From recklessness to solidarity

Three weeks ago, we wrote about personality and three strategies for Olympic athletes on their path to success. Now, the Winter Olympics have come to an end with a festive ceremony in Verona last weekend. We look back with fascination and a touch of wistfulness: what to the highlights teach us about athletes’ tendencies under stress, or even their drivers and motivators on the path to success?

Preparation isn’t everything

Although conscientiousness determines how determined, methodical, and self-disciplined athletes are in their training, other personality traits can be decisive at the crucial moment of competition — here are a few examples:

Think of the downhill races of professional skiers: in addition to ambition and composure, a pinch of courage and recklessness to take the curves even tighter or jump further has sometimes decided the overall results by milliseconds. We know recklessness from the Hogan Stress Profile: “mischievous” as the tendency to test limits and seek thrills. Is it a superpower in this discipline? Without taking risks, is there no real chance of winning?

In the freestyle skiing and snowboarding performances, innovative jumps and perfectly executed tricks were rated positively – a sign of a combination of high “aesthetic” values and “mischievous” tendencies?

Many spectators may have been moved by the figure skating pairchoreography: full of grace, complete synchronicity, an uncanny lightness – could high scores on the MVPI scale for “altruistic” and “affiliation” contribute to the peak performance of both athletes? In addition, there was incredible personal training – characteristics on the “diligent” scale?

But courage, risk-taking and sacrifice do not always lead the the desired success.

Where are the limits?

However, we saw firsthand how some traits can also captivate us when the American Lindsey Vonn fell. Can a mixture of lofty goals, ambition, and risk-taking lead to putting oneself in danger? Does she become a heroine because she risked everything once again? To what extent is it helpful for one’s own success to be courageous and push oneself to one’s limits? What can we learn from Olympians?

What is your perspective? In your opinion, which charactersitics lead to peak performance in your progession or sport, and which are often underestimated?

Join the conversation and discover how Hogan Diagnostics reveals individual performance profiles.