Vulnerability In Sport

In sport, we deal with conflicting emotions all the time. Happiness and sadness, wins and losses, success and failure, joy and grief. And living in a society that is grief adverse and obsessed with “good vibes only” sometimes talking about these negative emotions can be difficult. The hard part about being an athlete is being able to process these opposing emotions and let them move through you instead of “sucking it up”, stuffing them deep down and ignoring them. There’s a HUGE difference between processing and repressing. The latter will slowly eat you alive… eventually. 

I think great coaches can hold space for their athlete’s emotions and encourage them to grieve properly so they can move past these losses and be stronger and healthier. And I think high level athletes have an innate ability OR have learned how to process good and bad and still work towards the good. They don’t take it personally and accept that mistakes will happen. IMO, in order to succeed in sport, you have to be ok with all of these emotions and learn how to redirect your focus back to the process. Think about goalies who let in goals in the first period, or a figure skater who falls in the first 20 seconds, baseball player who misses more than they hit or a golfer who chunks the ball into the water on the front 9. Athletes have to pivot fast, reframe the moment and move through the emotion because the routine isn’t over, the game hasn’t finished, shots haven’t stop on net or you’re on the 8th hole of a tournament. 

So, the next time you hit your drive out of bounds, feel it, accept it, move past it so you can get back to the game plan. Learn how to reflect on your performance, grieve your failures and losses, celebrate the successes and apply what you learned. How you react to when things go sideways is a major indicator of future successes.