five things elite athletes can teach us about staying motivated and managing stress at work
- Written by Mladen Adamovic, Senior Lecturer in Cross-Cultural Management, King's College London
Over the course of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, spectators and TV viewers can expect to be thrilled by extreme levels of strength, speed, endurance and skill displayed by thousands of the world’s finest athletes.
But as well as being amazed by their physical prowess, we can learn valuable lessons from these super-humans about our own daily working lives – even if they don’t involve a track or a field.
Routine and habits
To become elite performers, Olympians need to practise. And practise. And then practise some more. Top sprinters like the Americans Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson repeatedly perform the same precise movements[1], such as starts, acceleration drills, and core and strength training exercises including squats and deadlifts.
While this level of repetition might seem boring, it actually helps athletes maintain high levels of motivation[2] and discipline. They do not waste cognitive energy (brain power) in planning their time differently.
Training the same way and eating the same things become daily habits conducive to efficiency and intensity, which is something to bear in mind when you feel like your work is dull.
Finding motivation
Goal-setting[3] is another important motivational tool for these athletes. Long-term goals obviously include qualifying for the Olympics and then winning a medal or even breaking a record. Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka[4] has said that winning an Olympic medal was her lifelong dream.
There is something highly motivational about representing your country, especially so in 2024 for athletes from Ukraine. As high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh has said[5]: “We all are fighting for our people, for our soldiers. We want to show every person in the world that we will continue fighting, that the war is not finished.”
Motivation also comes from caring about what you do. Two-time Olympic gold medal-winner Andy Murray, who plans to retire after representing Great Britain at these Olympics, said recently[6] that he wished he could keep playing tennis forever because he loves the sport so much. Doing work that you enjoy[7] is a big help when it comes to maintaining high performance levels.
Stress management
It’s hard for most of us to imagine how stressful it must be to have to perform at the very highest level in a single moment while the world is watching.
To cope with this intense pressure, some athletes try to adopt a “growth mindset”[8], in which they make a point of learning from situations to reduce their nerves. Others, like former US middle-distance runner Shannon Rowbury[9], adopt coping strategies which may involve things like feeling grateful for high-pressure situations because they indicate success.
Another technique, which could potentially be used by anyone ahead of giving a presentation or attending a challenging meeting, is to try and prepare psychologically in advance. As US hurdler Grant Holloway explained[10]: “If you’re able to visualise your race and see what you’re going to do before it even happens, when it starts to come to fruition it’s second nature.”
Autonomy
Most Olympians enjoy significant autonomy in their training, and research has shown[11] this can improve performance by boosting motivation and empowerment.
Granting employees more autonomy is likely to increase their motivation too[12]. But it is also important that their long-term goals are clear – otherwise, too much autonomy can be counterproductive[13]. Research suggests, for example, that some people find working from home[14] difficult when it comes to self-motivation and having a sense of direction.
Resilience
Elite sport is filled with moments of resilience[15] – an athlete’s ability to overcome seemingly impossible setbacks. British middle-distance runner Ben Pattison, for example, has qualified for the Paris games despite undergoing heart surgery[16] a few years ago, while US hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone missed the 2023 season due to injury but returned with a world record in 2024[17].
In sport, injuries and defeats are everywhere. Outside of sport, mistakes and mishaps at work may not be quite as heartbreaking, but they still need to be overcome.
As Olympic gold medal-winning basketball player Michael Jordan once said[18]: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Hardly any of us will ever consider ourselves as successful as Jordan – and we may never be as quick, strong or skilful as the Olympians we watch in Paris this summer. But we can take lessons from the approach they take to their work – to feel motivated, disciplined and empowered in whatever it is we do.
References
- ^ same precise movements (www.fitnessreaper.com)
- ^ high levels of motivation (www.google.co.uk)
- ^ Goal-setting (journals.humankinetics.com)
- ^ Naomi Osaka (olympics.com)
- ^ said (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ said recently (www.bbc.co.uk)
- ^ you enjoy (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
- ^ “growth mindset” (www.taylorfrancis.com)
- ^ Shannon Rowbury (medium.com)
- ^ explained (olympics.com)
- ^ research has shown (journals.sagepub.com)
- ^ motivation too (psycnet.apa.org)
- ^ can be counterproductive (journals.sagepub.com)
- ^ working from home (www.sciencedirect.com)
- ^ resilience (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
- ^ undergoing heart surgery (www.independent.co.uk)
- ^ world record in 2024 (worldathletics.org)
- ^ once said (www.goodreads.com)
