Tiffany Dufu’s Drop the Ball is a game changer for me and for any former athlete struggling to move past the hustle culture of high-level sports.  While Dufu spends a bit of time pointing out facts about the gender based pay gap and the need for all-in-partnership in the home, the more impactful parts of the book are her tangible examples of the emotional labor imbalance and how that relates to her journey as a recovering perfectionist.

So often perfectionists don’t allow others to do the work if it’s not done as they (we) would do it.  The main point of Dufu's book, though, is that perfectionists have to be willing and able to "drop the ball" before others will pick it up. This holds true in school work, volunteer work, housework, and on and on, where the work simply doesn't need to be perfect...where it just needs to be good enough. As two of my coaches often say, "We must learn to embrace the B-." 

In her book Dufu chronicles the humbling experiences of letting go of tasks in the home in order to achieve some of her more important life’s work—advancing and empowering women and girls and raising two children to be globally conscious citizens. If we are too busy checking things off our to-do list to cultivate a network of relationships, or if we are too caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day life, we simply cannot have the bandwidth to tackle larger, more important projects. Dufu provides real examples of how she worked through some sticking points in her life to discover not only her core values but also how to empower her partner at home to share more of the workload. She says women have faith in a “false meritocracy” (p.64), which often leads us to expect that we can work harder and will naturally be recognized for our productivity. Therefore, we work and work and work to the detriment to our mental, physical, and emotional health.

Whoa. This is powerful stuff. 

Dufu's work may not resonate with athletes still in the thick of their athletic careers, as Dufu is not an athlete and much of her book focuses on trying to have the perfect home and raise the perfect children. This shouldn't distract us from the greater message, though, of letting go of perfectionism, which is a real struggle for student athletes trying to do it all. 

For me, perhaps the most important part of this book is when Dufu highlights how we need to choose between where we bring the most value to a situation or job vs. where we are given a task or job simply because we are more experienced at it (p. 94).  As she states, though, we should be asking, “Where (can) I be most useful in order to achieve the things that (matter) most?”  

This stood out to me, and perhaps was the tipping point that led me to resign last year from my role as Artistic Director of Louisville Skating Academy after 17 years. My time in this role producing the Nutcracker on Ice, among other things, was valuable and rewarding, but it was no longer advancing my higher purpose of helping athletes achieve a healthier relationship with their sport, themselves, and others. It became something to do just because I had experience at it--more than anyone around me--and because it was habit. I was afraid of letting go of the control, the connections, and the community that being Artistic Director provided. However, I came to realize that the amount of unpaid work involved in that role actively took me away from advancing my higher mission.

Even when the writing is on the wall, sometimes it is hard to leave your current surroundings, especially if it's all you've ever known. Maybe you've been in the same place or situation for so long that you've lost sight of what you stand for and what your real strengths are. This is normal! While our inner nature is ever-present, sometimes we lose sight of it due to circumstances, social conditioning, and/or the life choices that we make. The work of listening to and coming back to that true nature is constant. 

Nevertheless, when we can't see a clear picture of our next steps, leaving can be scary. In Drop the Ball Dufu offers some practical and powerful exercises to help us reconnect to our inner nature so we can confidently take the leap into a new chapter of life. 

The first exercise Dufu recommends (p. 84) is a funeral visualization popularized in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. You visualize three people--a family member, colleague, friend, or maybe a community member-- speaking your eulogy at your funeral. Dufu admits that it feels cheesy to do, but says that it really helps you tap into your true nature and clarify what your guiding principles and next direction should be. 

A second exercise (p. 84), The Reflected Best Self Exercise, was developed by researchers at the University of Michigan. Basically, you ask a varied group of people from different phases of your life to tell you about a time they experienced you at your best.  Dufu recommends printing the answers and circling phrases or words that appear several times so you clearly see themes that arise across years and areas of your life. I completed the exercise, too, and found the experience enlightening, empowering, humbling, and heartwarming. Some of my dearest, most trusted friends gave me some very valuable insight into areas of my personality I hadn't considered in years and gave me new appreciation for my loved ones and for my own true nature. 

