Smile Before You Lift: What an Olympic Champion Can Teach Us About Facing Hard Things

Watch Olympic weightlifter Olivia Reeves walk onto the platform and you may notice something unusual: she smiles.

Not just after the lift, when the weight is safely overhead and the crowd erupts. She can smile before attempting a weight that would seem almost unimaginable to most of us.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Reeves won gold for the United States in the women's 71-kilogram competition. Yet one of the most intriguing things about watching her compete isn't simply her extraordinary strength. It's the demeanor she brings to the bar. When Reeves was asked how she maintains such a confident, cheerful presence in competition, her answer was beautifully simple:

“I just tell myself that I can lift the weight, and then it happens.”

She has another philosophy I love. Reeves makes time before competition to do her hair and makeup, explaining it this way:

“Looking good = feeling good = doing good.”

It might sound superficial at first, but there may actually be some psychology behind the broader idea. The way we behave physically can influence the way we feel mentally.

Your Face Talks to Your Brain

We usually think our facial expressions simply reveal what's happening inside us. We're happy, so we smile. We're nervous, so our face tightens.

But psychologists have studied something called the facial feedback hypothesis—the possibility that the expressions we make can also influence, at least modestly, the emotions we experience.

In other words, we don't only smile because we're happy. Smiling itself may help us feel a little better.

In one experiment, researchers put people through stressful tasks while manipulating their facial expressions. Participants who maintained smiling expressions showed lower heart rates during recovery from the stressful tasks.

More recent research has strengthened the basic idea. In a large international study involving nearly 3,900 people across 19 countries, deliberately forming a smile modestly increased feelings of happiness.

That doesn't mean smiling magically erases fear, anxiety, grief or stress. But it does suggest that communication between the body and brain isn't necessarily a one-way street.

What If the Smile Came First?

We often tell ourselves we'll relax after something difficult is over. We'll feel confident after the presentation goes well, celebrate after we cross the finish line, or smile once we know we've succeeded.

But what if we reversed the order?

What if the smile came first?

That's not about pretending everything is wonderful when it isn't. It's about deliberately giving your brain and body a different physical signal while you're facing something difficult. Instead of waiting for confidence to change our behavior, perhaps we can sometimes use our behavior to nudge ourselves toward confidence. Straighten your posture, unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, take a slow breath—and smile. Then walk toward the thing you were afraid to do.

Looking Good, Feeling Good, Doing Good

That's what makes Reeves' other comment so interesting: “Looking good = feeling good = doing good.”

For her, doing her hair and makeup before competing isn't simply about appearance. It's part of feeling prepared to perform.

Most of us have experienced some version of this. Put on an outfit that makes you feel great and you may carry yourself differently. Stand taller and you may feel more confident. Smile at someone and you may notice your own mood change.

The body influences the mind, and the mind influences the body. This is why small physical rituals before difficult moments can matter. An athlete approaches the bar the same way every time. A speaker takes a slow breath before walking onto the stage. Someone waiting outside a doctor's office consciously relaxes her shoulders. None of those actions guarantees that fear disappears. The goal isn't to eliminate fear. It's to remind yourself that you can act while fear is still present. Perhaps that's part of what makes Reeves so compelling to watch. There she stands in front of an enormous barbell with an Olympic medal potentially hanging in the balance.

And she smiles.

Try It Yourself

The next time you're about to do something that makes you nervous, uncomfortable or uncertain, try a small experiment. Before you walk into the meeting, make the phone call, step onto the stage, begin the workout or face the difficult conversation, stop for a few seconds. Relax your face, take a breath and smile—even if you don't particularly feel like smiling. Then borrow Olivia Reeves' words:

“I just tell myself that I can lift the weight, and then it happens.”

You don't have to wait until you feel fearless to behave confidently, and you don't have to wait until everything is going well to smile.

Sometimes the smile comes before the lift.

References

Coles, N. A., March, D. S., Marmolejo-Ramos, F., et al. (2022). A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 1731–1742. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01458-9

Kraft, T. L., & Pressman, S. D. (2012). Grin and bear it: The influence of manipulated facial expression on the stress response. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1372–1378. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612445312

Coles, N. A., Larsen, J. T., & Lench, H. C. (2019). A meta-analysis of the facial feedback literature: Effects of facial feedback on emotional experience are small and variable. Psychological Bulletin, 145(6), 610–651. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000194