On Monday 17th April, Stella McC (SV) gave the following speech at Assembly. Stella is currently preparing to sit her Higher exams and, as she talks about in her speech, is a highly accomplished swimmer who competes at a national level.
One of life's greatest challenges is that to succeed we must perform. For example, in sport. As many of you may know, I am a swimmer. The most obvious example of performance in sport is competing. The peak of this performance in swimming, is when I am behind the starting block before a final with a medal on the horizon. To perform in this situation, requires clarity of mind – not being swayed by anyone or anything around you – and physically moving through the water as fast as you possibly can. When you win a medal, it is an exhilarating feeling and is extremely gratifying because you know that you performed to the best of your ability. But to reach your moment of glory, there are many silent performances that are often forgotten. Every day when I turn up to training, I must perform. My coach gives me a set focusing on different aspects of my strokes, from skill-based technique work to stamina and endurance. These require focus and hard work. But without the 5 o’clock mornings and the days doing two sessions, without the dedication and perseverance on a daily basis, I could not perform when it mattered.
The less obvious example of performance in sport is when you perform badly. As somebody who participates at an elite level, I have had many bad swims. Sometimes it’s due to things becoming out of control. An example of this is when I competed at the 2023 British Championships, the biggest event in the British swimming calendar bar the Olympics. This year it acted as a qualifier for the World Championships. My first race was the 50m Butterfly, and I was in lane 4 meaning I was seeded the fastest in my heat. I was stood behind the screen about to walk up behind the blocks when my cap ripped. I didn’t have a spare so I pulled it down as far as I could and, with my nerves rocketing, I swam my race. I didn’t PB because I was focusing on my goggles and cap not falling off. I felt my race, my opportunity, had been wasted.
When you first become part of the Scottish Swimming programme, you are taught to control your controllables. Control your controllables. I think about this sentiment a lot. Life throws so many obstacles in our direction every day, good and bad, and the only thing we can do to prepare ourselves is control our controllables.
This doesn’t mean obsessing over every detail of your life or stressing yourself to make sure you have done everything perfectly. Simply put, you must prepare yourself to the best of your ability. Know you have put the time and the effort in and trust in yourself that you can deliver, trust that you can perform. Training eight times a week for months on end means that, when the time comes, I know that I can swim my best swim because I have put in the work. With this in mind, I now always take a spare cap to marshalling and I understand how I can manage my anxiety better so it doesn't impact my race as much.
Controlling our controllables can benefit us in our performance in other areas of life. At the end of this month, SIV, V and VI will begin sitting their exams. Over the past months, we have been working hard, in school and at home, to prepare ourselves – without knowing it we have been controlling our controllables. As the countdown comes to an end, it’s about the final push. Make sure to keep practicing and, if you feel you haven’t done enough, I hope this will encourage you to do even one more past paper, so when the time arrives you can perform to the best of your ability.
Despite what I have said, I understand that sometimes being on top of everything and being in control is harder than it sounds. I am very grateful and proud to have won 14 national swimming titles, but this hasn’t come without its struggles. The times I have looked up at the scoreboard and had that sinking feeling in my chest are always the times when I have stood behind the blocks and thought, ‘I can’t do it’.
It may be surprising, but I am an extremely anxious person. Sometimes I get myself into such a state of worry before I race, I feel physically sick. Recently I was unable to finish a race because I let my nerves get the better of me. This only started to become an issue for me last year after the Scottish Nationals, where I won 7 national titles in 5 days. I had never felt more elated and yet, the next time I competed, I was crippled with anxiety and performed badly. The pressure I felt that everyone was watching, and everyone was expecting, made me feel unbelievably nervous and eventually very sad and it took me a long time to realise that pressure didn’t exist.
When you perform on a stage, there will always be people watching, that’s just the way it is. How you perform is up to you; how you perform is in your control. On that stage you can’t control anybody in the audience, anybody on the stage or anybody backstage. The only thing in your power to control is you. At the point at which you let yourself - let your mind - get in the way, you will never perform well. But, arguably more importantly, you will never enjoy performing.
I am still working on controlling my mind and my nerves and finding the enjoyment, so that I can swim confidently. When you enter the exam hall, trust in your preparation and trust in yourself. You can do it. Don’t let anything or anyone, including yourself, stop you.
Get on that stage and let your heart sing because, as Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘Believe you can and you’re halfway there’.