[CURIOUS] SACRIFICE vs CHOICE

Elite athletes make sacrifices. Dedication and drive require it. You hear it a lot, and to an extent it’s true. But really, elite athletes make choices just like anybody else, the difference is that they start younger, and the choices are between a sport with a dream, and the typical societal norms of friendships, family engagements and free time.

To those of us online often, the ‘today I met my younger self for coffee’ trend, based on Jennae Cecelia’s poem brought a lot of examples of people asking if their sacrifice had been worth it. Nina Kennedy’s stood out as an Olympic gold medallist, revealing that her younger self had felt the sacrifice of the hard work required in athletics but that gradually those sacrifices became choices. So here it is that I wonder, if the earlier that sacrifices are reframed as choices, the happier and healthier the goal in elite sport becomes, because each individual can pour themselves wholeheartedly into the pursuit of something they want with the full knowledge that each choice is something they value, rather than an alternative of difference.

If success, happiness and health – the fundamentals in elite sport - are driven by being content in one’s choices, does it follow that the future realisation of alternatives marks the end of this dream? Athletes, especially women, reach a point in their careers whereby topics of family, and the future arise in both public and private domains, and the term sacrifice resurfaces in conjunction. These are decisions that are not taken lightly and often are the culmination of years of choice, and motivation for a goal but in the times of burnout, fatigue and failure, thoughts of sacrifices are commonplace.

Emma Wiggs, 3x Paralympic medallist, talks about the reframing of sacrifices to choices and highlights the resultant empowerment that athletes cultivate by taking ownership of their decisions. Such empowerment gives confidence and is something I think is worth exploring in keeping girls in sports. It’s no secret that more girls than boys drop out of sports around age 15 and maybe we’re missing something in the messaging. By no means is it a major contributor to girls giving up sports but maybe, if the echo chamber of sacrifices became an environment of choices, the perception of what is required to reach elite sport would change and reflect that it’s not a constant battle against everything else, but a set of informed, inspired choices to succeed.

Michael Hyatt neatly sums up this messaging by emphasising the switch from language of duty to language of privilege. After all, in elite sport it has to be a decision that you’re all in for. Any doubts have to be left at the door, or they become a burden, the sacrifices become too heavy but the choices keep you moving. Choices enable resilience, resilience builds character.