What the Olympics Can Teach Us About Love
I don’t know if you like me have been glued to the Olympic Games this summer, but I personally can’t seem to get enough. Not only is the drama taking place in the actual competitions nail biting, but there seems to be no lack of it (for better or for worse) outside the Games as well. But that is not what really gripped me about the Olympics this time around. Rather, what got me so glued were the personal stories of some of the athletes that made it to the Games. I happen to personally know a few past Olympic medallists and so I know just how much perseverance it really takes to make it to something as difficult to be part of as the Olympics. All of the medallists I know too have a personal story that involves seemingly endless training and working to get to that goal of a medal, when even just making it to the Olympic Games is already such an honour.
Obviously, the story of triumph in the face of adversity and difficulty is something that we’ve come to expect from the many Olympic champions over the years. All of the champions this year had a similar story told about them and how hard they worked to win that medal that they so badly longed to achieve. Some of the champions returned year on year for yet another medal with perseverance that would make some of us tired and many of us envious.
I’ve watched this story of hard work and triumph with every season of the Olympics, but this year it gripped me more than usual because of the many stories of hope, lost hope, giving up hope, longing and eventual success that are happening around me. In fact, I was watching the Olympics just as I was impatiently writing what could possibly become the first book that I complete. You see, I’ve always thought of myself as a Writer, but I’ve yet to actually complete writing a book. Usually, up to now, I would have lost interest and moved on to another writing project by this point. Watching the hard work of the determined athletes spoke to me of a story of success that I like to tell my clients, however, and I continue to this day to persevere towards my own lofty goal. Very often we give up on a project, whatever it is, just moments before the success that we so long for comes to us and we curse our lack of triumph for all of the years to come, lamenting our wasted moments and our anonymity or lack of successful fulfilment. Sometimes those moments can take days, weeks, months, even years… But success could be maybe just around the corner and achieved simply by enduring perseverance put forward with the right formula in the right direction. It is that perseverance that filters out the successful Olympic champions from those that simply live in dreams they never work hard enough to achieve of a success that never actually comes.
It is the same with the clients that come to me looking for love. As much as they desperately want to meet that someone special to share their lives with, sometimes they’re just not willing to work as hard as it takes to win that gold medal of the love they seek. Very often those same clients work incredibly hard for the other things that they want in their life: their fitness routine to stay in shape, their work to get to the top of the corporate ladder, keeping their home looking immaculate, even their friendships, etc. But for some reason, when it comes to their love life they just believe that it should fall into their lap and should come easily and without much work to achieve it.
While watching the Olympics, it suddenly hit me that just as I will never be a published Writer if I don’t ever persevere enough to finish a book, so will your ideal love life be close to impossible to achieve if you don’t work for it. I know many people in happy, fulfilling relationships: my parents, my sister, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, some of my good friends… From what I can tell, what differentiates those who have successful relationships from those who don’t are five key ingredients: communication, compatibility, chemistry, hard work and gratitude. The first three are no more important than the last two. The first three you either find or you don’t; they can’t really be created out of nothing, and sometimes they fade over time and have to be re-created or re-defined with growing time together. The last two are what keep the relationship together even through the tougher times of difficulties, challenges, and inevitabilities that arise for every relationship. The couples that I know that work through issues even when difficulties arise (as they inevitably do) are the ones who last – but only if they truly value each other enough to work through these issues. A life together with another person will always naturally include many challenges; there is no way around it. The trick is to have the perseverance to work through these difficulties and the gratitude to realise what you have and to truly value it.
The same is true when looking for love: it takes the perseverance and hard work to accept the trials and tribulations and the occasional disasters and failures; along with the gratitude to be thankful for how far along the journey you’ve come and to believe that if you just persevere long enough in the right way, you will achieve your goal of achieving your own person ideal love life.
Just like the Olympic champions made it part of the way with pure hard work and perseverance, and the rest of the way thanks to good coaches that guided them and pushed them throughout the journey, so the same is true in that search for love. Just as I have had some fantastic guidance pushing me forward in the direction of success towards which I am still driving my way through, so I have offered guidance and the push when needed for my clients up to now.
If you’re looking for a guide to propel your love life forward and would like to find out more about my upcoming workshops and my one to one work with clients, schedule your free half hour call with me by emailing info@juliakeller.co.uk with “BetterLoveLife” in the subject line (or just reply to this newsletter and change the subject line to the one above.