When medal mania strikes

What turns a healthy motivation to excel into a toxic desperation to achieve?

Paul Valler

Paul Valler is an executive coach and mentor. He is a former chair of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

A defeat fencer, withour a mask, turns angrily and roars.

Sandro Bazadze loses and loses it.

The brilliance and joy of medalists in the Paris Olympics is incredible to see. Their discipline and sacrifices in training pay off in mesmerising displays of excellence and moments of pure elation. Yet for there to be winners, there also must be losers, and there have been revealing moments of crushing disappointment which are never nice to see. Sadly, Sandro Bazadze, world number one in fencing, could well go down in Olympic history as ‘the distraught loser who lost it’ in a furious rant at the referee as he was eliminated in the last 16 of the men’s sabre. What is it that makes some people explode like that? What is it that changes a healthy motivation to excel into a toxic desperation to achieve? What is it that changes a human being who is fully alive into an anxious person, so driven to succeed that they cannot bear to fail?

That is likely why Bazadze erupted. When he was denied success, he was denied who he thought he was.

Few of us will achieve Olympic greatness, or the media recognition that redefines an athlete’s profile by forever linking their name to their achievement. But we all have an inner tendency to believe that our value is based on what we can achieve. We live in a culture that continually sends us the message that approval and worth depend on your results. Many of us believe it, and then fall for a life of continuous intensity - a ‘cycle of grief’ as we fiercely strive for results, but mourn the loss of our inner peace. And this cultural message of acceptance through achievement becomes really toxic when we begin to believe the lie that our identity is based on our performance. That is likely why Bazadze erupted. When he was denied success, he was denied who he thought he was. “The referees have killed me”, he exclaimed.

It’s not just athletes who are at risk from this. Think about how our education system sends the same message about grades. Thousands of teenagers suffer anxiety and mental illness as they face exams, because they believe their self-worth depends on their marks. As GCSE results are published this month, thousands will be congratulated, but some will become depressed from failure.

I know many workplaces where ‘performance management’ has become so oppressive that it leads to drivenness, perfectionism and burnout. Even retirees can feel driven to complete their ‘bucket list’ before they die or become infirm. So, people in all walks of life easily become addicted to the treadmill of ‘performance-based living’ and feel tired, trapped and troubled. Labouring under the false belief that self-respect depends on achievement. If you believe that, you cannot fail or even be ill without feeling deficient.

There is a deep peace in that. A freedom and resilience that makes it possible to compete without fear of failure.

There is a better way. We can choose to renounce that pernicious lie of a performance identity and affirm the deep truth that our real identity and significance is found in who we are as God’s much-loved children. We can anchor our emotions in the security of that true identity. If Bazadze had really understood and internalised this, he would still have been disappointed with the judges decision, but not destroyed by it.

It is possible to decide to face up to the mania for results and our culture of continuous intensity. That is what Sabbath is about – an act of resistance against a world dominated by the need for success. God knows we need a break, not only to rest, but to recentre our hearts and minds on the truth. We are loved unconditionally and don’t need to strive to achieve in order to be accepted and significant to God. There is a deep peace in that. A freedom and resilience that makes it possible to compete without fear of failure. In the Bible, the word excellence is never applied to achievement, only to character, and the most excellent way is defined as love. The Christian worldview celebrates great performance, but avoids making an idol of it, because that leads to a destructive obsession and to insecurity.

Being secure in God is not about avoiding competition or pressure. It is learning to pursue outstanding attainment free from any sense of our identity being stolen by our grades, or jobs, or whether other people approve of us or award us medals. Top quality performance is superb and we should give our best with all our heart whatever we do. But God is a God of grace, who loves, accepts and dignifies everyone unconditionally, including those who didn’t even qualify for the Olympics, just as much as those who were on the rostrum.

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Grenfell disaster

13 June 2023

5 min read

The legacy of Grenfell

Marking the sixth anniversary of the disaster, Graham Tomlin looks to what its legacy needs to be.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Grenfell Tower, wrapped in a protective layer bearing the legend: Grenfell forever in our hearts

The Grenfell Tower protectively wrapped.

The blowup on Unsplash.

It is now six years since an electrical fault in a fridge in the kitchen of a fourth floor flat led to the fire in Grenfell Tower which killed 72 people – the worst loss of life in one single incident in London since the second world war. The rest of the country has understandably moved on, preoccupied by the COVID years, a cost of living crisis and the sheer pace of life, so that Grenfell has retreated to the back of our consciousness and conscience, yet for the bereaved and survivors, who live with the memory every day, these have been six very long years.

