From Olivier Leroy
1. Be a little better each day.
It’s natural to want to make the big, drastic improvements. In reality, dropping big chunks of time off your best time doesn’t come from doing something right once, it comes from doing a whole bunch of little things right consistently.
2. Speaking of little, the details matter…
It’s crazy to think how often races end up coming down to who kept their head down at the finish, or who had a slightly tighter streamline off that last wall. The way that you perform these seemingly innocuous aspects of your swimming in practice is the way you do them in competition, so don’t neglect them.
3. Practice good swimming and gratitude.
Yes, getting up at 5am for morning workouts isn’t the greatest. Nor is Hell Week or spending yet another weekend away from your friends from school. But swimming– and the myriad of benefits it will provide you from building character, consistency and toughness– is worth being grateful for.
4. Set a goal to master the grind, the process, the day-to-day.
Big goals are great and necessary—they give us motivation and something to strive for. But a championship swimmer isn’t made on race day. They are forged in the day-to-day grind of falling in love with the process.
5. Be the teammate you want to have.
Some of my best memories from my age group swimming days aren’t necessarily the best times and records (though those were nice), it was the moments where an older swimmer lent a word of encouragement. Or when the team all got up to cheer for me. Those moments matter a lot more than you realize, so take the steps to be that teammate regularly.
6. Keep your word.
Top level swimmers have insane levels of personal integrity. When they say that they are going to do something, that they are going to commit to a specific goal, they do it. A funny thing happens when you fully commit to something—your world seems to bend around it in order to make it come to fruition.
7. Track your performance.
Consistency over the course of a full swimming season is tough. There will always be distractions, setbacks, injuries and illness. Write out your workouts on a daily basis to keep yourself accountable and keep your intensity in practice elevated.
