When in Doubt, Believe in Yourself

Last month, April 2023, there were two remarkable stories from the world of sport that we can all learn from when things do not seem to be going your way.

The first story, is of the the Spanish golf professional Jon Rahm, who was on the first hole of the US Masters, when he four-putted to get the ball in the first hole. This was a Double bogey, and this put him 2 shots down straightaway. But, he believed in himself, he recovered immediately and never looked back and he went on to win the tournament. How many of us would have let those early mistakes bother us, letting the thoughts get in the way of what we are trying to achieve?

On Sunday 23rd April, Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan, women's world record holder for the mile and 5km entered the London Marathon without  doing any specialised training for the event. Anyone running a marathon without proper training would have doubts about finishing, and so did she. She told reporters, "When I woke up this morning, I was telling myself, I was stupid to be running a marathon. I was so scared, I even cried.' 

She started the race and remained with the leading group of runners that included the Olympic Champion, Peres Jepchirchir. The expert commentators on TV predicted that if Sifan could stay with the leaders, then she might have the chance to outsprint them at the finish. But with 11 miles to go, she started to slow down and fall back from the leaders, she appeared to be in pain, clutching her upper leg, and she stopped twice to try and stretch away the problem. At one point, she was behind the leaders by 28 seconds, and everyone was telling themselves that she should stop. But she was thinking differently, she told herself; 'No way am I going to win, I might have to stop somewhere, because every time I speed up it hurts. But I will carry on, I might not finish, but it will be useful experience for next time.'

At 24 miles, she was almost hit by an official race motorbike when she veered across the road to pick up a drink, "I didn't practice collecting my drinks beforehand because of Ramadan. I was nearly hit, but I didn't care, because I wanted to finish the marathon.'

On the Mall, she held back from delivering her lethal finishing kick, '...because I wasn't sure where the finish line was.'  As soon as she could see the finish line, she went for it and won the race, four seconds clear of Ethiopia's Alemu Megertu.

Some people would say that Sifan was lucky, she gave it a go an it turned out right for her. Your confidence and self-belief, comes from your experience, Sifan had already won three gold medals (1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m) at the Tokyo Olympics, so she knew what she was capable of, she just believed in herself. There were times in that race when she wasn't sure, or did not have all the information she needed, but she carried on, focusing on finishing the race, not to win, just to finish. So, whenever you are struggling, try and think back to when you had been successful at something, and use that to keep your self-belief, get through the hard stuff and finish whatever you set out to achieve, who knows, just like it did for John Rahm and Sifan Hassan it might turn out to be better than expected.