Don’t Forget Your Superpowers

By Chris Fantz

Unusual times we live in. Our current era carries different challenges for each of us.

For the competitive swimmer, this time of quarantine, closure, and cancellation could present enormous difficulty. We live separated from the water, teammates, and coaches who make our life what it is. These times call for desperate measures. They call for some kind of superpowers.

Who can you look to? Who will help you make it through your trials? Here is the good news. You will.

Luckily, your teammates and coaches have been helping you develop superpowers that will serve you even out of the water. This article is not about making a big change to your way of life. It is about realizing the life skills you have already built. What we call “going to practice” or “racing in meets” or “working hard to get better” are all something else, too. They are preparation. They are the training ground where you develop powers unavailable to many of your peers. Let us look at your distinctive superpowers.

Superpower—Perspective
You have learned from our sport that progress is neither linear nor guaranteed. You’ve also learned that our expectations are not often met in exactly the way we imagine. Yet, you persevere. You know that times have been difficult in the past. There will be difficulty in the future. We have perspective. We consider the big picture.

Superpower—Organization
You juggle a busy life. You know morning workouts and 4-day swim meets, dryland sessions and recovery nutrition. And during all this time, you live the life of a committed student. Full days and creative scheduling while still turning in assignments on time. Excelling in class through good planning and great habits.

This is already your life. Now you have a new challenge. Quarantine.

Excel in school from home. Live the life of a committed student-athlete with no physical classroom and without many of your usual routines. Is it different? Yes. Does it entail hardship? Often. Yet you are adaptable. You have organizational habits that work and they will help you now.

Superpower—Controlling the Controllable
We learn much from our sport. Coaches remind us repeatedly to focus on the actions we have control over. Dispense with the rest. The second part is usually the hardest and, at the same time, the most fruitful.

Letting go of what you cannot control. We stop staring at the bad and look at the good. We take uncontrollables as they come—like a DQ or a snowstorm—but, we don’t let them derail us. Controlling the controllable is about where we aim our energy and attention. It means not spending much time wishing things were different. It means picking a target we can actually hit.

Superpower—Attuned to the Unexpected
If you are like me, you have had coaches who keep at least some the daily workout to themselves until it is Go Time. They have something up their sleeve. Maybe a grand finale set or an unexpected max effort. Just when you thought it might be time to warm down and hit the showers.

You were mistaken.

And you know what? You made it through. You adapted and got after it. You more than survived. Sometimes, that was your best effort of the workout or of the entire week. You saw a teammate swim a time they never imagined. Faced with the unforeseen, you stepped up to crush it. The unexpected will always arise. It is coming fast these days. Meet it stroke for stroke.

Superpower—Grit
More than just a rosy stick-to-it-ive-ness, your grit is the will to push through the uncomfortable. To suffer in the cause of what is important to you.

While teammates and travel are fun, a lot of the thrill of swimming classifies as Type-II Fun. The brutally hard, shockingly satisfying kind that accompanies perseverance and overcoming. Yours is a willingness to not just feel uncomfortable, but to force it on yourself at every turn.

This grit is portable. It really can serve you during globally trying times.

Superpower—Competitive Spirit
You compete all the time. Transfer a dose of that to your time in quarantine. What would you do today if your goal were to come out of this ahead of where you went in? And tomorrow? What does each day look like if you are competing with yourself?

This will end. We will come out of our homes and return to pools and restaurants. We will return to a version of how things were. And we will look around and see some people thriving. Set your sights on being one of them.

Superpower—Team Player
You can make the most of closer quarters and more family time. You can appreciate the art of correspondence with friends and loved ones in slower—dare I say old fashioned—formats like postal mail or even a thoughtful email. In a sense, there is less rush right now. We go fewer places. Take the time to form deeper connections.

Just like you would in a workout, root for the people around you. Stay connected with teammates and hold those bonds together. You can come through this stronger teammates, as well.

As you see, these superpowers are actually qualities you spent years developing. Through hardship and hard work. Through good and bad times. More of each are ahead. Cherish what you can and endure what you have to. Remember throughout that you are prepared. You did the work to make it. The most important thing for you to remember is this: you don’t need to learn or invent a whole new skill set to survive. You need to remember you already have the skill set to thrive.

Use your superpowers.

ABOUT CHRIS FANTZ

Chris Fantz is in his13th season as head swimming coach at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He has seen dozens of spectacular young men and women succeed in the sport of swimming before going on to graduate from college and make positive impacts on our world. As a swimmer, he was a member of two NAIA National Championship teams. Chris holds a B.A. in English Writing and his M.A. in Psychological and Cultural Studies. He lives in Portland with his wife and two young children.