At the end of a long year and with the announcement of a widespread Christmas lockdown, it seems like the right time for one last blog of 2020 that reminds us what the incredible yet often unassuming people we live and work alongside are capable of. One such person is Katie Warriner.
Katie’s story is particularly relevant at this moment in time. As a junior elite gymnast for Great Britain, she had a career centred around one goal at the exclusion of pretty much all else. Work and play focused on her own single-minded priority. However, when adversity struck and she was obliged to shed the seemingly indelible plan she had mapped out for future, she had to find a new path. She moved from athlete to sport psychologist exchanging a life striving for ‘perfection’ for a vocation focused on others, their health, wellbeing and performance. Precision was switched for humanity and she had finally found the perfect fit.
“When I was a lot younger and starting out as a sport psychologist, I used to wish I’d had more success as a gymnast. I represented my country and travelled the world, but I didn’t achieve my dream goal of going to the Olympics. Yet here I was, aiming to help other athletes win Olympic gold. I used to think ‘if I’d won lots of titles and medals, perhaps I’d be more able to help others achieve their dreams.’ Over the years, I have come to realise that what matters most is how you approach your work – really caring about the people you are supporting, wanting the best from them and for them and being committed and genuine in your work.”
Katie soon discovered that it was the obstacles she’d overcome which made her effective as a psychologist. She could empathise as well as guide: “The suffering I experienced in sport as a gymnast is perhaps at the heart of my effectiveness as a psychologist. I understand what it’s like to lose a dream, to struggle to connect with your coach, to feel the disappointment of injury. I think this helps people trust me and know they can open up and be genuine. There’s nothing we can’t make sense of together and work through. My suffering also makes me super passionate about helping others to experience sport positively and be fully supported in achieving their potential. I want others to have a more positive experience than I did. I think that drive within me makes me work harder, with more courage, commitment and creativity than if I’d had all the success I dreamt of and perhaps taken it for granted.”
Neither regret nor denial blur Katie’s memories of her time as a gymnast. Rather she recognises that every trial or setback in life brings with it a priceless lesson, “I learnt a lot from gymnastics. Many positive lessons and some difficult ones. I learnt the importance of discipline, of training intensity and of finding enjoyment in the monotony of skill repetition. You have to remind yourself why you do what you do: that thrilling sensation standing four foot up on a plank of wood 10cm wide in front of 10,000 people about to do a somersault that you desperately want to land for a certain score with no guarantee of success! I also learnt how crippling perfectionism can be, how lonely it can feel when you’re injured and how tricky it can be to make friends when your social life and diet is so restricted, and you rarely go out because you’re training six days a week.”
Loneliness is a sensation that’s swarmed through society in 2020 almost as fast as this wretched virus that plagues us. Every choice feels like the least of goodness knows how many evils. What kind of an equation balances your physical health against your mental wellbeing? Even staying in only protects us from one particularly loud and attention-seeking physical health concern. I’ve spent years driving friends and family mad with best guesses on what’ll happen next in any given television series (I recently peaked during The Undoing). Unfortunately, we now seem to be stuck in an inescapable revolving door where educated opinions are all we’ve got to work with in life and death situations. We have one last viable option – accept that we can only control the controllable:
The ability to accept what we cannot control and focus our energies on responding as best we can, in line with our values, and playing our part to help others is a massive mindset skill. Choosing our attitude and focusing our minds like this is critical to thriving under pressure, turning adversity into advantage and making the best of situations and our potential. As difficult as it has been and will continue to be for some time, COVID-19 creates the conditions for us to train that skill.
I’m passionate about helping everyone I work with be the best they can be. Ostensibly I’m employed to help athletes win but I define ‘winning’ in the deepest sense. So yes, following their goals in sport which normally centre around medals at major international competitions like the Olympics or winning the Premiership, but, more than that, I want to help them enjoy the journey, become the best version of themselves, dedicate their training to their life, not ‘just’ their life to their training. We’ve all probably heard stories about athletes who stood on top of a podium having ‘achieved the dream’ but to their surprise, they felt empty. There are lots of reasons why this can happen and I’m a firm believer that it doesn’t have to be that way.
I remember going to an insightful and inspiring session with Jonny Wilkinson where he talked about that very empty feeling. Rugby icon Wilkinson kicked the winning drop-goal for the England squad in the 2003 World Cup. National hero or not, Wilkinson has to be mindful of his mental health like every other mortal. Depression and anxiety came in part due to his personal identity becoming confused with his identity as a top draw rugby player who only truly came to life when he ran onto the pitch. I’m nowhere near as well-equipped to describe the feeling as Wilkinson himself:
“I am ‘me’ and I feel that shirt was an identity that I wore, which was perfectly suited for being on the field, but came with feelings of pressure, expectation, and fear of failure, and for much of the time, I was out of alignment with other areas of my life.
“Now, I’m truly happy putting that shirt on when it matters, but the rest of the time, I prefer to be open, undecided and joyfully curious about what will happen in life.”
We may feel like we know our heroes as we watch them at the top of their game, but we don’t see the personal sacrifice they invest behind-the-scenes. When they step out on stage, be it sporting or artistic, they’re performing for us, for their country, for themselves. Inside the struggle is private and intense. For different reasons this year, the lens through which we class people as national ‘heroes’ has shifted, just as the spread and understanding of each individual’s quest for satisfaction has widened. People used to queue to hear about Alexander Hamilton – he could never be satisfied. Imagine if he’d had to succumb to lockdown! He’d have churned through more than a few blogs…
Whatever shape or size our heroes come in, what’s most important is that we recognise them, and ourselves, as individuals. They inspire us, but we don’t need to shape ourselves in their image. We can cheer them at the top of our lungs, but the most important support they can get is as human beings: “When I’m working, the focus is on the athlete, coach or team I’m with. What matters is the person sitting opposite me and meeting them where they are, not where I think they should be or where I want them to be. I don’t believe in any one approach. What worked for me may not work for another person and vice versa. That individuality and variety are some of the many things I love about my work now.
“On one level, sport psychology is about helping athletes be the best they can be. It’s about learning how your mind works so you can take care of it and get the best out of it – to be the person and athlete you want to be and achieve what you aspire to in life. As a sport psychologist you work with athletes to help them develop the mental skills like focus, refocus, confidence, decision-making, communication and resilience needed to perform in their sport. You also work with coaches to help them understand their athletes as whole people, support them to be the coach they want to be and have the impact on others that they aspire to.”
What strikes me is that the mental support athletes need to perform to the best of their ability is something we all need. That our nation’s greatest competitors receive the help of experts like Katie gives me great peace of mind, but the most important lesson I’ve taken is that if even these titans benefit from support, guidance and kindness, then that’s probably a pretty good formula for everyone. And the great news is – we may not all be Katie, but we can all be kind, especially over a long, cold, locked down winter as colleagues and as friends:
“I have been fortunate to work with teams where the leaders, coaches and staff genuinely care about their talent and want to do their best to support them. I work in forward thinking teams with amazing leaders like Danny Kerry and Simon Amor. Where collaborative approaches are favoured, empowerment is encouraged and there is support for talent from a well-being perspective. Being valued and understood is not a ‘nice to have’ or a generational preference, it’s a basic human need vital to performance and well-being.”
Find out more about projects Katie is currently working on, including:
- Ignite Sport – elite mental skills courses for athletes designed to help you thrive in sport & in life
- Moonshot Series – cutting-edge online resilience and wellbeing programme Spark for young people
- Katie is also currently writing a book with Marcus Rashford aimed at helping young children finding their voice
Katie Traxton is an ESA Board Director and Chief Communications Officer at Formula E