Caeleb Dressel was living the dream. 

Two days into the 2022 FINA World Swimming Championships, Dressel took home two gold medals. He was truly fulfilling a dream of success he had been chasing for decades.

But on June 22, 2022 in the middle of the FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, the news broke throughout the swimming world that the 15-time world champion, Dressel was withdrawing from the rest of the world championships with about half of the meet to go. 

By all accounts, Dressel was in peak form and in the midst of the pinnacle of his career. His reason for withdrawal was “unspecified medical grounds.” USA swimming released the following statement at the time:

“After conferring with Caeleb, his coaches and the medical staff, a decision has been made to withdraw him from the FINA World Championships,” according to a USA Swimming statement. “Our priority is and will always be the health of our athletes and we will continue to give Caeleb the assistance he needs to recover quickly.”

“Unspecified medical grounds.”

A vague statement loaded with a vision of health often forgotten in high performing athletic environments. We often think of things like “medical” or “health” and go straight to the physical. It would have made a lot more sense to read a physical report explaining why Caeleb Dressel, at the peak of his career, decided to withdraw from the world championships right in the middle of a run of dominance so rare that the only legitimate comparison is to Michael Phelps - the greatest of all time. The headlines would have been less confusing if it read:

“Champion swimmer withdraws due to torn bicep.”

“World’s Best, Dressel opts out of remainder of on account of difficult physical injury.”

But, there were no headlines pointing to a physical ailment. 

No torn biceps, no tweaked hamstrings. 

In a way, despite peak physical condition, extreme success and a run of dominance, Caeleb Dressel was withdrawing from the top swimming competition in the world due to one thing. 

Exhaustion.

Truly exhausted while living a life-long dream. An exhaustion tied not to his physical health, but rather a much deeper form of health at an emotional, mental, and spiritual level. 

Breakdown & Burnout

To really understand Caeleb’s withdrawal in Budapest in 2022 we have to rewind about 11 months and travel to Tokyo, Japan. The 2020 Olympic games were postponed to 2021 and Caeleb was on a dominating run of success.  In the five total events he competed in in Tokyo, Dressel not only went 5-for-5 but he didn’t lose a single heat in the prelims in any of his races. Gold in the 50 meter freestyle. Gold in the 100 meter freestyle. Gold in the 100 meter butterfly. Gold in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay. Gold in the 4x100m medley relay.

3 individual gold medals. 2 relay medals. 5-for-5, untouchable every time he stepped onto the starting blocks. From the outside, it was nothing but intense competition and smiles from Dressel. But under the surface, there was more going on, even while winning, and even while accomplishing life long dreams. His wife, watching from back home could tell from his body language and strained smiles that something wasn’t right.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize the toll it takes to be great. He had wild success. Came home with a suitcase full of gold medals, but there was no room for joy or celebration for the things he had just done.” - Meghan Dressel

On the plane ride home, in quiet moments that should be full of celebration and joy. The satisfaction of accomplishment was instead traded for an inner struggle of critique and perfectionism. Despite being literally undefeated every time he stepped on the blocks, Dressel ruminated on what could have been better.

“I really walked away from Tokyo and thought I had a horrible swim meet. I was so caught up in these times. If I didn’t go these times - I’m a failure, because I didn’t live up to my potential.”

“That was not the Olympic games I wanted to have.”

“I didn’t fulfill what I was capable of”

“I didn’t work hard enough to get what I wanted”

“You should have put your head down earlier. You should have turned harder.”

What we see here was not just a brief moment of high standards, but rather an ongoing relationship with the pursuit of high performance that Dressel had been operating in for quite some time. The give and take of a harsh inner critic. Something many high performers struggle with taming.

So while the years of 2018-2022 were extremely successful, world records were broken, a completely undefeated 2019 season, world and Olympic Gold medals all while Caeleb Dressel was completely miserable.

Completely miserable, while living the dream he caught a vision of as a young boy.

As he left the pool at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, withdrawing from the highest yearly event in the sport, Dressel was forced to come face to face with the reality of his inner critic. The inner critic that while was an advantage at times, was also completely destroying him. He was forced to confront the reality that he was his own worst enemy in the process of becoming great. While he had been swimming for decades against swimmers in other lanes, the greatest threat to his success, and health was actually the swimmer in his own lane, himself.

“I was so caught up in perfectionism. “If I don’t see these times it means I didnt train hard enough, wasn’t obsessed enough. It really wasn’t much outside pressure - it was myself.”

