How joy breeds success – an Olympic lesson

I was planning to write more about preventing burnout this week, and then figure skater Alyssa Liu delivered the lesson at the Winter Olympics.

The lesson is this: There is no more powerful antidote to burnout than joy.

Here’s the quick backstory on Liu: As a young teen, every aspect of her skating was controlled by her father – what she ate, how she dressed, her training routine. Her rise was meteoric – at age 13, she became the youngest U.S. women’s national champion in history.

And then at age 16, suffering burnout, she quit. Skating had been draining her, not feeding her.

Then, two years later, she started skating again, but this time completely on her own terms. And instead of fixating on medals, she skated for the sheer joy of it.

This week, she won the Gold Medal in the women’s single figure skating event at the Winter Olympics in Italy. Her final program is so infectious and carefree, you cannot help but be swept away (for the record, I am not a huge skating fan, and I had chills).

Here’s a link to her phenomenal performance.

As Liu warmed up, one of the commentators said it best: “Alysa said ‘I don’t need a medal, I just want to be here and show people what I can do,’ but what she doesn’t know is that if she does that, it probably means a medal.”

So what gives you joy? How can you bring that joy with you to work? The key is to bring joy with no expectation of reward. The joy is the reward. And let great things unfold.