from other people, who’d surely reject you when they find out…

Wouldn’t it be better if you had just the little bit of insider knowledge you need, to make and execute a more successful plan?

Contact me, and find out how I can help, because, that’s the start of smart thinking, right there!

Meanwhile, good luck to our para-athletes. It’s your turn now.

No pressure!

British Airways getting on the BAnd waggon!