Faster, Higher, Stronger! 4 Career Lessons From The Olympics

The Olympic opening ceremony is just around the corner! While some of the games have already begun, preparations are well underway for the main event. Athletes from around the globe are perfecting their crafts, whether they’re figure skaters, snowboarders, or bobsledders.

So what career lessons can all professionals learn from one of the oldest events in the world?

The motto of the Olympics is Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” This message, along with the stories of Olympians, can really teach you a thing or two about your career, whether you’re looking for a new job or want to improve your current situation.

Be faster, think higher, and perform stronger! Here are  four career lessons any professional can learn from the Olympics:

Overcome challenges and adversity

In your career, you’ll face many hoops to jump through and finish lines to cross. Before you get there, though, you may be faced with extreme challenges and even adversity. When the going gets tough, it’s vital to overcome these problems and come out on top — and that’s exactly what many Olympians have done.

Swimmer Natalie du Toit lost her leg in a car accident. Long jumper Bob Beamon grew up an orphan in the projects of New York. Pitcher Jim Abbott was born with no right hand. Despite these major life roadblocks, these Olympians moved forward, overcame their challenges, and created a name for themselves and their country by winning the ultimate prize: A gold medal.

Maintain your brand

When you’re trying to create a name for yourself, you may find yourself at the bottom of the totem pole. However, it’s important to maintain your brand, stay humble, and create a positive image that current and future employers will admire.

A great example of this is Jessica Ennis-Hill, a British heptathlon athlete. Before the Beijing games, Ennis-Hill learned she had an injury, thereby ruling herself out of the 2008 Olympics. Ennis-Hill decided to maintain her brand, telling the BBC that “injury is part of a heptathlete life — I’m determined to make a recovery.” Recover she did. With ample preparation and facing an injury headon, Ennis-Hill won gold four years later at the London Olympics.

Go above and beyond

No one likes mediocrity. If you’re job searching, employers will expect more than the bare minimum. If you’re employed, your boss probably wants innovative ideas and out-of-the-box strategies. The same goes for Olympians. If they go above and beyond, no matter the task, it will show in their performance.

For example, when you can’t afford to go the Olympics, should you sit down and wait till the next round? Or do what the Jamaican bobsled team did and raise money through the power of the Internet? With the help of online donors, Team Jamaica recently raised more than $184,000, blowing their initial goal of $80,000 out the water. Even though they aren’t a likely favorite for the gold medal, their efforts prove that innovative thinking — and going above and beyond — can pay off in the end.

Evaluate your success

It’s important to evaluate your success in order to see what worked and what didn’t. In your career, you’ll likely face many hurdles and hopefully find ways to jump over them. Consider if you could have jumped higher to get that gold medal. Did you perform to the best of your ability?

Evaluating your success is part of being an Olympian. Take American hurdler Lolo Jones, for example. She revisited her strategy after some false starts, so much so that after the 2012 games, Jones gave bobsledding a shot.

She doesn’t believe the track change should be viewed as a failure — instead, as a revised plan of action, particularly following her string of misses. Jones even relayed to Women’s Health that she refused to be deterred by failure, asserting that “a failure today is not a failure if it leads to success tomorrow.” Takeaway? If you sit down, evaluate, and adjust your plan accordingly, you can still achieve your goals.

The Olympics can teach you more than how to pole vault. They can actually provide some career lessons, helping you to move closer to the ultimate professional finish line. Remember: No matter where you are in your career, you can always achieve success. Use the triumphs of Olympians as a marker for your own professional life and go for the gold medal in the process!

What do you think? What are some other career lessons from the Olympics? How can you achieve the ultimate gold medal?

Image courtesy of Denelson83; Wikipedia Commons