Sixteen years old. A rising senior in high school with visions to compete in USA Weightlifting’s National Championships in June. An athlete on scholarship who reached out to me for mental performance coaching with the simple goal of improving her overall mindset because she knew she could do more on the platform—that’s weightlifting jargon; the designated space where lifters compete—and was driven and curious to see how far she could go.

“This is going to sound terrible,” she said during our first meeting, “but I want to beat my friend, and I use that to help motivate me.”

We were discussing her peak performance process. She was stoic. Her tone and demeanour were calm and measured. Nothing from where I sat, trained and skilled in listening, indicated that this desire to beat her friend was a thread we should pull on—a place she felt stuck that was impacting her performance, mindset, relationship, athletic trajectory, or dreams and goals to compete.

Yet, the words were still there. “This is going to sound terrible…”

Photo GBR PR3 Mix2x

Credit Benedict Tufnell

Competitive Fire, Teammates and Friends

I spent much of this fall in conversation with collegiate rowers in the US as research and preparation for my work with this cohort on developing strong mindset and performance-based mental skills. What I did not anticipate at the onset was concern and curiosity about how striving to up-level performance was at odds with the perceptions of and responsibilities to teammates and friends. In other words, athletes were afraid to push the competitive edge and say and do things in the raw and honest spirit of striving for greatness because of the potential to risk or hurt friends.

See, the sentiment of my weightlifter is not isolated. I can easily draw on my own experiences in high performance—my rowing career spans nearly 25 years—to solidify the overarching theme.

It is 2014. I am at breakfast with one of my dear friends and training partners near Philadelphia’s storied Boathouse Row. A two-time gold medalist at the Pan American Games, Nicole cautiously starts talking about how she had to teach herself to be competitive—how it was OK to want to win. I understand. I too, while never directly grappling with the desire to win, would find my mind wandering during practice, asking: Am I too far ahead of my teammates? Maybe I should sit and hold the current gap between our boats. What will they think of me? I don’t want to get too far ahead.

Women’s Sports

Women’s sports are having a moment. Strong, capable bodies are now admired and esteemed. Evidence of its rise, which I believe is still building, includes increased viewership of major events, increased investment, increased media coverage, and perhaps most importantly, increased participation across sectors and cohorts on a global scale.

“The rise in popularity of professional women’s sports has been instrumental in levelling the playing field and fostering confidence and interest in young female athletes,” writes i9 Sports, a US-based multi-sport provider dedicated to helping kids succeed through sports. “Girls around the world are benefitting from the current spotlight on women’s sports,” they say.

This is great news.

What, then, explains the gap between the growth and current trajectory of women’s sports, and the competitive mindset needed not just to achieve but to embrace and enjoy the path and process of doing so?

According to Bonnie Marcus, executive coach and author, female athletes face unique challenges. “Much like high potential female executives, they encounter a ‘double double’ standard; a mixed message of the expectation of being intense, aggressive, dedicated, single-minded, and at the same time, warm and welcoming, which adds to their stress and anxiety,” she says (Marcus, 2024, para. 3).

I have not studied playground or sandbox politics—how some describe the early development of traditional gender roles including differences in behaviours, attitudes, social dynamics and implied expectations. What I do know is high performance. If excellence is the goal, and we are cognisant of the “concern about friendship” thread that may be affecting our female athletes, we can respect and create space for both. This will facilitate the mindset and skillset needed to optimise performance and succeed.

Photo DEN W8+

Credit Benedict Tufnell

Five Keys to Unlocking Competitive Fire

Core Values and Culture

Core values are the guiding principles that drive behaviour, impact goals and goal-setting, inform decisions, give guidance through challenges, and create alignment and set shared expectations among teams. Core values contribute to culture, which speaks more to the environment and how athletes, coaches and support staff operate as a whole.

When we talk about values with the goal of getting the most of ourselves and our teams, and with the background of concern for our teammates and friends, we need to address both parts. This is achieved most effectively by giving your athletes a voice. Ask:

1. What is most important?
2. Why is it meaningful?
3. What, from an actionable standpoint, does it signify in the context of training, racing, competitive fire, and the team?

Agreement-Setting

Establishing clear agreements is an essential aspect of professional coaching. In fact, it is one of eight core competencies that contributes to a tested framework in coaching. Like values, strong agreements yield clarity and alignment around what’s most important.

In rowing, agreement-setting could take shape around how demanding the best of ourselves is the single way to reach personal potential, team potential and top boat speed. It could involve clear transitions—agreeing to precise times or rituals that indicate the start and stop of the competitive space. For example, hands on the boat means we focus, shift mindset and enter a professional space. Hands on the dock and shove means we uplevel focus and prime our minds and bodies to maximize effort and compete. It could also involve delineating safe spaces for conflict and knowing when to reenter the friend space.

Character Strengths

Where do your athletes naturally shine? In 2019, I stroked the lightweight pair that won gold at World Championships. Part of what made that crew so successful was how my pair partner and I were able to harness our own innate strengths throughout the training and racing campaign.

