Sport Psychology on the Screen: Athletic Identity in The Lion King

Who are you?

    Whenever I was asked this question, the first thing I would say was, "I am a swimmer." Before anything else, I identified as an athlete because it was all that I put my time and effort into. I was proud to say that I was a swimmer because I was proud of all of the accomplishments that I had achieved.

    I'm sure that many of you reading this can relate. Sports and performance can become such a huge part of our lives and we often cling onto them so much that we feel that is 100% who we are. While this may not be an issue when an individual performs well, what happens when things don't go well? This became a struggle for me when I found myself in a slump where I could not improve in my events. But to really answer this question, let's look at this scene from The Lion King.

The Lion King has always been one of my favorite Disney movies; it has great music, characters, and drama, but as I have gotten older, I began to notice the great lessons it teaches, just like the one in this scene. While we may not carry the weight of feeling responsible for the death of a parent, I am sure we have all been in Simba's position before: living in our past failures and disappointments. It may not be a fun place to be, but in reality, its so easy to have this mentality because failure is so common. In fact, being human automatically means you will fail and make mistakes because we are not perfect beings. So with failure being so common, how do we prevent ourselves from identifying as failures?

    Well, by looking at this scene, we can find our answer in the interaction between Simba and Mufasa. As Mufasa urges Simba to return home, Simba believes that he will not be able to because he is "not who he used to be." As he says this, Simba is looking at everything in his past and sees the outcomes of his actions to be much more, and he sees them as his identity. Mufasa, on the other hand, sees things differently. He tells Simba that he needs to look inside himself, not towards the external factors. You see, Mufasa doesn't tell him to look at what he has done in the past, he tells him to remember who he is currently. Along with this, he reminds Simba that he is his son and the one true king, two things that cannot be argued or taken away from Simba. 

    The lesson to take from this is that our identity does not come from our actions in the past or the outcomes we have achieved. These things are out of our control and do nothing for us. Our true identity comes from within and is found in the here and now. Essentially, our identity does not come from the amount of wins and losses we have, but through the way that we respond to those outcomes. It is through our responses that our true character comes from because our responses are fully within our control.

    While this realization is good, it is not easy. Just as Simba notes later on in the movie, being able to embrace your identity means that we need to confront and deal with the messiness of our past, which can be quite challenging. But as Rafiki wisely says, "the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it." This is why I always encourage the people I work with to not run from failure, but to embrace it. It is through failure that you can truly learn and get better from. 

So just as Rafiki asked, I will ask you all: What are you going to do? What will you do with everything that has happened to you in the past? Will you let the outcomes, mistakes, and failures define you, or will you learn from it and respond in a way that shows your true character? Failure may not be preventable, but as long as you remember who you are, you will come out on the other side much wiser and stronger than before!

Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what your thoughts on this are. If you have any questions or want to see how mental performance can make an IMPACT on your life, do not hesitate to reach out!