Building resilience

The last two articles looked at how to build your confidence and belief in your ability. In this article, I’m going to give a few suggestions on how to build resilience. Firstly, what’s the difference between confidence and resilience?

Confidence

1. The feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.
2. A feeling of self-assurance arising from an appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.

Resilience

1. The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness.
2. The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.

So confidence is all about a positive mindset based around the ability of self and the people around you; resilience is about how we recover from the bumps in the journey to achieving goals. At this point, you might be asking what you need resilience for within the context of getting better in a boat. The answer is several things, and again, all personal.

These things could include peer pressures (tales of either chaos on rivers or the pressure to step things up constantly), training and assessment pressures (various awards or white water course sign-offs, for example), change in the situation (changes in social groups for example) or the classic, resilient to sometimes getting it wrong (nasty swim, injury or not developing at the rate that you want to). Although there’s an argument that confidence and resilience are different, some of the methods used could have some overlap.

Once again, these are all suggestions and work well for some but might not for others. If resilience is something, you feel you need to build or just interested in the practical applications of building resilience, pick the ‘golden threads’ from this article that work for you and disregard the ones that don’t.

Motivations

As previously mentioned, your motivation toward paddlesports is personal. It’s not uncommon to be on the same stretch of water with people who paddle for different reasons. For example, in our paddlesport team, we have individuals who like new adventures and the boat is just a vessel, those who paddle for the feel of the movement and those who paddle for the social. The more motivated you are, the more chance there is of having inherent resilience. The example here is the musician who seemingly can’t put down their instrument. The search for the perfect note allows them to tirelessly continue through the dud notes and sore fingers (depending on the instrument).

Some motivations are stronger than others; anything intrinsic (inherent or belonging to) will naturally be more robust than anything extrinsic (external to or a bonus of). Extrinsic motivations may see the paddler seeking these elements elsewhere if they’re no longer present in the paddling setting. For example, the above paddler that goes boating for the feel of the movement can only get that from paddling itself (intrinsic); the paddler that goes for the social or new adventure, unless there are elements of intrinsic motivation, may look for that elsewhere.

Now, having said all that, there’s nothing wrong with your reasons for going paddling or wanting to achieve a specific goal (I want this qualification for my club or work, for example). Understanding the differences allows you to understand how naturally resilient you are within your chosen past time. Once your motivations have been established, do a lot of it! Once motivation goes, so does resilience and confidence.

Coaching tip…

If you’re going to utilise learners motivations for their development, do your best to understand them with as little of your biases as possible. Once understood, work with them rather than trying to change them. The example here is the learner who wants to undertake an instructor award; if they’re not interested in becoming a paddler but can do the instructor’s job, try using more of an approach that fits the extrinsic motivations. Becoming more pragmatic in your feedback, for example, “That performance was at standard/needs improving for the award you’re after.”

Coaching tip…

Getting the feedback to come from the learner can naturally build a growth mindset. Bold statement, I know; the above example is often the primal being screaming and shouting. Without rationalisation, you remember the points that appeared through your frustrations. Let the inner beast become frustrated and ask what the rational human being would change once out of breath. This requires a strong coach to learner relationship but will ultimately mean that the learner doesn’t need the coach in the long run (moving toward autonomy).

Goal setting, Dream big!

Someone who only dreams during the night wakes up to reality; someone who daydreams is dangerous because these dreams become a reality.

I like quotes like this because I can rationalise all the daydreaming I did at school rather than paying attention! These dreams or aspirations become a reality if there’s goal-setting involved. These aspirations can be varied within paddlesports and linked to personal performance to things like passing a leadership or coaching award. Anything with an award focus can have easier measurability with a pass or fail outcome; however, if lots of effort has been ploughed into an award once it’s completed, there can be a deflating, empty feel of what’s next?