Based on Gallup’s Strength Finder, two of my top five strengths are Responsibility and Harmony. Responsibility: You take psychological ownership of anything you commit to. Harmony: You look for consensus. When others are sounding off about their goals, their claims, and their fervently held opinions, you hold your peace. The pair is a unique boat class because, like the single scull, there is no place to hide. Both stroke and bow, port and starboard need to take full and independent ownership of their separate tasks in the boat, as well as its collective speed. Yet, the team aspect is apparent. Clear communication, aligned goals, and true partnership are keys.

This second element, the team aspect of the pair, directly aligns with Harmony. It was an element essential to my personal ability to row feeling fully capable and free, which is something I never quite found or felt in the single scull. Responsibility factored in because in addition to taking ownership of stroke seat — steering the boat, setting the pace, etc. — I felt a great deal of responsibility to my bow. I made it my job to lock into her voice and listen, which both fit with our dynamic and enabled her to maximize her personal strengths like taking command and leading the boat with her calls.

How does this apply to a broader team context? How does it impact relationships and protect friends? Character strengths are a gateway to understanding how each individual uniquely contributes to the whole. They offer insight into underlying motivations and drive. From a coaching perspective, character strengths can inform how to maximize talent, build strong combinations and yield the best speed. From a teammate perspective, character strengths can engender connection and increase understanding and respect for what each person needs to perform, both under pressure and in everyday training.  

Honest Conversations

Honest conversations relate to ownership and accountability. They include conversations we have with ourselves through journaling and pointed reflection, with our coaches and trusted support, and with our teammates and friends. When honest conversations are part of team culture or collective agreements, they yield safe trusted spaces to air grievances, voice concerns or work through challenges between teammates and friends. They also build trust, which is an essential, if not the single most important ingredient to speed.

When we circle back to unlocking competitive fire, honest conversations can unearth doubts, fears and limiting beliefs. They can reveal what we might need to let go of and what we might need to bring forth in terms of perspective, behaviours and ways we typically think. They can lead to increased awareness about how an athlete needs to see herself—who she needs to be or become in the critical moments—to fully step into her best competitive self. This potential shift in identity is powerful. It is no easy task. No small feat.

Permission Slips

Remember my friend Nicole? How she had to teach herself that it was OK to want to win… OK to all-out compete. There is an aspect of permission to what she was grappling with. Permission, by definition, allows someone to do something. If you’re reading this thinking, “well, of course she’s allowed to want to win, of course she’s allowed to compete,” or if the concept sounds completely nonsensical, think about all the ways our core identities are molded and shaped. Then consider if and when you’ve felt tension between something you want in heart and what’s accepted or expected from the outside.

We operate within frameworks that feel safe and familiar all the time. Crossing a threshold or bridging a gap to some place new and unfamiliar takes work, and most of the time, courage. Permissions offer powerful help. In rowing, permission to want it, to voice it, to go for it. Permission to dedicate the time and allocate resources. Permission to fail. Permission to fly!

“There’s a freedom waiting for you,

On the breezes of the sky.

And you ask, ‘What if I fall?’

Oh, but my darling,

What if you fly?”

~Erin Hanson

I know I’m talking broad strokes but sit with this one for a minute. Trust me when I say that it is essential and freeing. Ask: What permissions you need to give yourself to unlock or uplevel your competitive fire? What permissions do you need to give yourself to compete and also honour your teammates and friends?

Closing Thoughts

Taylor Jenkins Reid is a New York Times bestselling author. Her latest, Carrie Soto is Back, is about a 37-year-old professional tennis star, Carrie Soto, who comes out of retirement to reclaim her record of most Grand Slams singles wins. Soto is known as a cutthroat competitor and crowned by the sports media “the Battle-Axe.” In conversation with her nemesis, the book’s antagonist, Nicki Chan, the following dialogue evolves:

Nicki: You know what somebody on the tour told me about you back in the day?

Carrie: Oh great, here we go.

Nicki: No, no, it’s not bad. Just… she said that you seem tough, you seem cold. But really, you’re one of those players who keep to themselves because you feel conflicted when you have to kick somebody’s ass.

Carrie: I just think it keeps it a lot simpler… to not care too much for anybody.

Nicki, nodding: I understand.

Carrie: You don’t feel that way?

Nicki, shaking her head: I’d wreck my best friend in cold blood on national television.

My parting message: We don’t need to choose. Friends or competitors. Chasing performance or preserving relationships. Claiming personal hunger, focus, desire and speed versus cultivating and contributing to a supportive team culture where everyone feels free to rise. These ideas are not mutually exclusive. With the right mix of clarity and conviction, they can coexist beautifully and open the gate to reaching new heights.

Photo CW1x AUT

Credit Benedict Tufnell

References

deHart, L. (2024). Light Up: The Science of Coaching With Metaphors. Barn Swallow Publishing.

i9 Sports. (2024, January 17). How the Rise in Women’s Sports is Paving the Way for Girls in Youth Sports. https://www.i9sports.com/blog/how-the-rise-in-womens-sports-is-paving-the-way-for-girls-in-youth-sports

Marcus, B. (2024, August 22). Sports Psychology Helps Female Athletes Reach Peak Performance, Compete, And Win. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bonniemarcus/2024/08/22/sports-psychology-helps-female-athletes-reach-peak-performance-compete-and-win/

Reid, T. J. (2023). Carrie Soto Is Back. Ballantine Books.