Allyson Felix is an amazing sprinter who has won numerous medals on the World and Olympic stage. She is the epitome of what a world class athlete should be both on the track and off. One of the things she pointed out in an interview was the need to sometimes “pause and pivot’. It is easy to just keep plowing through when obstacles come up. The “harder I try, the better I do” thought process works great a majority of the time. Great athletes need to persevere and outwork obstacles. But sometimes, you just need to take a minute to pause, look closely at the situation and then decide whether it is best to keep pushing or to pivot in another direction. This is difficult for many athletes because they have such a strong work ethic that taking a pause and pivot is counter intuitive to how they normally do things. As a wise man once said, “if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got”. So, athletes, if you want a different result, maybe you need to “pause and pivot”. And coaches, particularly in these tough Covid times, you might need to do the same, you know??
