Life as a Professional Athlete In-Between Times
As a professional athlete all you know is how to be an athlete! With the whirlwind speed of your life, training and competing there isn’t really much time to sit and think about a lot of other stuff. It seems that most of you shield yourself (consciously or unconsciously) from thinking and dealing with emotions while, because you are busy in your daily life.
Transitions are difficult for professional athletes
When you have down time from your sports career what happens? I’ll bet you are surrounded and confronted with a lot of challenging stuff. It makes sense. You life is generally surrounded with training and competition and when you have some down time your mind has a minute (or two) to think about the rest of your life. I’ll bet the rest of your life contains a lot of unanswered, confusing, unfinished ‘business. These things include: family, friends, finances and common, everyday errands and challenges and they all need your attention and they need your attention more than just occasionally but when occasionally is all you’ve got how do you make it all work?
Merging worlds
How do you merge sports with other parts of your life particularly when your profession needs you and your personal life needs you? How do you balance it all? It’s not easy and there is no easy answer but if you value both parts of your world then you’ll figure out how to make it happen.
In the very beginning…
…it would have been helpful for someone (coach or mentor) to let you know that there is more to life than just being an athlete. It would have been further helpful for someone to help you ‘plan’ for all of this.
Your job is not so unlike any other job. Many professionals work a lot of hours and also do a lot of traveling. The difference may be that professionals outside of being a professional athlete have had to find a way to balance their career with family, friends, finances and common, everyday errands and other challenges.
The job of being an athlete is important but so is the rest of your life! I see professional athletes making themselves nuts because they don’t know how to be a complete person. It’s almost like being a person outside of sports is completely foreign to them.
Be an athlete but have a life and be a person! If you are unsure about how to do that let me know, I can help!
Have a great weekend!
Dr. Michelle