Although harder to measure, performance-based aspirations and goal setting have more potential to be re-evaluated naturally. For example, if you aspire to paddle a specific stretch of water or paddle at the following technical grade, almost as this is achieved, there’s the potential to be striving for the next stretch or adventure. Interestingly this can be applied to awarding. “I want to be the best coach or leader,” creates a longer learning pathway beyond qualifications, with re-adjusting goals whereas, “I want to be a performance coach” can potentially feel final once complete.
I once heard those end goals (the daydream or big aspiration) need to be achievable; however, I believe this puts a lid on creativity instead; why not be naive enough to start and stubborn enough to finish.

I believe this is where goal setting along the journey to mastery or success comes into its own. For example, the ‘day dream’ aspiration could be to do a multi-day expedition in the wilderness; if you believe it’s unachievable, it is. Instead, if it becomes the ‘dream’ and goal setting happens in the short and mid-term, there’s a continued path and progressions to follow.

The short and mid-term goals need to be achievable and realistic to feel like you’re on the right path to mastery.

Do or do not; there is no try! Yoda

It’s not the getting things wrong that are damaging; it’s how we act following it. If we give up, it’s a failure to learn from it and carry on it’s experience! The notion of trying can have negative connotations, “I tried” feels quite final, almost a softer way of saying “I failed.” Although less final, “I’m trying” can still become negative as it can add the feel of it becoming a chore or hard work to complete. This example here often gets termed as a closed mindset, and it’s this that’s built in the possible fear of failure.

“Not achieved yet, next time I’m going to apply…” or “to achieve this I’m going to do…” Although these examples are probably more readily associated with being successful at a qualification assessment, this growth mindset can still be applied to personal performance; a growth mindset will only flourish if backed up with positive self-talk. For example, “I swam because my roll failed” could be changed to “I fell in here, next time I’ll take this line or put in this key stroke.”

Mental Clutter

Some keep their houses squeaky clean and aren’t comfortable in un-tidiness (think Monica Gellar, Friends), and others are happy in an environment that’s well lived in (think Steptoe’s yard). The above notion of experience over failure, as mentioned, can encourage lots of drive to succeed in your chosen goals; however, these experiences can leave their mark. These marks can become the mental clutter, positive or negative reminders to certain environments or experiences.

The more marks there are, potentially the more they need addressing, I say potentially because some people are naturally able to ignore the clutter, and some aren’t (and that’s ok).

Positive self-talk and the feel of flow can be valuable skills here to help ‘talk to’ and tidy up the clutter. For example, the paddler that had a bad time on a spate river might have a mental trigger towards the brown ‘flood’ colour. Go paddling somewhere where the river’s catchment is peat, and the same ‘flood’ colour will be experienced, even if the rivers not in flood stages. This could awaken the ‘fight or flight reaction (clutter around an environment). By rationalising this using facts about the environment (I know it looks like it’s in flood, but it’s still in its banks) and through the use of flow (linking S turns or ferry-glides seamlessly and effortlessly) gives a solid base to tidy up the ‘clutter’ in this example.

This does sound very similar to building confidence; however, the difference is whether the frustrations go far enough to make the learner want to give up; this is where it arguably becomes hazardous. If someone’s been pushed by people, the environment or the constant feel of failure, it may encourage them away from the environment or paddling altogether. There’s a potential for internalisation here, and if you have got to this point and you do want to carry on, it needs to be let out. This could be by telling someone you trust (coach, leader or peer) or by putting it down on paper somewhere; the sense of letting it out can feel like you’ve relieved the pressure.

The keystroke/ performance

Keystrokes or performances, although now fewer, are still required to complete a rapid sequence or feel confident in your performance. When these strokes (boof stroke, for example) elude us, our confidence can drop along with resilience; this can lead to frustrations and overcoming these hurdles can become an arduous task. If this has happened, ask yourself a few questions to establish the mishap’s root cause, which could be things like:

• Why did it happen?
• What would you do differently for a different outcome?
• What was your thought process?
• What happened in the build-up (safety set up or atmosphere of the group)?

Asking questions like this help you to understand if it was the performance disappearing or situational.

