After completing my 96 FIM dive that won me a nice fat silver medal at the CMAS world championship, I went home and cried for 24 hours straight.
I was so upset with myself for not having announced more and losing the highest place on the podium.
I wanted to be on the safe side and I announced based on betting what the others would do instead of what I knew I was capable of. I wasn’t upset that someone went deeper than me, I was upset that I didn’t go deeper than everyone else despite knowing that I could. I did 98 in training 2 days before, there was current and i banged my head very hard on the bottom plate and despite that I still came up all smiles and I was so fresh and I knew I had 100 in the bag. Then when it was time to announce I got cold feet, because it was my 1st dive in the world championship and I was afraid of the competition nerves messing with my sleep and give me too much stress before the dive (which is something that makes my equalisation harder).
I had told my team mates that I didn’t want to see the starting list and do my dive not knowing what my direct competitors announced, hoping not to think too much; I knew it was a podium announcement, just not which step.
As I came up from my dive I realised that:
1- I missed the gold medal, 2- I didn’t care much about the medal, 3- I was very upset.
I was so confused and couldn’t process my own feelings about it and the result it brought, I could just cry like a broken fountain.
Then my coach Bub sat me down and gave me a speech, and that gave me so much clarity about my goals and my motivation for doing this, and I was immediately grateful that I got both a coach and a psychotherapist at the price of one.
Bub (who is very evil but also very wise) told me that we don’t (or shouldn’t) go to competitions to get medals or to beat others, but that we (should) go there to do the very best we can, and if that is deeper than the others then so be it and we get a medal, and if not then we are still happy because we did the best we could, and this (and this only) gives us a true sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
So that’s how I went to do my next 2 dives (and f*cked them up real good).