What ensued was 9 entire months away from the sport of swimming, and a slow process of entirely changing the way he related to his craft and the pursuit of high performance. Caeleb Dressel had truly burnt out, while in the midst of living his dream. 

Understanding Human Performance

The truth is no one intentionally sets out to follow the journey of Caeleb Dressel’s burnout. And no one looks to the future vision they are chasing and thinks that the attainment of the dream will be so full of angst, stress, and poor well-being. The reality is, most of us have an optimistic view of the fulfillment of our dreams. We think the attainment of this thing will fill in the blanks for us. It will add joy, and purpose, and meaning to our lives, and in most cases achievement can certainly do those things. It is great to pursue something worthy. However, if we don’t learn the rhythms of a healthy relationship with our important pursuits, we won’t enjoy the process OR the end result. At best, we’ll be relieved it’s over. At worst, we’ll be miserable. We have to learn to pace ourselves.

In 1982, Peter Nixon, a cardiologist exploring stress and burnout in relation to heart health developed the Human Functioning Curve. This tool helps us understand the relationship between performance and arousal. It demonstrates that we are biologically connected to external stressors and everything we experience in our lives has an impact on our inner life and well-being. Stress in appropriate doses is not only necessary but useful. An appropriate relationship with stress can move us from low arousal, drifting, drone zone kind of living into purposeful, passionate, and meaningful lives. However, if taken too far, it can drastically impact our well-being, and lead to burn out. There is a healthy tension every high performer must have with stress. In his research, Peter Nixon found that the sweet spot was to spend most of your time at 75-80% of total capacity. Intentionally leaving more in the tank. Not going to the well with extreme efforts on a regular basis. Most importantly, Nixon found that if we ignore our body’s cues in this fatigue zone it will do damage to our health.

This curve can be applied to all of our lives. In the case of Caeleb Dressel and other high performers the real challenge is not to “get going” to get out of the drone zone. Instead for most high performing, driven individuals it will be to learn the rhythms to let off the throttle of our drive to not over do it and drift into ill-health. For Dressel, what was often viewed as a great strength - his inner critic, was actually the very thing leading to his demise. The inability to rest, to be satisfied, to maintain deliberate control over your mindset. These are all things that tip a high performer from the Creative Calm Zone where meaningful progress occurs into full on exhaustion.  

“I zapped the joy out of it. I got in my own way”

How can an individual know when they are entering ill-health? One of the most basic ways is to pay attention to our fatigue. From the age of 17 years old Caeleb Dressel was traveling the country to swim at big national meets. Lots of traveling, lots of packed schedules. Lot’s of intense environments. Inevitably when he would return home he would come down with some kind of sickness. A sore throat, sinus infections, runny nose, mental fatigue, physical fatigue. Only in hindsight was Dressel able to realize that pushing through these warning signs wasn’t intense commitment - it was overriding the system and it comes with a cost. 

His swimming journey was going one direction - toward burnout. And the burnout came at a time when he was living the things he had daydreams about years prior. If a high performer doesn’t learn to self-regulate it will head to the same place.

The Path Back To High Performance

For Caeleb Dressel, the 9 months away from the pool wasn’t a vacation.

It was putting back the pieces of a life that an inner critic destroyed. Immediately, Dressel got into meeting with a professional counselor for five hours a week. The lock up and burnout of Budapest was so traumatizing that even walking by a pool and smelling chlorine would trigger him into a high stress response. If you’ve ever experienced burnout maybe you can relate. 

Drive past your old place of employment and you start ruminating on stressful experiences from the past. See a former colleague out and about and things you thought were put to bed come rushing back. Your body’s scorecard from past unpleasant experiences

Beyond meeting with a counselor, Dressel began to craft a life away from swimming. When you’ve been doing it at a high level since the age of 5, that is not an easy or pleasant task. He realized though, it was time to develop as a person before developing as a swimmer. Holistic health. Holistic well-being. He started enjoying hobbies away from the pool. Things like riding motorcycles, hiking, occasionally running. Things that in his past relationship with pursuing high performance he never felt like he had time for. Or worse, he never felt like he had permission to enjoy.

In the process of his re-engagement he learned the value of his holistic health and it’s relationship with his important pursuits. He learned what ALL leaders and high performers need to learn as well:

The level of your holistic health will ultimately dictate the level of success in your (insert important thing) (swimming, leading, parenting, high performance). He learned that to override your system is like buying success on credit - the bill will still come due at some point.