We are told the Public Inquiry will report early in 2024, so there is still more time to wait. Meanwhile, the remains of the creaking tower still stand by the Westway in north Kensington.

Whenever I speak to people about Grenfell, the most common question is ‘what is going to happen to the Tower?’

Yet there is the nagging fear from bereaved families and campaigners that once it is demolished, they, and their loved ones will be forgotten: ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

The Tower left to its own devices would probably have fallen long ago. A damaged building like this gradually degrades over time, with the effects of gravity, weather, water seeping into the cracks which ice up in winter, leading to widening of those cracks, concrete falls and so on. As a result, there are over 4,500 props inserted into the building, keeping the creaking infrastructure standing. A large team monitors the building constantly, and it is relatively secure for the next decade if need be, despite the ongoing cost of the operation. The Tower continues to be covered with two linings of white wrapping plastic – an inner one which remains and an outer one that is replaced every year. Some local people would want to see the building come down as it remains a constant painful memory. Yet there is the nagging fear from bereaved families and campaigners that once it is demolished, they, and their loved ones will be forgotten: ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ The ongoing presence of the building, standing alone by the Westway as a constant reminder to the thousands who travel into London each day, is one of the only ways they have to keep the memory alive.

So, looking into the future, what will the legacy of Grenfell be? Convictions of those found to be culpable may well follow and rightly so, if individuals or companies can be clearly identified as having deliberately acted in underhand ways that led to the installation of the highly flammable cladding, or carelessly caused this disaster.

Some people call Grenfell a crime. Some a tragedy. Perhaps both are right. So what do you do when a crime, or a tragedy occurs? What do we do as a society?

Grenfell was not an accident. As I said in my sermon at the fifth anniversary commemoration in Westminster Abbey a year ago, Grenfell “was not an unfortunate accident – it was the result of careless decisions taken, regulations ignored, an industry that seemed at times more interested in making profits and selling products than in the precious value of human life and keeping people safe in their own homes.” In Christian language, Grenfell was the result of sin.

When you recognise you have sinned, the way to begin to put things right is to repent. ‘Repent’ is a strong word, yet it talks about turning and going in a different direction. You recognise that you have done something wrong and you need to put it right. The last six years have revealed a pattern of cutting corners, deception and lack of care in the regulation of building safety. It has also revealed flaws in our housing stock. The government’s Levelling Up Bill gives some protection to those living in insecure blocks of flats, but does not yet protect innocent leaseholders from all the costs of remedying safety faults for which they were not responsible. Some leaseholders are in the fortunate position of having their developers agreeing to foot the bill to make things safe, but others aren’t, and are still facing high insurance premiums, remediation costs and are still waiting to see who will pay, how much will be covered and when.

The Earl of Lytton’s amendment to the bill offers protection to leaseholders by ensuring those responsible for safety defects at the time of construction pay up, or if the company no longer exists. The costs are covered by an industry levy, of money raised from those who have profited from cutting corners in the past, those on whom the Public Inquiry has shone an uncomfortable light. Passing an amendment such as this, that protects vulnerable leaseholders and places the costs on those responsible for them would be a fitting way to enact repentance, to ensure Grenfell is not repeated.

With a tragedy, however, you remember. The Grenfell Memorial Commission continues to meet and work on this very task. Conversations with the community continue and the desire is for a memorial that is peaceful, reflective, positive and respectful. A design team is to be chosen in the coming 12 months, with a view to a final plan being chosen by the end of 2024. The planning process and the building of whatever form of memorial is chosen will then start in 2025, to be finished some time later.

All this will take time and a further thing required beyond repentance and remembering - patience. A visit to the 9/11 memorial in New York recently reminded me how a memorial can help process and manage the pain of remembered tragedy and trauma. The site is comprehensive, respectful, dignified and unforgettable. The 9/11 memorial opened 10 years after the attacks, and the Museum, offering a detailed moment by moment account of the day and what led up to it, opened in 2014, 13 years after the event.

Remembering and repentance takes time and need to be done well. Repentance needs to be thoroughly thought through and enacted wisely. Remembering needs to emerge from deep reflection on what has happened and finding creative ways to being something positive and even beautiful out of tragedy. Neither need to be hurried, otherwise they will be done in a shoddy and off-hand way, which disrespects the memory of those who died.

For many, Grenfell may have dropped out of public consciousness. Yet societies, like people, are defined by the way they learn from mistakes and tragedies. Comprehensive building safety legislation and a dignified memorial that keeps the memory of Grenfell and those who died there alive for years to come will be the best legacy for Grenfell, even though it will take time. We are not there yet, but that future is worth waiting for.