If you are an athlete trying to discover how to best align your participation in sport with the lifestyle you want to lead, a parent helping your child navigate the after sports transition, or a coach helping your athletes become well-balanced individuals, this book is a must read. I don't have all the answers for helping athletes move from a life of perfectionism and intense competition to one of deeper connection. Thanks to Dufu, though, I have taken additional steps in that direction. 

What steps can you take to live more in alignment with your higher purpose or mission? 

Since I retired from my role as Learn to Skate Director, I’ve been blessed to be able to fall back on my language teaching skills.  I began teaching university-level Spanish in 1998 and started teaching Spanish in person again this semester. A new perspective and refreshed outlook after time away has done wonders for my teaching and for my connection to the students. Sometimes a short vacation isn’t enough time away from something—it’s possible we need a much longer break. In my case, it was several years with one toe still in the water, but with my heart fully in skating. Now, I shift to the other foot—I am diving back into teaching, hoping to teach abroad again, and have one foot still in skating, but much of my energy elsewhere.

Last week as I was reading through some old notebooks working on a course proposal teach abroad, I came across this essay I wrote for a composition and grammar course while studying in Spain many, many years ago.

The topic was “My Profession”. Here’s the translation for you:

“When I finish my degree, I want to be a figure skating coach. I know that skating has nothing to do with being a Spanish and English major, but it has a lot to do with my life and my dreams. When I was a child, skating was always on my mind. Everything I did—whether it was sleep, walk, study, eat, or breathe—it was to be able to skate more and better. Now, even though it’s been four years since I stopped training and competing, thoughts and dreams about skating still fill my head and I still want to go back to where skating was my life.”

What a young mind it was that wrote that! The essay goes on, but this section is the most impactful part, I think. Each of you will read this in a different way, colored through the lens of your own lived experience, but for me reading it brings up many conflicting emotions. My complicated journey in the sport makes me wistful for the dreams that could have been, glad for the ones that did, and pained for the damage done in the process. Maybe you can relate? If I had known yoga at that time, I would have approached so many aspects of that dream differently, but then I might not be here writing this piece for you. 

Sports are wonderful for so many reasons--testing our limits, lifelong friendships, goal setting time management, healthy lifestyles, confidence building, and more... but what happens when the dream of pursuing our sport must take a pause? Or when we get or ill and can no longer live out that dream? Or when life circumstances place us in a city where living the dream isn’t lucrative enough to bring financial security? Or when the schedule your sport requires prohibits you from being present for your family?
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It is important that we allow our athletes and our children to live their dreams, but it’s crucial that we also allow them to pursue other avenues in life—get an education, take a vacation, have other hobbies—and understand that we can’t put all our eggs in one basket. Even Olympic champions can go to college--thank you, Nathan Chen, for being so open about that. Skate or play tennis or surf or whatever you choose as much as you possibly can as long as you can to live your dream--AND also educate yourself to keep things in perspective.

​Sport is only one small part of life, even when we think it’s our everything. 

Northern Arizona has four seasons, unlike the rest of Arizona. Phoenix is glorious in the winter, and miserable in the summers, and the landscape is made of various shades of reds and browns. It’s beautiful, but it stays the same year-round. When I lived in Arizona, of all the things I missed about Kentucky besides my family, I missed the changing seasons the most. That most visceral reminder of the passage of time and the cycles of life is like a road map guiding us on our journey. The timelines of my memories from Arizona aren’t as clear as they are of memories from other places simply because the landscape doesn’t change very much throughout the year.

Life is full of transitions—from one season to the next, one relationship to another, beginning and ending semesters, changing jobs, growing children, retirement, and on and on. Sometimes we mark the dates on the calendar months in advance, and other times, radical change is forced upon us at the most inopportune times. Everyone knows this, and writers of all genres from ancient literature to pop songs have written about it. The only thing constant is change, right?

Yet, as humans, we try to fight the end of a season and cling to what is in front of us, sometimes even while we are dreaming about something different. A summer’s last hurrah, the sledding adventure in March, the pleading with an ex-boyfriend to please come back are all examples of this. In our professional or athletic lives we can be completely burnt out and still want to stay in the game. Why do we resist making a change(s) that is necessary to move us forward? Because our brains are hard-wired to be fearful of new things and because change can require a lot of work.

