Practice and preparation prevent poor performance.
As a competitive figure skater that was one of my mantras. Running myself through grueling program after program, throwing myself into the ice again and again, accumulating bruises, waking up at 4 am to get on the ice before school; I beat the 5 P’s into my head. Everything was mechanical; arm placement, head tilt, leg extension, wake up, train, repeat. Everything was a formula to produce the perfect performance. Anything less than perfect was simply unacceptable.
I have always been the athlete on the ice; I had the speed, the power, the elements, and therefore a lot of pressure to be perfect. I grew up thinking that a missed element was a complete failure. I punished myself for even the slightest mistake because I thought it meant I wasn’t training hard enough. I must not have had enough practice or I wasn’t prepared enough. I prided myself on knowing that I could push myself harder than anyone else I skated with, when determination wasn’t enough it left me feeling inadequate and miserable.
2013 was my last competitive singles season, since then I’ve had nothing to truly train for. I’m college I was only able to skate about 3 days a week, nothing close to a competitive training schedule. The void of having nothing to work for left me lost and mourning the past. I went from having skating being absolutely everything to me to having nothing. I didn’t know how to be me without being a competitive figure skater. I started feeling anxious and restless all day, every day. That’s when I started going to the gym. It gave me an outlet for all my extra energy and helped me burn off some anxiety and stress from my course load and work. I was able to train my body at my own pace, set my own goals that I could achieve. Every time I went to the gym I learned something new about myself or what my body could, to this day I still love seeing the new things I can do.
I still believe in practice and preparing myself the best I can for the future, but I don’t believe that a “poor performance” is the end of the world anymore. You could practice forever, train harder than anyone and mistakes are still going to happen. A poor performance is a learning experience, it teaches us how we can grow and better ourselves. Every day I look forward to more learning experiences because I refuse to believe in failures.
Anne Wise 