Resilience Building Exercises for High Performers
Resilience. Grit. Mental toughness. These buzzwords get thrown around like they’re going out of fashion — especially in sport and high performance. But when life actually throws something heavy at you (like an injury, a rejection, or something more wild), a motivational quote alone isn’t going to be enough to carry you through.
So how can you build real resilience I hear you ask?
Not the fake-it-til-you-make-it version. I’m talking about strategies that can get you through the toughest days and brings you out in a better place on the other side. That’s what I had to figure out during my international career — in and out of the pool.
Let me share the three resilience building exercises that helped me stay afloat (sometimes literally) through Olympic trials, setbacks, and now in life after elite sport.
1. Find Purpose: Your Anchor in the Storm
In diving, my purpose was always crystal clear — qualify for the Olympics. That goal was my North Star. Every early morning start, every difficult training session, every shoulder slap on the water — I could handle it all because I knew what I was working towards. Purpose made the pain feel productive.
Now, in life after diving, I’m finding a new purpose. It’s not as clear-cut as chasing a qualifying spot, but I’m reframing it: to help others perform better, to develop diving in Jamaica, to inspire belief in people who look like me. Your purpose must constantly evolve. Whatever stage of life you're in, you need to know what your fight is for.
🔗 Personal takeaways:
Olympic qualification gave me clarity, and clarity gave me resilience in the depths of the process.
When your ‘why’ is strong enough, the ‘how’ becomes more understandable.
In life after elite sport, finding new purpose is a resilience challenge in itself — but it’s what keeps me grounded.
2. Manage Your Stress: Control the Internal Weather
In diving, I couldn’t afford to be flustered. One flicker of doubt on a 3m springboard and it’s all over so quickly. Imagery became my superpower — rehearsing dives mentally, seeing success before I left the board. It gave me calm in the chaos of competition.
Stress management isn’t one-size-fits-all. Maybe it’s working on your breathing. Maybe it’s journaling, walking, or even deleting social media for a bit. But if you want to build resilience, you need to have control of your internal state — do not let it control you.
⚙️ My advice:
I still use imagery to stay calm under pressure, just like I did in diving, but in general life scenarios for example when I’m preparing for a talk.
Stress is inevitable, but how we respond is the difference between breakdown and breakthrough.
Find your own thing, don’t copy others — if it works for you, that’s all that matters.
3. Be Solutions-Focused: Shift from “Why Me?” to “What Now?”
Here’s the mindset shift that changed everything for me:
Things happen for you, not to you.
Whenever I missed out on a medal, got injured, or felt lost in the process — it could’ve been easy to fall into a negative spiral. But resilience means facing the problem and choosing to solve it. That takes creativity, discipline, and emotional control. Anyone can complain. Resilient people ask: What can I do next?
📌 How I apply this:
I treat every challenge like a puzzle — there’s always a next step, even if it’s a small one.
Negative energy is real, but I refuse to feed it. I focus on positive actions, not anxiety.
It’s not about blind optimism — it’s about productive perspective. Focus on solutions.
Self-Belief: The Foundation Underneath It All
All of this—purpose, stress control, creative problem solving—it means nothing without self-belief. You’ve got to trust that you can handle what’s coming, even if you don’t know exactly how yet. That belief is what gets you out of bed when everything feels heavy. It’s what makes resilience more than just survival — it makes it strength.
So if you're in a high-pressure environment, building something big, or navigating change — remember:
You’re not supposed to have all the answers. You’re supposed to keep chipping away at the task long enough to figure them out.
That’s what resilience really is.
💭 What’s your go-to strategy when things get tough? I’d love to hear it in the comments.
👥 If this resonated, share it with someone who's going through a challenge.
📩 Got a mindset or performance topic you’d like me to unpack next? Let me know — I’m all ears.