One thing you realize as you get older, though, is that changes will come whether you are ready for them or not. Family members get sick, we get injured, children and parents get older, the economy goes up and down, accidents happen, and people around us make decisions that impact us. Right now, I’m closing another chapter in my professional life to hopefully forge a new one a few years sooner than I imagined. At the same time, I am caring for a very ill, aging aunt who just wants to feel safe and loved, and helping my son write essays for the convoluted high school application process we have in our school district.

In mid-summer I did not know I was heading towards any of these concurrent paths, yet somehow I ended up here.  And I’m trying to be more present than ever for my family, maintain my health and sense of self, while still serving the students I deeply care about.

The question begging to be asked, then, is how do we adapt to such sudden changes? How do we navigate life’s big transitions gracefully?

I find the answer to be simple: Always go back to a yoga practice that incorporates breathwork, asana, and meditation.  There are many reasons this works, but my favorite way to explain it clearly is that the breathing sets the stage for the movement, and the movement helps you sit still enough to meditate comfortably. The breath and the movement work hand in hand to balance the nervous system and strengthen your stress response. Then, in the stillness of the meditation is where you can find what you’re looking for—the courage to identify and let go of whatever is extra and stand firmly present in what matters most to you.

The sooner we get used to idea of constant change (for good and bad), the sooner we can stop fighting the transition and go with the flow. Don’t get too attached to the phase of life that you’re in—try to experience it in its fullest, because you never know when the next chapter will begin. In the meantime, do more yoga. 

Don't know where to start? Check out some of my free practices. 

Sometimes life weighs you down. As an adult, that weight may be the pressures of work and caretaking—of children, parents, spouses, friends, and community. For athletes, though, it’s usually the pressures of performing academically and athletically and of the future that weigh them down.

We have done such a good job of stressing the importance of making good decisions to our kids, that we have collectively managed to create a generation of youth that is breaking under the weight of future expectations.

I came across this photo on a friend’s facebook the other day (source unknown) and it really hit home. If reading this leaves you breathless, imagine how it must feel to a teenager that’s trying to live it.  These are very privileged worries that don’t involve food insecurity, homelessness, abuse, or violence of any kind, but they are real worries for many kids. When did childhood become such a race to cram in all the information and achievements? When did it become all or nothing?  
I’ve written a bit about the need to drop the ball as an adult… there are just some things we have to let go of to maintain our mental and physical health. As parents and coaches, it’s our responsibility to not only teach kids about good choices but also about resilience and perspective. They don’t have to kill it on every assignment, and it’s ok if they skip a couple of days of piano practice if they need a bit of extra sleep. We have to teach them to juggle it all, how to choose which ball to drop when, and how to respond appropriately when they choose incorrectly.

Parenting this way is hard. We are biologically programmed to fear potential threats, and society teaches us that we must compete in every way and falling behind is failure. And goodness knows the cost of higher education is enough to make nearly any parent fearful. Every child develops at their own pace, though, and getting into and affording the best college doesn’t equal happiness or material success.

When I step off the hamster wheel and really see the kids I coach and, more importantly, my own son, what matters most is their character. Do we teach them to be respectful of others’ time and energy? Are we modeling gratitude for them? Do we hold them accountable for the mistakes that matter and let the little ones slide? Have we shown them the value and joy of working towards something that makes our heart happy? Are they honest, observant, and compassionate? Do they stand up for what is right?

I don’t want my son to stress over his college apps at 13, and I don’t want him judging himself only by comparison to his peers. I do want him to experience some level of financial security in the future, but most of all, I want him to be a good person.

One of the best things we can do as parents, coaches, members of the community is consistently evaluate the ways in which we measure “success”. Athletic feats are exciting and make us proud, but is that because of our own ego or because we are happy to see the joy in our athletes’ eyes when they play?

The right amount of stress is important—not enough stress in our lives and we lack resilience, but too much stress leads to chronic health issues—so I’m not necessarily saying we never need to compete or perform again.  Let’s just make sure we are being intentional about how we approach competition and that we keep our most important values at the forefront of our decisions and actions. This is the balance that we keep talking about in yoga—finding that balance is the yoga.
 
If you're wondering about what some of those values are, stay tuned. I'll make a new post soon about that. 

