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#9 MON PARIS

Looking back to #myparisian life story if still very “blurry” and feels like a huge cloud of different emotions. If you can try and imagine a transparent cloud with different fast colourful energy lines, flowing around mixing with each other… this is how I still feel about the whole experience.

How it felt my time in Paris, this is how. 

Working for Olympic games organising committee is no joke. Obviously. Planning and delivering the biggest sports even on earth feels how? How to sum all that we did, all that we felt, all that we lived, all that we conquered? Impossible. I can try though, and you tell me if you got the picture. On the other hand, these are my emotions, my thoughts, shared with you. Free to analyse them as you want.

Before I moved to Paris in June 2023, I had gone through one of the hardest periods of my life. I was suffering from a burn out which led to depression. Last project that I did before #Paris2024 was in 2022 fall. At that point I knew I don’t want to work on another indoor volleyball event, or better said, I knew I can’t. I was not capable to. Physically and mentally.

I spent those few months between the last event and Paris2024 to recover, to get myself back, to set my feet on the solid ground again. THE WORK I “had to” do (more: I WANTED TO) before going to Paris was not my “professional” work as much as working on my mental health, however, I also knew I was not happy with some of my professional weaknesses, and I wanted to make progress on specific areas to be “better” for Paris games.

Whoever reads my blogs, knows I have a very strong love for studying leadership management and managers skills and characteristics, etc. I know in theory what’s a plus or what’s a minus for leaders. In practice though, not so easy to live by those standards.

So, I did a huge self-reflection work in 2022 fall, because what brought me to the burn out was not just a workload, I can handle that. Human relations on the other hand, that was what destroyed me. And all that has happened in last few years, had to be evaluated and I wanted to find the main points which I wanted to improve. 

(FYI: a separate blog about this self-recovery road comes out next)

And I did improve them. Most of them.

With a great help from someone, I will be forever grateful to. (Thank you, you know who.)

The feelings, the emotions, the status

I stepped in Paris project with a huge confidence “I am ready for this”. I was so ready. Now that It’s over, I can honestly say, it felt like I was born for this. My perspective working for the Olympic games was diverse. I felt GRATITUDE everyday walking to our HQ. To our amazing workplace. I felt PROUD to be there, PROUD on myself to get to this point. I felt PURE HAPPINESS, coming from my core. I was waking up happy, with a smile on my face most of the days in Paris. I felt LOVE to the sports community even more that I do all my life. This love spread from those few sports that I liked to many others which I knew very little or nothing about before working for Olympics. I felt so CONNECTED to that environment, have met so many amazing individuals, who had the same love for their sport as I do for mine. We were not there just to be there; we wanted and have fought to provide the best conditions for our sports. I also felt SCARED, of course, if something doesn’t scare you, it’s too easy. I felt AWE. You know, the feeling we get in the presence of something so great that challenges our understanding of the world. I my case, my understanding of how sports organisation of the biggest and most important sports even on the planet works. Well, just this sentence is A LOT to read.

The whole time working in Paris Headquarters and later moving to our iconic beach volley venue, I felt such a strong readiness. I knew I was there with a purpose. It all worked well. Me, standing there, rolling the biggest event of my life and feeling as good as I did… I knew I had it all at that point. And, yes, I was born for this. It was so ME, the whole experience. Living in one of my favourite cities in the world, working for the Olympic games, handling the team who delivered beach volley competition and having a blast with them… My long-time dreams converting to reality. Yes. That was it. This is still it.

So, when I am asked, how was it, how did I feel, how do I feel now. Still can’t express exactly my feelings. I was living my dreams. This should be enough to describe my time in Paris, however, most people don’t live their dreams, don’t they? So, they can’t relay with what am saying. Can you, dear reader?

As you probably noticed by now, this blog is not about describing my work, my role, my position in Paris2024. It is about sharing a small part of my “inner” side, to show and prove that dreams are reachable even when we have challenges to overcome. Cause we create our own dreams, and we also make them reality. It’s a process. It demands hard work and dedication. Being humble and understanding the fact that a progress is a long-term situation. Staying true to ourselves and being real on the way. Pretentious and self-overselling will keep you above the water only for a short time.

Believing we CAN. Knowing we can, and WE WILL. In my case, I knew I was capable of doing this, I knew I can handle the whole thing, I just felt it in my bones. In my core.

And the most important part, not allowing others to put us down. Losing energy with negative people it is not an option. Losing our minds for the opinions of others, is not relevant. Keep it simple, keep it humble, focus on the good things and keep the direction of just YOU doing the best you can.

Finding our best self in any hard situation, working on our capability not to react on every tiny trigger, or negative impulses. This is the way.

All sounds easy and familiar, right?

Well, it takes A LOT of work. To me it was the best and the hardest work I had to do on myself to be able to go through this event. Working with amazing people, gave me strength. Good days lifted me up. Very high up. I felt I was flying at some points. Working with a little less amazing people, pushed me to keep on using the tools which made me better. This is one of the greatest things I have learned in last few years, my issue is not in others, it’s in my reactions to them. We are what and who we are. We can’t all like each other, we can’t all work together, but we can try to handle our reactions to irritating situations.

And I can say very openly that I am very proud of how I handled the whole experience. This doesn’t mean everything was perfect, far from it. I still had some unnecessary reactions, I still couldn’t stay positive all the time, every day, every minute. I still didn’t handle some situations the best I know I can. There is still a lot of work to be done. I am still learning, still proceeding. However, looking at the whole experience and all the things that happened, all the people who were around me, all the little things, I am proud of myself, and I know I did it way better as I would a year ago or more.

Conclusion

Bottom point, we are all just humans, we are all going through our own struggles. Each one of us has its own story to live (maybe tell). In the end of the day, it’s always about what do we want, what are we dreaming of and what are we ready to do, to reach that goal. Are we willing to work on ourselves? Are we ready to sacrifice our comfort zone to reach to the stars? How far are we willing to look inside and rise above that?

Paris was definitely the highlight of my life. Was it easy? Not at all. Was it worth it? Absolutely yes. I am in peace with myself knowing what I as an individual did to make it work and what WE as a TEAM did to delivery this spectacular event.

I am still very grateful to have lived this dream of mine, and I am still very proud of the whole big messy unrepeatable unique full of love event delivery.

And, I am still allowing myself to enjoy this fulfilment. I still keep on holding this moment. Why? Cause it’s how it’s supposed to be! No rush to let it go, no rush in moving forward. 

I allow myself to float in this bubble of my fulfilled dreams. 

How I felt my time in Paris? This is how.

Love,

Ines

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