When you're up shits creek but you have a paddle

What happens when you've arrived at an Olympics - a competition that you have trained for almost everyday for the last 4 years; you have all of your kit ready; visualisation practices in place; have had a good night's sleep beforehand; and then the bus is late to get you to your venue?! What now? Did you prepare yourself for that?

Contingency planning is probably something a lot of you have heard of - planning out strategies to solve potential problems. It's the big 'what if??' - what if my bus doesn't arrive on time, what if I get a call from my sister straight before a big race telling me my house is on fire, what if I suddenly get my period. All of these 'what ifs' could potentially unravel all that hard work and dedication that has been put into getting to this big moment, so how can we stop them from doing that?

Well, unfortunately you can't stop all 'what ifs' from ever happening, there are some things you just cannot control. However, (don't worry it gets more positive!) you can have plans in place to deal with problems that arise and these plans can just sit neatly in your head or in a journal until they are needed.

A lot of people in sport psychology talk about conducting premortems, which is essentially sitting down and writing out a list of every possible thing that could ever go wrong in the lead up to and at a competition. Sounds fun right? Now it may be time consuming, but these premortems can be exceedingly useful in figuring out where the most risks are to your success and whether any of them are preventable.

So how do you do a premortem?

Well it's about asking the right questions ahead of time, lots of reflecting on past events and your reactions to those events and quite a lot of thinking outside the box about the most off-piste, weirdest and worst things that could go wrong. Ask yourself:

- what has happened before?

- how did we respond?

- how will we respond this time?

- what could happen in the future?

- how likely is it that these things will happen?

Once you've got some ideas about what could happen, it's time to put some plans in place. Let's save the day before it needs saving!

So performance psychologists suggest three things to do when planning for events:

1) Simulate the situations - physically recreate a possible situation, or aspects of a situation, so you can practice a response

2) Mental rehearsal - visualise how you would deal with challenges

3) Use equipment - some have found that recreating a situation using VR can be helpful too (if you have access to a virtual reality headset!)

And remember, ALWAYS be safe when recreating situations. Try to avoid situation that could cause possible physical or psychological harm - causing yourself or others harm isn't worth it to prepare for a possible situation.

So there we have it! If you're worried about how you might deal with potential situations on competition day try to take some time beforehand to write out possible challenges you may face and how you could prepare or prevent them. Don't forget to try out a few of the techniques above to rehearse the situation responses too.

Here's to giving ourselves a paddle when we find ourselves up shits creek.

There's a great TED talk by David Levitin which talks through premortems a bit more, so maybe check that out too! https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_levitin_how_to_stay_calm_when_you_know_you_ll_be_stressed#t-3877

References (for more info)

Ericsson, K. A., Hoffman, R. R., Kozbelt, A., & Williams, A. M. (Eds.). (2018). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. Cambridge University Press.

Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard business review, 85(9), 18-19.

Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable (Vol. 2). Random house.