MINDSET: “Just do your best - that’s all I can ask of you, and you of yourself!”

One question I get asked all the time (especially as a podcast guest), is:

“What is the single best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?”

This is always a very simple answer for me:

“Just do your best!”

I guess it was probably around 1987 when I first heard my Mum, Linda (who many of you know affectionately as “Mother Smooth”), say this to me.

She would always follow this by saying:

“That's all I can ask of you, and you of yourself!”

I usually heard this immediately before a swimming gala, typically the 100m butterfly as it happens.

As a father to two great kids - and as a swim coach - I try to pass on this same virtue to my swimmers on a daily basis here in Perth. So long as the swimmers are doing their best - and it's my job of course to set appropriate training targets - I'm happy and proud of their achievements, whatever their level:

Fist pumps all-round after a particularly challenging CSS session.

I was never the best swimmer (even in my local club, let alone the county, region or country), and deep down I always suspected that Mother Smooth used to say it to me to encourage me to do my best in spite of my other competitors, knowing that the chances are I wouldn't win the race. Mum's are good like that.

But this was far from some form of prelude to the whole “everyone's a winner” ethos that proliferates society in many ways today (for better or worse).

This was a value and mindset that she sought to pass onto me in everything I do, and it's always provided the foundation for an outlook that is not necessarily overly rosy and positive for the sake of it, but something I always return to in times when I need to dig a little deeper.

And that time came very recently at the UltraSwim33.3 event in Montenegro, though for a very different reason to the galas of 1987 as I'll now explain.

Montenegrin Motivation:

You see, I'd been really enjoying a tussle for pole position with a great swimmer - and now friend - Michael, from Germany, over the first two days of the event. Going into day 3 he had a lead of a little over 60 seconds after nearly 17km of racing. It was super tight and I really wasn't sure how I was going to be able to get past him, despite being in the shape of my life.

In my glorified view of the scenario, it felt like we were Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard going head to head in Le Tour de France, such is the stage-race nature of the UltraSwim33.3.

Still, day 3 was the so-called “Queen Stage” which would suit me well - just under 11km in some very rough and cool waters of the Adriatic Sea.

The evening before, I spent the whole night planning out how I was going to make an 'attack' during the stage to recoup the minute deficit and hopefully add some additional time too to take the lead. I even went to the point of mapping it out on my arm:

However, from what can now only be viewed as a strange bit of foreshadowing in the event's WhatsApp group just days before the start of the event (when questions and conjecture over the use of wetsuits and award categories were buzzing around), Michael had theorised about the use of a wetsuit for himself, despite us both being well ahead of all the wetsuit swimmers at that stage in ‘skins’:

This was in response to a playful ‘tease’ from event director, Mark Turner, about such a decision:

Come day 3, I was thus a bit shocked when - pumped with the anxiety of a sleepless night thinking “how am I going to win this thing?” - that Michael informed me that our battle for the skins category was effectively ‘over’ as he had chosen to wear a wetsuit for days 3 and 4. This left me a bit confused, but I respected Michael's decision nonetheless.

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” – Epictetus

I didn't know what to say or feel about this turn of events. The initial response was, “damn, I was really enjoying this battle!” and then, “I spent all night worrying about how I was going to make an attack too!”.

There was a similar vibe from the other competitors at the pointy end of the field (all in wetsuits too), knowing they'd all lose a placing with this change. I felt a sort of resignation that - with a lead now of nearly 30 minutes over 2nd place in the skins category - barring disaster, I would win the race.

But you see, I didn't like this. Not one bit actually. It tugged at my innate spirit of competition. I didn't want to suddenly win by ‘default’.

During that 3rd stage - as suspected given the benefit of his wetsuit - I got dropped by Michael at the 4km feed station, before clawing the gap back over the next 3km (with some of the best swimming I've ever pieced together), jostling together for the next 2km, but then conceding just over a minute in the final 2km into the current and wind. A difference of just over 0.6 seconds per 100m for the stage total.

Irrespective of the sudden change in decision in Michael's swimwear, that stage (and the day after) still proved to be a battle royale with Michael which we celebrated with a beer together afterwards 🍻. So, the joy of competition wasn't all lost 👍. Our efforts also saw us both extending our respective leads over the rest of the field significantly too 💪.

“Why didn't you just take it easy knowing it was won?” - Outdoor Swimmer Magazine

Upon crossing the finish line I was immediately interviewed by Simon Griffiths (Outdoor Swimmer Magazine), who'd been aware of the ramifications in Michael's wetsuit decision. His very first question was:

“If you knew the race was won, why didn't you just elect to cruise and take it easy today? I don't understand why you'd choose to still push so hard?”

My response was simple, brief and to the point:

“Because my Mum told me to always do my best, and not doing so would be disrespecting the values she'd instilled in me and also disrespecting the whole spirit of competition.”

You see, just like the ethos of always doing your best is probably overly-utilised as a way of saying, “it's OK if you don't win!” - and it is OK, totally OK in fact - really, in swimming, much as in life itself, it's also important to still do your best when the opportunity to coast is dangled in front of you like a carrot. As the Greek stoic philosopher, Epictetus, famously wrote:

“A half-hearted spirit has no power.” – Epictetus

That doesn't mean you have to be full-on, lazer-focused all of the time of course - coasting can be fun - just that there's nothing wrong (at all) in always seeking to “just do your best” in whatever you do, especially when that's what you had committed to yourself to do.

I've since heard on the grapevine that some people at the event still can't understand what I was trying to ‘prove’ or why I was so focused on the win and why it meant so much to me, but the reality is I wasn't trying to prove anything other than honouring a deep-rooted value system that Mother Smooth planted the seed for all those years ago in 1987. Not too dissimilar to Epictetus's famous words again:

“How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? Participate. Exert yourself.” – Epictetus

So, with my next big event - the 20km GeoBay Swim - on the cards for tomorrow with some very stiff competition from some celebrated rising stars of the sport who I theoretically shouldn't even get close to, guess what result I'll be most happy with? Yup, simply knowing I did my best. And I will. Always. And I hope you will too, in whatever you do.

Have a good one!