Community Discussion Blog

Join in our discussions on a wide variety of topics confronting athletes after competition ends. Share your own experience and wisdom to help others. Welcome, 'Shifters'...

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, […]

Continue reading

Welcome to Competitor Shift

Please follow this link to fill out our introductory survey. We will use information collected to insure that future posts and resources meet the needs of our readers. The game is over. The crowds have gone home. Accolades have been handed out, and you find yourself in the twilight of what once seemed an unending […]

Continue reading

From Driven to Driver: When the voice that drives you becomes an echo

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 […]

Continue reading

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 […]

Continue reading

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 […]

Continue reading

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 […]

Continue reading

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 […]

Continue reading