A warm welcome from the Prepared Athlete Training & Health project. Like many of you, we continue to adjust to the present situation. It is now some weeks since the public health measures introduced within British Columbia prompted us to suspend the in-person coaching duties that are normally the mainstay of the Prepared ATH mission. In these strange times we perhaps have a newfound appreciation of the many comforts, amenities, and simple pleasures that we normally have at our disposal. Since many of these things are presently subject to restrictions and various everyday pursuits are temporarily not available to us, we certainly now miss them and eagerly look forward to normal service being resumed. It turns out we have much to be grateful for. This got me thinking on gratitude, what role it plays in our everyday lives, and how this all relates to the journey of the athlete. A broader question is how we might appreciate the good stuff without needing to rely on extreme events to bring it to our attention.

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE…

Over the recent period it has come to light that individuals who have a greater tendency to express gratitude coincidentally also rate higher on measures of happiness and general wellbeing. As this phenomenon has been studied, it appears that this is not merely a coincidence. Something about being grateful on a regular basis seems to predispose us to having a more positive attitude towards ourselves and our situation.

The power of gratitude is particularly pertinent to athletes, and indeed anybody who has committed themselves to a long and arduous journey. The ability to deal with adversity and remain optimistic about the outcome goes a long way to determining which individuals are able to stay the course and ultimately prevail. It follows that remaining mindful and appreciative of the good stuff (particularly during challenging times) is part of this endeavour.

The benefits of a regular dose of gratitude for our happiness and general wellbeing are increasingly evident. The benefits enjoyed by those who practice gratitude are such that it has even prompted some to attempt to hack the process. In any case, @@becoming better at being grateful would seem to be worth investing the time in…@@

GRATITUDE AS PRACTICE…

Practising gratitude has two parts. We can say gratitude is a practice, in the sense it is something that we actively engage in. In other words, it takes us being mindful of what we have to be grateful for in order to feel grateful. But gratitude is also something we can practice (or practise for UK English readers), as in engage in doing regularly for the purposes of getting better at it.

@@Our frame of reference certainly affects how we are able to appreciate the good stuff.@@ For instance, as we are presently finding we come to appreciate what we have once we are deprived of those things for a period of time. Another good example is our health.

RECOGNISING THE GOOD STUFF…

A change in our circumstances or environment can thus give us a new appreciation of the things in our lives we otherwise take for granted. Let me use the example of camping. I am from London (the one in England), so I am a bit baffled by the idea that people would sleep outside in a tent by choice and for pleasure. That apart, I do recognise the value of camping as an intervention. Upon returning home from a camping trip I certainly have a newfound appreciation of everyday things such as indoor plumbing and sleeping on a mattress under a roof and with walls separating me from others. Turns out living indoors is pretty epic.

What is striking is that there are so many good things that we have become accustomed to so that they appear mundane and hence are easily overlooked. By the way, this is a not a sermon. Continuing the theme of a previous post, I am writing this as much as a reminder to myself as for others.

From a personal perspective, this brings to mind what now strikes me as the ridiculously laissez-faire attitude I had towards travelling within Europe. As I mentioned, I am from London and for a period of time I lived five minutes’ walk from the Eurostar terminal, where I could have jumped on a train and been in Paris a couple of hours later. I was so accustomed to having such riches on my doorstep that it only struck me years later how amazing that was. Indeed it was only after moving over the other side of the world to New Zealand that I fully realised how much I appreciated being able to travel to the cities of Europe with such ease. It literally took me living off the edge of the world to fully appreciate how much I valued having the proximity to travel within Europe. Madness…

SHINING A TORCH ON EVERYDAY RICHES…

We should acknowledge that @@it is in our nature to adapt to even the most extraordinary things once they are in our presence day to day.@@ The extreme version of this is the hedonic treadmill, whereby we crave shiny and new things, only to find that once we possess the new item the allure soon fades, leading us to soon discard it to chase the next object of our desires, so that the cycle repeats and escalates without us being satisfied beyond increasingly fleeting moments.

Clearly this is an extreme example, but most of us could do better at paying attention to the good stuff. It would serve us all to take the time to reflect on everyday wonders. Whilst the present period is helpful for bringing into focus all the good things that we normally overlook, if we are able to arrive at this realisation some other way then hopefully it won’t always require extreme events to befall us before we appreciate what we have.

@@With awareness we have the possibility to harness the power of everyday things.@@ Perhaps we just need the right prompt to bring our awareness to things that otherwise fade into the background or get overlooked entirely. What can appear mundane includes things that are miraculous and life-changing under different circumstances. How about the fact that we have clean drinking water readily available at the turn of a tap?

STRATEGIES AND TOOLS TO BE MORE APPRECIATIVE…

It shouldn’t of course take extreme events or being removed from our normal environment in order to realise all the things we have to be grateful for. Beyond the afterglow of these temporary resets, we also need ways to continue to appreciate what we have. From both viewpoints clearly we would benefit from some sort of process or regular practice to help us to more readily recognise the good stuff that we might otherwise overlook.

So how can we operationalise appreciation? One tool that some coaches encourage their athletes to utilise is a gratitude journal (legendary track and field coach Dan Pfaff is a proponent of this approach). Keeping a diary or daily log of the good things allows athletes to write down whatever events, people, and miscellaneous other things they encounter each day that they feel grateful for.

A related daily practice is to enlist a buddy and commit to asking each other at the culmination of each day what positive things happened. This serves as a prompt to reflect on the day’s events, recall the positive stuff, and express our appreciation.

Whether we commit these thoughts to writing or share them verbally, taking note of the good stuff and reflecting on what we feel grateful for represents a simple but powerful practice. Such tools are particularly valuable when we are struggling through hard times. Even in the darkest times there are nevertheless things we can find to be grateful for. We do however need to prompt ourselves to look.

Once again, all of this is particularly relevant to the journey of an athlete. A great example are those who aspire to reach the heights of competing in pinnacle events such as the Olympic Games. The road is long, the outcome is uncertain, and performers must invest themselves in a process that typically takes many years. To sustain themselves through the thousands of hours and countless trials each athlete must therefore learn to recognise and embrace whatever small victories they experience each day. Engaging in a daily practice of appreciation and feeling gratitude is part of this endeavor, and provides a powerful tool to support and provide fuel for the quest.

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Readers who are interested can also enquire to find out more about what coaching provision we can offer both in-person for those local to Vancouver and remotely. For more, including how to arrange an initial assessment, see the ‘Enquire’ link at the top of the page or email us direct at PreparedATH@gmail.com.