    Leaving competitive sports behind is a lot like breaking up with a significant other. Either you're the one who chooses to end it, or someone or something chooses for you. When you retire from sports, sometimes it’s because you don’t make the cut for the team, or maybe you have a career-ending injury, you graduate, a parent loses a job or they get divorced, or maybe you just don’t love it enough anymore to keep making the required sacrifices. Or maybe a tragedy (or pandemic) leads your peers to grow apart and your family to reevaluate your current financial and emotional investment.  No matter the reason, leaving competitive sports almost always entails an agonizing transition for an athlete.
     One of my students recently decided to stop skating. It had been a long time coming; I had seen the signs for a while, but I thought she would be able to hold out for one more year of high school and to pass one more skating milestone.  When she came to tell me that she was thinking of leaving the sport, she was distraught. Being at the rink makes her anxious and she doesn’t feel good about herself when skating anymore because she isn’t achieving goals quickly enough. (As in any sport, the higher you go, the harder it gets to maintain the level of athleticism required to progress and stay interested.) She doesn’t have time to get all her schoolwork completed, participate in the other extra-curriculars need for college apps, keep a part-time job, AND skate. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, she feels like her rate of progress is being used as a gauge for how others around her feel about their own progress.  Whether or not others are actually paying attention to what she is doing now is irrelevant—she believes that is the case, so the environment is no longer good for her.
     This is not the first conversation I’ve had like this. In fact, for over twenty years I’ve been having similar conversations with almost every teenage athlete I have taught. Skating is a sport that specializes early, and since it hasn’t traditionally been a collegiate sport, most skaters wind down by the time they get to high school. It’s a problem that US Figure Skating is trying to rectify by offering other programs and paths besides the traditionally “competitive” route that you see on TV and by pouring energy into the collegiate skating program. Ultimately, though, the athlete feels pulled in all directions. Their friends change, schoolwork intensifies, they want to try new things, they might get a job, and skating just gets too hard to continue. While many athletes in skating and other sports do stick it out to graduation, most eventually go through a similar transition at some point during or after college.
     Yet, the transition is a tough one. “What will I do now? It’s all I’ve ever done.”  I’ve heard this statement so many times from young athletes, and when I stop to put myself in their shoes, it can be quite terrifying. I remember what it was like in college to be without the sport I had chosen when I was 4. I also remember what it felt like when my first love left me (also while I was in college). Both felt like being thrown into the deepest abyss imaginable.  It was all darkness, and I couldn’t imagine a life different than the one I had known before. I struggled to let go of both and kept searching for ways to maintain contact—with both skating and the boy. 
     If the time has come for a chapter to close, though, then ultimately you will make the leap or be pushed. You shouldn’t stay in a situation that no longer serves you just because you don’t know what else is out there—that only leaves you feeling more heartbroken, more resentful, and even worse about yourself. (Side note: I did meet a woman once who told me, “never quit your job or your boyfriend until you have the next one lined up”, but as I’ve become much more in tune with my mental health over the years, I definitely do not agree with her!)

What’s next, then, once you foresee the big leap?  Here’s what I told my student:

1. First and foremost, make your decision for yourself—not for your coach, your friends, your parents, or your therapist. We all want you to be happy.
2. There is a place in this sport for a different, less competitive, less comparison driven mindset, but you must be the one to create that mindset, and that’s usually only possible with time, space, self-reflection, and guidance.
3. Now is the time to try all the new things—go take a class or a workshop or a YouTube course in something you’ve always wanted to try or completely out of your comfort zone. It might take a few tries to find something that clicks, but ultimately, you’ll keep your mind occupied, you may meet some interesting people, and you’ll learn that you absolutely can exist in a new space.
4. Make sure to set some healthy boundaries. Since you will need time and space to heal and explore new things (see #2 and #3), avoid being drawn back into the life you led before. How much time and space you need will depend on you and the individual circumstances of your athletic retirement. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for keeping your distance, if it’s honestly what you need. Remember, your boundaries protect you and those around you. Many people seek professional help in this department. 
5. Cultivate new friendships and spend time with family. They will be your support when you are needing space from the friends you made in your sport.  (See #3)
6. Keep exercising—find some form of movement that makes you feel good. Enjoy movement for movement’s sake, rather than tying it to some end goal. Yoga is great for connecting with your breath, grounding you in the present moment, and for exercising agency. I chose to get into salsa dancing when I stopped skating, and later, I took up swimming. (Yoga came to me much later.) You can also just take a walk or ride a bike and look at the world! Whatever you do, find an activity that lets you be in control of your movement and move freely, without judgment. Movement is so important for both mental and physical health, and even though you might feel burnt out coming off your sports career, be sure to make time and space for some form of intuitive exercise.
7. Be honest with yourself and others about where you are and how you are feeling. Your mindset may change daily—maybe even hourly. The roller coaster is the transition.

