Only around 1 in 500,000 of the world’s population will make it to the olympics. It’s an incredible achievement and over 450 Australian athletes have been competing in the Paris 2024 Olympics across 42 sports.
As Australians, we take pride in these athletes not only for their olympic accomplishments but also for their ability to excel in their chosen professional paths. Their stories serve as powerful reminders of what is possible.
Successful athletes demonstrate determination, discipline, persistence and adaptability. Olympic medals are earned after years of training, dedication, hard work and grit. Many olympians are high achievers in multiple ways. If we want to achieve great things, then we need to hone some of the same skills olympians have such as:
Determination and persistence
Gold medal winning swimmer Ariarne Titmus exemplifies determination, as Titmus describes it here, “I know that I have this ability to find something extra in races and in training which maybe some people can’t.” She also demonstrated resilience and persistence in the face of a health scare and setback late last year when a large tumour (thankfully benign) was removed from her ovary.
Being a more determined person and persisting with your goals requires strengthening the following two traits:
- Resilience: Olympians often face setbacks and failures. Their ability to bounce back and keep pushing forward is a key to their success.
- Consistency: Success requires consistent effort over time. Olympians train rigorously, often for years, to reach their peak performance.
Work ethic and multi tasking
Can you imagine being an olympian and also having a side hustle? A number of athletes attending the Paris Games also juggle other jobs. Such as olympic kayaker Aly Bull who is also a firefighter, she told 9 News here “I train at four o’clock in the morning on my day shifts, and straight after a night shift in the morning. It’s a lot to juggle but we’ve made it work.” Balancing the demands of elite sports with a career is no small feat, requiring an exceptional level of time management.
If you want to be a high achiever in multiple areas of your life it requires:
- Routine: The make or break of your success is good routines and habits. If you haven’t already read Atomic Habits by James Clear, you should! It will highlight how vital to success our habits are.
- Discipline: If it was easy, then everyone would be doing it. If you want to be exceptional like an olympian then you must apply discipline to your every day.
Olympians exemplify how discipline, determination, resilience and work ethic honed through years of training and competition serve them well in their professional endeavours. By applying these same principles we can all achieve much more success in our lives.