On 12th May, TEDx Canberra hosted an open mic night.
Speakers had 3 minutes to share their idea worth spreading.
Imagine a 10 year old girl. It’s a beautiful Saturday morning and she’s off to play her first cricket match with her friends. By 15, she’s invited to a high performance academy, and by 17 she’s burnt out, dropped out, and may never engage in team sport again. I’d like to tell you that this is uncommon, but in 2019 Youth Confidence Report, 50% of Australian girls had dropped out of sport by 17.
The problem is, we think talent is something we can see, a physical trait or characteristic. But what if talent is something you can learn?
When I interviewed 20 elite female athletes and coaches, they told me that talent can be defined as their ability to adapt - but nobody could tell me how to develop adaptability!
As it turns out, we do know what a good talent development environment looks like. Research over the last decade tells us that there are 3 main ingredients: nonlinear development, ongoing development, and supportive learning environments.
Now, this is not exclusive to the elite. Non-linear development is just a fancy way of saying that we all learn at our own rate. Our early experiences as kids in the backyard playing cricket, or street playing soccer, stick with us. We never unlearn those skills honed by fun, we just overthink and talk ourselves out of giving it another go.
The way we talk about talent should inspire everyone to unlock their own. This shift in focus may help women and girls alike to re-engage in sport - maybe never leave in the first place.
This could be as simple as taking the time to play again. The fun, unstructured, make up the rules as you go kinda play. Or as complex as trying something new.
The challenge of being an adult, is to embrace the challenge. When you give yourself the space and time to explore your environment, you learn to adapt. When you step out onto that sporting field, you learn the problems of the game, and you solve them.
For many people, getting back out there, with the right support, is the hardest part. But learning to move is actually just learning to solve new problems, in your own way.
That is something that anyone and everyone can do. But the best part is this - the idea that you need a perfect technique, modelled off someone else, to perform your best is no longer true, it never was. The way you learn to move, is perfect for you. Your talent lies in your ability to adapt - to solve the problems that your sport or exercise throw at you.
So what will you adapt to next?