066 Mental Health and Resilience: Lessons from an Olympic Medalist

Our guest today is very inspirational, Marilyn Okoro was a top-class athlete, an Olympic bronze medalist, and now an athletepreneur and mentor.  In this episode, we discuss what it takes to compete to such a high level in elite sport.  We chat about perfectionism, being yourself despite the challenges sport brings, the cultures that exist in elite sport and how they can be helpful and equally damaging.   Marilyn also discusses some mental health challenges that she has had and what she is up to now after recently retiring from the track.

Key Takeaways include:

• Athletics can be quite a lonely sport. 
• Perfection doesn't exist, every time I ran a PB, I always found something I could have done better.
• Look to strive for excellence, striving for perfection can be dangerous.
• Governing bodies and organisations have to work with the individual to play to their strengths.
• To learn to deliver my best performances under pressure, I had to learn to control the controllables.
• As an athlete, you have to be super focused and make decisions for the betterment of your sport and your performance.
• If you aren’t allowed to speak up you can’t be comfortable in your own skin.

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Helpful Podcast Episodes

Podcast Ep011: Dave Algeo - Mental Toughness, Mental Health and High Performance

Podcast Ep033: Aly Dixon – Mental Toughness Lessons from a World Champion

Podcast Ep065 Amy Izycky - Encouraging Mentally Healthy Cultures in Sport

Other Useful Resources linked to Mental Health

Blog - Make Better Decisions to Help Your Sport Performance

Blog - 5 Ways to Create a Psychological Safe Sporting Environment

Blog – 3 Tips to Deal with Bullying in Sport