Photo Credit: Daily Telegraph/Getty
During your career as an athlete, you’re likely to face some challenging times. Here’s how Sally Pearson dealt with hers and ensured that she stayed at the top of her game.
@sallypearson Life is about creating moments that last a lifetime…
As with virtually every career, you can’t expect to progress without a couple of setbacks. Even the best of the best have had some dark time, during which maintaining the necessary motivation can be a tough job.
Sally Pearson is a great example of this. After pulling out of the Olympics in 2015 due to an injury, she needed a way of getting her career back on track. Her story is very inspiring, so there’s no doubt that her advice can be useful to many athletes.
To help you understand what it takes to reach your full potential, we want to share some of her best tips on how to reach and maintain peak performance.
Tip #1 – Know Your Body
One of the things that makes Sally’s story impressive is her period of self-coaching. By the time she had the injury, she was an older athlete, and to get back in the game, she needed to come up with a viable strategy that will give her this chance.
This is by no means an easy task. There are a lot of aspects that she needed to cover. However, thanks to her determination she managed to find a program that worked for her. The main reason for this is that she understood the condition her body was in, so she was able to tailor her training to it.
Knowing what your body is capable of, along with recognising its limits, is something that can bring you many benefits. You’re able to set clear, achievable goals, while pushing yourself at the same time. That’s exactly what Sally did. She got in shape during the first couple of months, which marked the beginning of her comeback.
Tip #2 – Find a Good Team
Even though it’s Sally herself who did the work necessary to get her career back on track, her team played an important part in this journey. Knowing what it was that she needed, she assembled a team of professionals that would help her reach her goals.
From this, it’s easy to recognise the importance of having capable people around you, if you wish to progress. Not everyone will know what’s best for you, so choosing the people that can help you reach your peak performance is of the utmost importance.
Of course, you’re the one doing all the work, but you still need to make sure you’re going in the right direction. Sometimes, you can’t do this on your own, which is when the support of the people around you can make a world of difference.
Tip #3 – Invest in Yourself
Getting her body back in shape had been a fairly long journey for Sally. It required many hours of hard work, determination, and investment. The first kind of investment was quite literal, and it required fairly large sums of money, since Athletics Australia have downgraded her funding. Nonetheless, she knew that the investment would pay off, which it did.
Another kind of investment that you need to provide is your mind and energy. You need to devote yourself completely to training if you wish to progress. So you’re not only investing in yourself, but also investing yourself into the process of reaching your full potential.
After many months of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, Sally managed to improve her performance significantly, and ensure that she’s ready for new competitions. This is exactly what every aspiring professional athlete needs to do. You need to sacrifice quite a lot, but all of those sacrifices seem to pay off, if you’re willing to put in the necessary work.
The Final Word
Reaching your peak performance as an athlete is as much of a mental thing as it is physical. You need to get into the mindset of consistently improving yourself and work hard towards reaching your goals.
From Sally’s story, you can see that even if you’re facing some challenges in your career, there are many ways of ensuring you stay at the top of your game. It takes determination, surrounding yourself with capable people, and having the necessary equipment for maximising your performance.
The way SOS Hydration helps athletes reach their full potential is by providing proper rehydration methods, which is an essential part of ensuring progress. Our drink can help athletes maintain optimal levels of fluids and electrolytes, and therefore maintain high performance. To learn more about our solution, make sure to visit our shop.