In the above rolling example, the question could be, was it the roll that failed or did the situation/environment makes rolling impossible. The notion of key skill can then add an unnecessary weighted question around the ability to perform; if there’s a question like this and it becomes your focus, there may be the temptation to avoid situations where you may need it.

Avoiding rapids where the chance of falling in is greater, for example. I had this following my last swim; the “is it my roll” question came forward with some weight. To combat this, I got on a river that was well within comfort, with someone I trust, and I put myself into lots of situations where I was likely to be upside down in anger. This, combined with the above questioning, was enough to remove the damaging internal question early and allow me to understand why the swim happened in the first place, the situation rather than a skill vanishing.

Me, Myself and I

This where the unhealthy debate about ‘natural talent’ versus experience comes in. Ever been a learner and watched someone else develop much quicker than you? This can be highly frustrating and, when questioned, can often lead to the answer of “they have a gift for it” or “they’re just naturally talented.” Here’s the argument, a lot of the research suggests no such thing as natural talent, just experience. A heightened sense of how they learn, understanding of movement and the amount of time the learner has at their disposal.

An example of this is the massive comparisons from paddlesports to mountain biking and skiing. The learner that’s accomplished in these will have the transferable skills (things like looking where you want to go, the feel of flow and dynamic reflexes) and, therefore, a quicker learning curve. These comparisons will be useless if you don’t have the experiences from the other sports; they may take a bit longer, and that’s ok; you can achieve these from paddlesports.

The athlete who wants to win can’t easily consider the amount of training time or coaching they may get; if they’re beaten, it’s demoralising. Instead, if they’re competing against themselves, self-drive comes in, and the athlete is out for personal bests; there’s less chance of quitting if you’re beating your personal bests.

Self-determination comes when a learner is driven to better themselves and reflects on their progressions, achievements and experience rather than the ‘natural talent’ of others around them. ‘They’ve done it, why can’t I’ gets replaced with I’ve accomplished this, next time I’ll work on that.

Coaching tip…

Time pressure to ‘tidy’ can add more stress to the situation and potentially add another thing to be tidied. Allow plenty of time for the rationalising to happen and encourage the learners to take ownership. This could be by encouraging them to tell you when flow (an enhanced mental state where less thinking power to perform is utilised because everything’s working) is happening or when they’re ready to move on. If a learner does open up to you, listen! Avoid talking to respond or relate; listen and do your best to understand. Talking about things like this could feel like a huge hurdle to someone.

Social Factors

I find the social dynamics of groups really interesting, the natural hierarchies, the introverts and extroverts, the natural leaders, the followers and the loan wolf. I recently heard this described as tribe behaviours, and within paddlesports, clubs are widespread. Sit back at the well-travelled stretches of water like the river Dee, and you can see these different members of the ‘tribe’ in action; what’s interesting is the dynamics can change, and the once loan wolf can end up with followers without realising.

The plus side of the social factors are things like problems shared, the forming of cliques and the ability of others to lift people. The downsides come from ‘the chatter’. The chatter (more common amongst blokes) comes from the tall tales (stories of beatings and bad swims) and peer pressure (being mocked for walking a rapid, for example).

The potential for damage can go in several ways, and being resilient to this can be draining, frustrating and alienating. I’ve seen this in its extremes, everything from nerves or being held back by tales of beatings or high technicalities of the environment to almost bullying for being ‘soft’ for making decisions to portage a rapid, for example. A while ago, I heard the control measure finding others to go paddling with; this sounds simple in principle but could be hard in its practicalities.

This sounds wishy-washy, but why not question both your ability to undertake your role in the group (self-efficacy) and the individuals’ abilities to work as a team/work in the persona they’ve adopted (other-efficacy). When this works, I know my place in the ‘tribe’, and I’m confident in my abilities, and I trust the rest of the ‘tribe’ to do their jobs/have belief in their abilities. Once this is in place, it can allow the ‘chatter’ to fall on deaf ears or be understood; for example, are the tales of beating bravado or a way of hiding nerves and apprehension? If it’s understood, it can be better accepted.