Driving Higher Performance in Sport Through Vulnerability

Our culture uses stereotypes, labels, and blanket assumptions in some of the most awful ways. At L3, we wanted to look at how one specific stereotype could impact athlete performance in sports. Because we often teach about psychological strengths labeled by society as “mental strengths,” we also wanted to examine the role of “mental weakness”.

There’s a clear stigma in the term, but... is it possible that concepts related to an athlete’s “mental weakness” could be seen as a value-add in athletes?

Or do “weakness” characteristics inherently mean that you’ll need to counter certain traits by training more mental “strengths” like perseverance, overcoming obstacles, grit, etc.?

To be clear, our questions arose: Does vulnerability in athletes may help or hurt them? 

It was never a question of whether or not mental strengths or psychological toughness was beneficial to an athlete. Clearly, mental strengths have proven to contribute largely to success both in sport and in all areas of life. So let’s look at the flip side, one of the most commonly perceived “weaknesses” in sport: Vulnerability.

Vulnerability, by definition, is “the state of being exposed to the possibility of being harmed or attacked, either physically or emotionally.” Culturally, vulnerability is often associated with shame, uncertainty, and weakness, especially among men, and especially among sport- even at a very young age. If you sought therapy for depression or a mental block or anything else, you were deemed vulnerable and weak. But Why?

Simply by doing what they do, athletes are inherently placing themselves in a vulnerable space. Every time they step up to the plate, approach the field, enter the competition, wait on-deck, step up to the free throw line or line of scrimmage, or simply put on the uniform…. they are exposed. They might fail. Athletes risk physical harm, emotional struggle, embarrassment, critics (including their own self-critiques), and all sorts of outcomes. And they do this willingly for the love of the sport. So my question is…

Why is vulnerability deemed such a shameful thing? Such a weak thing? 

The truth is, it’s not. 

The research is ongoing, largely pioneered by researchers like Brene Brown, and specific studies like Uphill & Hemmings, 2016 and mindfulness-intervention studies via groups of Swedish high-performance coaches in track & field and figure skating, as well as Paralympic leaders  leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games (Lundqvist, Stahl, Kentta, Thulin, 2018).

A few things emerge in the research: The importance of mindfulness, self-compassion, awareness of vulnerability (and the ability to see it as opportunity for growth), understanding of when/who to share our vulnerabilities with, and ability to receive empathy without self-assigning shame.  Check out the video to see how we map it all out at L3...