Steph Rice:MINDSET to WIN at THE OLYMPICS| A Life Of Greatness w/ Sarah Grynberg

when you're on um the block and you're waiting to you know go to swim the race what's going through your mind uh you know when you reflect back on that what was what was like your favorite moment ah um I always feel like my favorite moments were as soon as the race was over like it was that uh Rel feeling like all of the nervousness all of the hard work the race plan the strategy it's like it's like a moment of like oh that's done now um that probably always been my favorite moment even when it was disappointing um but yeah like mentally and emotionally before a race that that nervousness really kicks in like when you arrive at the pool which is about 2 hours before your race is scheduled so it just kind of is this build from stretching to warm-up routine to getting your suit on talk to your coach head to the marshling room and I always found that kind of like 10 minutes before getting to the marshling room which the marshling room is just like a holding Bay where all the athletes for the race go because you know on TV you see people like walk out out of like a special room so the room you're in is the marshling room and that's really where the most nervousness and anxiousness like kicked in because you're just waiting and so your mind is like racing and so many thoughts you know you're like hope my goggles I've got to get them on the right way and you're also looking at the race thinking oh I wish we would have already started we would have been finished by now you know like and you're sizing up your competition and you're oh they've got that suit on maybe I should have worn that suit like you're just thinking of so many different things but by the time you actually walk out um and they announce you you know swimming in Lane six representing Australia that kind of thing you're like okay go time like now it's almost like the the mental chatter starts to silence at that point and so when people say like what did you think when you're standing on the Block like nothing um my mind was pretty like wiped clean by then because when you got on the Block it was almost like that signal to yourself okay like that's over and this is starting and just really try to to just get into that flow state of what you're about to do I wonder for you you know before you go on and maybe it's when you're in that holding kind of Bay Area do you is any anything you say to yourself from a mindset perspective to try and bring you back not to worry do you say a little prayer is there anything that you like a ritual of some sort that you had yeah I became quite almost obsessive compulsive um during that period of time and and I feel like that could be seen as like a negative thing but for me it was actually a real Comfort because um it was like automatic pilot like once I got into the marshing routine marshling room I would just focus on the things that I could control and the things that I could focus on so that my focus wasn't on anything else so um the way I put my cap on like I would always you know put the cap on and then press the goggles on my face eight times and do these silly little things but for me it was like a way to Channel all my thoughts into something um instead of it flying around anywhere and everywhere um and that really helps me like just from a practical standpoint of physically doing something um and then mentally I would always be self- encouraging like selft talk was a really big part of high performance um and so it was almost like you were a best friend in your mind comforting yourself like come on you've done a really good preparation this is the moment like all you can ask of yourself is just to do the best you can today like and just focus on the little things like focus on the start focus on the turn because I think in a in a race like an Olympics where you have no control of anybody else and how anybody else is going to swim the race you just focus on what you can do and in you you don't know like 200 meters so many things can happen so you just really try to make it really Fed so a lot of selft talk a lot of calming myself down a lot of just trying to deescalate and yeah and like cheer myself on and that that carried through for the race itself as well yeah so when you're in the water I find this all so fascinating Steph when you're in the water are you just thinking of technique are you looking can you even see the people in the lanes next to you like how as a swimmer do you even know if you're in front because I assume you can only see the two people next to you so you have no idea where the other people are you have pretty good peripheral vision um to be able to to sense if you're ahead or not and that's because you can see like you C you can without looking physically you can sense who's in front but but if you and that's like I guess the key to qualifying in a middle Lane so I guess for the people that are like watching the Olympics that that's the benefit of swimming qualifying in a middle Lane you've got both peripheral Visions whereas if you like qualify on an outside Lane you're always looking only one way yeah um so and it's kind of hard then to see what's going on eight Lanes away from you but when you do a tumble turn you often get to see the side view so there's a lot of like just little little times that you would just notice things but honestly it's not something you're ever conscious of because you do that every day in training for seven hours a day like sense where people are so it's it's a real sensory thing and swimming is such a feel based sport you can't see a stopwatch or a clock when you are competing so it's all about how you feel in the water how you feel you're going and you can often tell if you're swimming a best time or not a best time just by those feeling sensor experiences um but yeah I would always always just focus on selft talk and um trying to slow things down like in a in a 200 meter race you've got four laps so it just easily got split into lap one's Focus lap two's Focus lap three and lap four and yeah so little things around little little tips around technique or little little tools that your coach may say to you before the race like focus on your turns something small like that um because your brain can't comprehend more than sort of two or three things so you don't want to have heaps of things flying around when now you're overwhelmed um you just want to kind of keep it really simple and my coach would always say that um and so yeah technique uh turns you know kick where am I but honestly it was just so much selft talk you're doing a really good job like that was a great ter like keep pushing hard yeah I know your legs are sore but like 10 more strokes and then you're turning and then you're already halfway like just anything to kind of feel like you're doing a good job because it's so easy for that mental talk to overpower you like everybody has negative thoughts um and I think when you're doing something physical that's just the easiest thing to latch on to um and so I think you actually a big part of training is training that mental conversation you have with yourself to be like like to quieten it but not to ignore it so often I would I would like those thoughts would pop up in a race like oh my gosh my legs are so sore and I've still got two laps to go um and I I would often tell myself to shut up like SE shut up stop you're doing a really good job like keep pushing hard you've felt this before you this is what you've been doing in training like it it was almost like just like as if you had two people in your brain and you're like not giving permission to the negative one to have have a say at this point in time um and that you need that when you're racing somebody like side by side constantly like some it like you both could win you know the whole race so you're you really have to rely on that mental selft talk