John Naber’s Olympic Gold strategy

The was a team-helper on the US swimming team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

He was a training partner to Mark Spitz, who won 7 gold medals, and was also in the relay team but was dropped from team in the finals in favour of more well-known names.

Back in the US he was inspired to return to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and win a gold medal in his favourite event, the 100 metre backstroke.

But then he calculated that the winning time for the 100 metre in 1976 would be would be 55.5 seconds. His own best at the time was 59.5 seconds. So to win his gold in the 100 metre backstroke he’d have to improve his speed by 4 seconds in 4 years.

And in Olympic standard swimming to improve by 4 seconds over a short 100 metres swim would be a huge – impossible – stretch.  He decided it was too much of a stretch – and he gave up the idea – initially.

Then he recognised he could do it – if he could improve his performance by a speed equivalent to 1/5th of an eye blink in every hour of training!

It worked. He got his 100 metre backstroke Gold – plus three more Golds – and a Silver.

And his strategy can be used to make seemingly impossible goals achievable.

You’ll find the full article on reaching your goals in tiny steps here – it’s the subject of the latest Pegasus NLP Newsletter.