Dame Lisa Carrington on resilience

Life Education Trust has teamed up with Dame Lisa Carrington to turn her children’s book Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion, into a practical classroom resource helping tamariki build resilience, perseverance, and goal setting skills. In this opinion piece, published in Sunday Star Times, Dame Lisa (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Porou) shares what she's learnt about resilience on the road to becoming New Zealand's most successful Olympian.

When I think about resilience, the medals, podiums and races aren’t the first things that come to mind. It’s the journey.

I think about the moments when I had to dig deep and prove to myself that I was capable of more than I thought. Resilience is built in the small moments in between – when it’s cold, wet and raining, and I don’t want to get on the water, but I remember what it takes to chase a big goal and choose to get out there anyway. Like any good skill, resilience is something that is grafted over time, adapting when it doesn’t go to plan and always learning from that last moment.

That is one of the reasons I wrote Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion. The story follows eight-year-old me, a young girl with a goal. She wants to take part in a big surf lifesaving competition, but along the way she meets self-doubt, fear and setbacks. She has a moment where she is tossed in the water that knocks her confidence, but with the support of great people around her, she finds a way back to working towards her goal.

Although it is a children’s story, the feelings in it are very real. We all know what it is like to want something and then wonder whether we are good enough. We all know what it is like to face a challenge and feel our stomach churn. We all know the temptation to step away when things become uncomfortable.

For tamariki, learning what to do in those moments matter. In classrooms and homes across Aotearoa, children are being asked to navigate pressure, uncertainty, disappointment and comparison earlier than many of us would like. We cannot shield them from every hard moment, but we can help them build the tools to move through those moments with support and self-belief.

That is why I am so proud that Life Education Trust has turned Lisa Carrington Chases a Champion into a practical classroom resource for the Healthy Harold programme. Through the resource, the story is now being used to help tamariki talk about resilience, perseverance, goal setting, emotional regulation, identity and self-belief.

In sport, I have learned that confidence is not something you simply have every day. Confidence is built through practice, repetition and doings things that are scary Sometimes it comes from having a plan. Other times, it comes from taking one small step when the whole goal feels too big. Sometimes it comes from hearing the right words at the right time: “Show up.” “I can do this.” “My best is good enough.”

In the classroom, those ideas become practical. Tamariki can talk about what happens when something gets hard. They can learn that a setback is not the end of the story. They can also learn that resilience is not something we have to carry alone. In the book, young Lisa finds strength through her coach, her whānau, her tūrangawaewae and time by the awa. That matters because resilience is relational. We recharge through connection, and we grow through encouragement. Most importantly, we learn from people who believe in us before we fully believe in ourselves.

This is where Life Education’s resource is especially valuable. It brings resilience out of the abstract and into the everyday lives of children, encouraging them to identify the people they can turn to when they need support and the places or practices that help them feel calm, grounded and strong.

Education is at its best when it helps children recognise themselves in the lessons they are being taught, taking a familiar story and turning it into something personal, practical and lasting. As schools and whānau rightly focus on children’s wellbeing, we need to give tamariki language and tools for the challenges they will face, not because we can remove every obstacle from their path, but because we can help them understand they can meet hard things.

Resilience is not about never falling. It is about knowing that, with support, courage and perseverance, you can get back up and keep chasing your champion.