Tweet from Penny Oleksiak
“I just googled ‘Canada’s most decorated Olympian’ and my name came up. I want to thank that teacher in high school who told me to stop swimming to focus on school (because) swimming wouldn’t get me anywhere. This is what dreams are made of,” she tweeted.
Most of my teachers saw the vision and pushed me towards it. But that one who constantly dragged me down though,, WOAT (Worst of All-Time).”
Oleksiak was a part of Canada’s team that won a silver medal in the women’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay and a bronze medal in the 4×100-meter medley relay. She also picked up a bronze medal in the women’s 200-meter freestyle.
She won a gold in the 100-meter freestyle, a silver in the 100-meter butterfly and bronze medals in the 4×100-meter freestyle and 4×200-meter freestyle.
Mindset: The story you tell yourself about yourself.
The story we tell comes from “people who matter” in childhood and teenage years. Family & teachers. To a lesser extent, friends.
Most of the time we believe the “people who matter” and negative words end up as mental prison walls we call “limiting beliefs.”
Last podcast (Ep. 84) with Susan Donnelly – coach told her “don’t even try to get on the college track team.”
She quit running. After college started running again: now has over a hundred 100 mile races.
But some people develop an “I’ll show you” attitude.This is very rare.
And I’m going to guess in Penny’s case that her parents were cheering her on. It was only one teacher trying to kill her dreams.
You may not have had Olympic size dreams, but you can probably point to people in your life who were dream killers. Teachers, coaches, friends, family.
- Be sensible
- Think of your future
- Don’t set yourself up for failure
- That’s too risky
- Wait until you retire, then go do what you want
And even as adults, you have people who will try to keep you held back.
Woman trying to start freelance – Husband: You have good people skills, but you know you don’t have a good mind for business.
And, if you’re keeping score, the dream killers usually outnumber the dream builders in your life.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but in general, the people who know you best will be the ones who try to hold you back when you decide to change your life.
So, if you want to do something EPIC with your life. If you decide that you’ve held on to this dream long enough.
You have to develop a strong mindset first. Your mindset has to be able to overcome the resistance of your limiting beliefs coming from your past. AND the resistance from people in your life who will feel uncomfortable when you become someone new.
In general: Who I decide to be and what I believe about myself trumps every other opinion.
- Find someone who supports you and you can trust to be truthful so you don’t end up being an arrogant asshole.
- Find a group of people who are going after similar goals. If the group doesn’t both challenge you and encourage you, keep looking.
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