My senior year of high school, things shifted for me in my sport of track and field. I was no longer the girl chasing others. I was the girl with the target on my back.
I’ll never forget one meet walking up to the starting line and two other girls, two of my bigger competitors, just stopped talking. It was one of those moments where you knew they were talking about you. Well, I couldn’t shake it. My race was horrible. They both beat me and proceeded to jump up and down and cheer like they just won a state championship.
“We beat her!” they chanted.
I was so upset. I couldn’t figure out what I had done to make them not like me. To make them talk about me. Make them so elated to beat me and then rub it in my face.
To my coach it was simple. “You’re fast and they want to beat you. It is nothing personal.”
It wasn’t personal. But it felt personal.
That was the hardest part for me. It wasn’t the pressure. It wasn’t the expectations. It was other people’s perceptions. It was that other people knew who I was. It was that other people’s goals now had my name involved. “If I can just beat her.”
But I am nice! I wanted to scream. I still wanted people to see me as this nice, goofy, fun loving kid.
I wanted that so much I sacrificed my talent. I wanted so badly for people to like me that I worried more about them and too little about my own performance. Suddenly my times were slipping. My confidence was sinking. My passion slowly shriveling. I was in a slump and I couldn’t get out.
My coach sat me down. He had me visualize my race. Had me see myself walking out onto the track. Looking at my hurdles until all I saw was my lane. I visualized going out of the blocks and over each individual hurdle until I crossed the finish line. When I was done visualizing he handed me a note which read, “This is on blue paper for a reason. You are a champion. You just need to believe that you are.”
I had to embrace my talent. I had to accept that I had switched lanes. I had to own that target on my back.
Having been on the other side of this story now, as the coach, I can truly see that it is not personal. It’s sports. It’s competition. It’s wanting to be the best. But it’s not always easy.
As girls, as young women, we have a natural tendency to want to please others. We want to be liked and not make waves. This concept of “fitting-in” is challenged when we start to stand out from the crowd. How will I be accepted? How will I handle the pressure? How can I still be me?
In sports, and in anything in life, the biggest barrier to success is yourself. Not your circumstances, your coaches, or your competitors. It’s you. And you have a choice to make.
You can either sacrifice your talent to fit in with everyone else, or you can sacrifice your comfort to fulfill your dreams.
If I had continued to listen to the whispers and the jeers and cheers of my competitors, I never would have known how far I could go. I would have sacrificed not just my talent but my passion and my purpose.
Ladies, it is okay to be great. Embrace the target. Own your talent. Release other’s thoughts and opinions. Mostly, lose the idea that you are unworthy of your dreams and success.
You are worthy. Look ahead. Be great. Play you.
Recent Comments