the secret that isn’t

Greetings from Qatar, where the T100 final has turned the race hotel into a pressure cooker with air conditioning. I've been seeing it in athletes' faces all day- the tight smiles, the forced laughs, the eyes that can't quite settle on anything. Then, waiting for the lift, one of the athletes turns to me. Her body language is frozen, shoulders tight. "I'm nervous," she says. "Were you always nervous?"

Every good race I ever had, I was nervous before it. I told her that.

I've written before about nerves being validation- that butterflies mean you care, that you're in the right place. But as so often, thoughts wonder and evolve. Because here's what I'm watching this week: athletes looking at whoever's dominant right now, wondering how they can be so calm.

Hayden Wilde looks unshakeable. So everyone's trying to manufacture that same energy. But here's the thing- dominance has its own relationship with pressure. When you're winning everything, pressure loses its teeth. Not through technique. Through circumstance.

I´m not sure whether calm is a method you can learn. There´s external self-confidence- the world validating you. It's real. It works. But it's fleeting. The moment dominance fades, and it always does, that confidence evaporates. Then you're exposed: did you build something deeper, or were you just borrowing courage from your results?

I learned this the expensive way. Throughout my career, there were big prize money races. Never won a single one that wasn't also attached to a title. Money is another external motivator- for me intellectually appealing, emotionally hollow. Once I started making money, my “why” was fuelled less and less by bank transfers. I only won races where I was defending something or becoming something.

My pressure management eventually become a cocktail- music, process focus, breathing patterns, visualization, pure competitiveness. But the ratios changed every single time. At my best: I stopped measuring belief by times or wins. I started building it through trusting my preparation. It was less confidence borrowed from results and more belief built through process.

Did I follow my training plan, not someone else's? Did I make decisions based on my instincts, not copying tactics that looked impressive? Did I prepare the way I needed, regardless of what got likes on social media? That trust- built through small decisions, daily honoring the process- became the foundation. It survived bad races, injuries, pressure. Inner self belief isn't about outcomes. It's about trusting your preparation so deeply that it becomes almost impossible to avoid progress.

For you, reading this before whatever pressure moment you're facing: try stop building confidence on external things. Times. Wins. Other people's approval. Try to start building belief through process trust. Follow your training plan, not someone elses. Trust your instincts in moments that matter. Prepare your way, not the way that looks good to others.

From Qatar,

Jan