The Courage to Show Up: The Lesson of Eddie the Eagle

How many times have we given up on something just because we thought we weren't good enough? A course, a job interview, a race, a karaoke song. We tell ourselves it's better to wait until we're ready, and meanwhile time goes by. The story of Michael Edwards, known to everyone as Eddie the Eagle, tells us exactly the opposite.

Born in Cheltenham, England, in 1963, Eddie worked as a plasterer. He wore thick glasses that fogged up under his goggles, weighed several kilos more than the other jumpers and trained for his dream with very little money, in a country with no ski jumping tradition. Yet in 1988 he qualified for the Winter Olympics in Calgary, the first Briton to compete in the discipline at the Games since 1928. He finished last in both events, but set the British record and won over fans all around the world. At the closing ceremony, the head of the organising committee, Frank King, told the athletes that some of them had broken records, others had set personal bests, and some had even "soared like an eagle".

Why does a last-place story move us so much? Perhaps because it reminds us that our biggest obstacle is often the fear of being judged. Psychology has a name for this: the "spotlight effect". In a series of experiments published in 2000, Thomas Gilovich and colleagues at Cornell University showed that we tend to overestimate how much other people notice our mistakes and awkward moments. In reality, people are far less focused on us than we fear.

This doesn't mean preparation doesn't matter: Eddie trained for years, and after Calgary the qualification rules were made stricter precisely because of his case. But it does mean that waiting to be perfect before trying can become an excuse never to start. Showing up, doing your best and accepting the result is already a kind of victory, because it helps us grow and opens doors that would stay shut if we stood still.

This week, try choosing one thing you keep putting off because you're afraid you won't measure up, and take the first step. You don't need to come first. Sometimes just being there, with courage, is enough to fly a little higher than you thought you could.

Sources

• Olympics.com, "Olympic Cinderellas: How a British plasterer became ski jumper Eddie the Eagle"
• Olympics.com, "Eddie the Eagle: the most popular questions answered"
• Gilovich T., Medvec V.H., Savitsky K. (2000), "The spotlight effect in social judgment", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 211-222