Two friends reached the summit of the same hill last weekend. Fiona Russell (Fiona Outdoors) completed her munro bagging quest of 20 years and David Venables (see earlier Blog post) reached the peak of that same munro as part of his recovery from a serious fall some months ago.

“_{For me it was emotionally overwhelming, and I’ve been high as a kite ever since! I still can’t believe I did it, and when I looked back at where I was 5 months ago, and what I’ve been through to get back on that summit, I feel overwhelmed!” David Venables}

_{On reaching the summit of Beinn na Lap Fiona felt, “Pride, joy, disbelief, satisfaction and love for my husband and friends. I have also met and walked with many great people who have become friends. The journey has been hugely rewarding and given me a lot of self-confidence. What’s next? I am 82 summits into a list of 222 Corbetts. I love a list and this list takes me to amazing places in Scotland to see fantastic views.”}

For each, the occasion was emotional and significant in different ways. This matters because each person is motivated differently and feels achievement satisfaction differently. It is perfectly reasonable to feel an anti-climax and also to feel overwhelmed following completion of an event or reaching a goal. Processing your reaction can be complicated especially if your expectations were different to the reality.

Finding yourself over or underwhelmed by achieving (or not) a sporting goal can inform your choices or thoughts about what happens next. Maybe you won your event unexpectedly and don’t understand how it happened or feel that you don’t know if you can meet the expectations now incumbent on you. Maybe your success has completely blown your mind and you can’t wait for the next event. Maybe you had a really disappointing result and don’t understand how it happened or feel that your efforts are wasted and now don’t want to carry on.

Taking time to review your achievements following the event can be valuable (even if things didn’t go to plan). Think about how you felt immediately as you finished, then after a day or two and check in again after a week or a month. It’s likely that you’ll feel differently at each stage and reviewing your thoughts can be helpful; informing what comes next. For example, on the day you might stomp away from a poor result proclaiming that you are never racing again. After reflection and careful review, you might find positive reasons to continue and improve realising that most of all you enjoy racing whether you win or not.