Tom Daley shares how mindfulness helped him overcome ‘terrifying’ pressure of performing at the Olympics
Olympic gold medalist Tom Daley tapped into the age-old strategy of mindfulness to help him overcome the pressure of performing at the world's biggest sporting event, he told CNBC.
"The pressure of what it means to go into an Olympic game where you have to perform on that one day, and those six dives have to be perfect, and if they're not, it's over," Daley, Britain's most decorated and recently retired diver, told CNBC's Tania Bryer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January. "So going into that, of course, it's completely terrifying, and you have to get to a place where you can be as relaxed and peaceful as possible."
Daley's 16-year Olympics diving career began at just age 14 when he won gold at the European championships. He has gone on to win a total of five Olympic medals.
Speaking to CNBC's Bryer, he admitted he was skeptical about mindfulness at first — but found it grew on him after.
"After 2016, I started doing mindfulness. I started doing breathing techniques, guided meditations and it took me ages to actually start doing it, because as soon as somebody said, 'Oh, you should try mindfulness, you should try meditation' I was like 'Come on. What is that really gonna do?'"
Daley found it "challenging" in the beginning, but he eventually got into the swing of things.
"What I loved about it was the fact that I could go to this mind bank if you like. I like to think of mindfulness as going to the mind bank and taking out all of the mind cash that you need for the day but the nice thing about this mind bank is that it doesn't run out of cash. So, throughout the day, you can go back to this mind bank and take whatever cash you need from it to be able to perform at your best," he explained.
Mindfulness is a