Attaining an elite status in competition requires a tremendous amount of inner drive and self discipline. The fire comes from the inside, and yet the skills that we employed were most definitely learned from others. We all had coaches who taught us, challenged us, and brought us new opportunities. They took our talent and drive […]
The Need to Belong: Our place in a team or sport as a fulfillment of a basic need.
From our earliest years, sports can provide a sense of belonging and acceptance. The experience is built into the structure of sport. In team sports, we are accepted as a part of the group, uniforms identify us as such, and we are drawn together by competition on a regular basis. While the outward trappings of […]
The Manner of Endings
Does the manner in which our competitive careers end impact our pursuit of fulfillment beyond? There are any number of different circumstances that can bring about the ending of a competitive career. We can be cut from a team, be injured in ways that diminish our effectiveness, simply age out of some required age span, […]
Physical Foundations: What works for the body after competition?
For years, we’ve trained our bodies to prepare for competition. The focus was never to be healthy or balanced; it was to be stronger, faster, or better. Our goal was to outperform our opponents, or our own limitations. That kind of performance edge does not come from a balanced approach to fitness. We trained to […]
Players Gotta Play: Recreational Sports after Competition
One of the distinctions we draw in this community is that between an athlete and a competitor. We are athletes because of our skill sets and our interest in a given sport (or sports). We become competitors when the opportunity arises for us to actually go out and compete in those sports in an active […]
The Case for Fulfillment.
One of the key distinctions in our group is the difference between being ‘Successful’ and being ‘Fulfilled’ in our lives. The two share interesting connections, though are far from being the same thing. Our focus on the latter, though acknowledging both sets our conversation. It is infinitely possible for a person to be perceived as […]