Cliff Diving
Harness the transformative power of your inner team like Molly Carlson
Cliff diver Molly Carlson tells Mind Set Win how learning to recognise her thoughts has been the “craziest change” in her life. Cédric Dumont explains how it could be yours too.
Part of this story
What goes through your mind when standing on a Red Bull Cliff Diving platform about to jump from a height of more than 20 metres? “Every negative thought ever,” says Molly Carlson. “Your mind throws all these thoughts at you that make you not want to jump off this platform.”
But the Canadian, who is preparing for the final stop of the 2023 Red Bull Cliff Diving season in Auckland, New Zealand, on January 28 has learned how to identify these inner voices and harness them to help improve her chances of success.
By highlighting the voices she can take positives from and minimising any others, she’s able to focus on the present and the task at hand, namely acrobatically leaping from a diving platform and hitting the water at speeds of up to 85kph.
Listen to more Mind Set Win episodes
It’s an approach that’s helped Carlson quickly cement her status as a rising star of her sport and a serious title contender.
“You really have to empty your brain of the ‘what if’ voices and fill it with positive emotions, strong thoughts and convince yourself you can really do it,” says host Cédric Dumont.
The inner team concept was first developed by psychologist Friedemann Schulz von Thun to describe the contradictory voices we experience that pull us in different directions in certain situations. These different personalities, just like real team members, make it difficult to make a decision.
Let’s learn more about these different personalities and how we can start to manage their influence.
Watch the video below to see Molly Carlson gain her first victory in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
2 min
Red Bull Cliff Diving Boston's best moments
Check out the best of the action from Boston as the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series gets underway.
Episode 22 exercise
As Dumont says in the episode, if you need to refer back to the exercise at any point, it’s available right here.
The process below will help you recognise and understand the members of your inner team and harness the transformative power of a team working well together.
1. Firstly, it’s important to learn who the main characters you’ll most likely find in your inner team are.
- The perfectionist – who says, “you can do better, try again”
- The inner child – who wants to have fun and not take responsibility
- The critic – who says, “you’ll never achieve anything”
- The inner friend – who comforts or reassures you
- The believer – who has faith in you
2. Now, focus on a specific situation you're in or a decision you need to make. Once you’ve identified it, next think back to the list of characters above, and ask everyone in your team their opinions. What are they saying about the situation or decision?
3. Be sure to think of the voice you identified that was negative and try to understand the good intentions of that character. Remember, even though your team has different ways of showing it, they all want the very best for you.
4. You’ll soon begin to notice some voices are louder than others. This doesn’t necessarily mean those are the voices you should pay attention to. Teamwork means getting a balance so try and zoom in on the quieter voices.
5. Lastly, think back to your own inner voices and try to identify which are quiet and which are loud and consider what you need to do to balance them out.
An ecstatic Molly Carlson climbs out of Boston Harbour
© Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool
Carlson stunned the cliff diving scene in 2021 by making the podium on her very first attempt in Saint-Raphaël, France, and she would go on to win her first World Series event the following year in Boston, USA.
However, the 24-year-old cliff diver reveals on Mind Set Win how her journey to Red Bull Cliff Diving was a challenging one. After a “dark phase” of struggling with binge eating, body dysmorphia and missing out on a spot at the 2016 Olympics, Carlson made the decision to attend Florida State University.
“I went from a year of hating every inch of myself to loving diving and going to practice. I saw it from a completely different perspective,” she says.
“There’s going to be days when compliments change your mindset and you’ve got to get comfortable accepting that you deserve to hear positive reinforcement.”
Molly Carlson hurtles into the ocean
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
What I’ve learned from cliff diving, and my dark time, has been to find the positives and bring them into your present
Approaching her graduation, she put out a message to her social media followers asking if she should start cliff diving and 99% replied saying yes. The rest is history and Carlson will once again be taking the fight to dominant champion Rhiannan Iffland over the six-stop global World Series. Whatever the result though, Carlson will take pride in the incredible diver she’s become.
“I’m trying to be proud of the diver I am today and that’s helped me so much in who I am and what I believe in.”
Find out more – including simple exercises to do at home – in Mind Set Win.
Part of this story