Buckle up, feel all the feelings, give yourself some grace, and enjoy the ride.  

​Some of you may have heard me mention this book a few moths ago, but it’s so good, that I have to bring it back into the conversation. In fact, it’s so good, that I have chosen it for the inaugural Skating Yogi Book Group. Here’s why:
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At the start of 2021, I decided to do some deep personal work and dive into some of my mental and emotional sticking points.  As part of this, I took part in a 6-week immersive course by my friend, the amazing Dr. Katie Blake. This course was intended to guide participants through the process of deconstructing faith, offering support and community rather than dogma.

It turns out that deconstructing faith is quite similar to dissecting the components of any culture or belief system, including those of competitive sports. This makes sense, since sports and religion have been intricately linked since ancient times in Native American, Eastern, and Western civilizations. While modern sports are a secular pursuit, many of the values and details of religion and sports are the same. Both deal with relationships to self and others, personal sacrifice, the pursuit of non-material achievements, and the promotion of purity and higher ideals. Additionally, both rely on ritual, rulebooks, holy houses, and heroes, and both can unite a group of people or tragically divide them.
The first book we read in Dr. Katie Blake’s course was Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness. In this book Dr. Brown talks about our deep, biological need for community and how this need is becoming harder and harder to fulfill in today’s polarized society. Finding community has become even harder since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalations of political tensions. Sports clubs and churches have traditionally offered us this belonging, but as society has become more fragmented, fewer people are staying in communities that we once were a part of. Leaving a restrictive community can be liberating, particularly for people who have traditionally been oppressed. Nevertheless, this freedom can also leave us quite alone. As Dr. Brown says, even as our need for community is greater than perhaps ever before, we are isolating ourselves more and more. We have lost our ability to find common ground, so we retreat.

How do we fix it? According to Dr. Brown, the only way to fix our isolation is to learn to belong to no one but ourselves. You read that right—in order to find community with others, we must learn to belong primarily to ourselves. In Braving the Wilderness, Dr. Brown explains her theory of belonging from her 2010 book titled The Gifts of Imperfection, saying:

Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Wow. Read that last line again—“… our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” 

We have all heard the sayings “you can’t help someone if they won’t help themselves” or “you can’t accept love until you love yourself”, and maybe we have even had experience with these realities.  Either way, reading Dr. Brown’s theory of belonging helped things click for me in a completely new way. 

How often do we do or say things just to fit in? When you are having doubts about your sport or your desires to keep competing, or are growing apart from your friends and teammates, how long are you willing to hide your true desires from yourself and others?  How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice? Authenticity takes courage, but it’s the only true path to belonging. Dr. Brown goes on to say:

True belonging is not something that you negotiate externally, it’s what you carry in your heart. It’s finding the sacredness in being a part of something and in braving the wilderness alone. When we reach this place, even momentarily, we belong everywhere and nowhere.

I am here to tell you that you can find your place in sport and still be your authentic self. You can be part of a club or a team and not sacrifice your sense of self. As one of my students once said, “I realized that you can have friends and not be BFF’s with all of them”. If your current situation in sport does not allow you to be your true self, then I encourage you to explore why and to reach out for help to explore your options.  

Only when we belong to ourselves can we truly belong anywhere.  This is my hope for you.

Our first book club chat will be Sunday, Aug 15, 6:15-7:00 pm EDT. Register here (it's free) and join us! We will discuss Braving the Wilderness in more depth. To support local booksellers, you can purchase your book here. (This is an affiliate link, and I earn a small commission with each purchase). 

Are you looking for guidance on how to transition into a new place within or beyond your sport? Sign up for my mailing list to receive my 7 Principles for Life Beyond Sports to help you on your journey.