If you find yourself tipping the balance and on the edge of exhaustion as a high performer and a leader, here are 3 things rom Caeleb Dressel’s journey that can teach you how to restore a healthy relationship with your pursuits.

1.) Develop and Listen to Your Own Inner Circle

In the re-engagement process Caeleb turned the keys over to his wife, his coaches, and his family. He learned to trust their voice. He learned to listen to their warnings. He admitted “I’m not good at checking myself.” He had the humility to realize he needed more eyes on him, and more people looking for specific red-flags. 

What would it look like for you to blatantly ask your spouse to beware of specific red-flags that have proven to be warning signs in your life that you are ruminating on all the wrong things, failing to recover, and falling toward exhaustion?

If you haven’t given a single person the authority to speak into your life at this level, you may be a ticking time bomb, barreling toward future trouble. 

Caeleb’s re-engagement process went not through his own determination, but through his inner circle of people who love him and want the best for him. His wife and coaches laid out the timeline in the early stages. They limited his pool time to 30 minutes of just floating in the water with his friends. They progressed to blowing bubbles in the water (Yes, just like children’s swim lessons!) Eventually, he progressed to a one-hour max workout. Over time, he began to regain a healthy relationship with the water. But the important part here is - he wasn’t in the driver's seat. The keys were not in his hands. They were in his inner circle of people he trusted. This is the same type of recovery former addicts have. And while you may not be addicted to your pursuit of success, the principle can still apply. It is wise to have an extra set of eyes on you. Who is able to “read your mail?” If you are coming up empty, if no one is able to ask you the tough questions about your holistic health (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) it may be time for a change.

2.) Through Self-Compassion - Rewire Your Mindset

The double-edged sword of a harsh inner critic is that at times it is the thing that makes you great. It is the voice that leaves you never satisfied. It’s how you find your edge and uniqueness. But it can also be the single thing that destroys your joy and eventually your entire drive. Dressel realized he had to learn how to manage this. He had to develop a better relationship with his inner critic. He had to learn how to leverage it for his good, but to rein in the many ways it was destroying him. He did this through multiple scientifically proven methods to build resilience and rewire his mindset. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, self-compassion, and breathwork he began to rewire the way he thinks. 

If you are struggling with a harsh inner critic it may be wise to talk to someone professionally. If you would like to grow in managing it, the practice of breathwork can help you regulate your inner “noise.”

After nearly a year of concentrated work, Caeleb Dressel was able to showcase a new approach at the Paris Olympic games. He began to have healthier language describing his experiences if races didn’t go well.

“I just swam slow.” not “I swam horrible.”

He began to not let the time on the clock dictate whether or not he was enjoying participating in his craft. 

This all began with the self-compassion practice in relationship with his inner critic. 

“I’m doing the best I can.. With what I’ve got… where I’m at.”

3.) Keep it Playful

One of the revelations Caeleb found on his journey back to the water is that through his drive, his perfectionism, and his aspirations to be great, somewhere along the way he lost his “age-group” mentality. When you are young and emerging in your craft there is an innocence that allows you to actually enjoy what you’re doing. 

Inevitably we all begin to take our pursuits “seriously.” While this can improve our intentionality, often it comes at a cost of pure joy associated with doing the things you want to do. With improving in the things you want to improve in. 

No one disputes that we need “grit” to succeed. But it sure does feel like we’re all gritting our teeth, losing perspective on why we do what we do and continue to succumb to either self-imposed pressure or the opinions of others. It’s healthy every now and then to assess these few questions.

“Am I enjoying what I’m doing?”

“What would deliberate joy look like for me in my day or week while in this role?”

“When I thought I wanted this (thing), what did I think it would be like?”

“How can I alter my relationship with this pursuit to experience more enjoyment?”

“What would an “age-group” mentality look like right now?”

By suggesting we infuse joy in what we’re doing, I’m not suggesting we all need to get “soft” or whimsy in our determination. I’m merely suggesting, what good is the dream if you’re miserable not only on the way to achieving it, but WHILE you’re achieving it?

If you’re joyful on the journey, there's’ a greater likelihood you’ll be joyful on arrival. If you’re miserable on the journey, the arrival is unlikely to change anything when it comes to your countenance. 

Keep it playful.

Joy > Grit.