Why Don’t I Feel like Myself Anymore? Reasons Transitioning out of Sports can Feel so Hard.
Article By: Carinthia Bank, LSW, MSW, MSC
When you leave your sport, it can feel like you’re leaving everything you know. The spark that sets transition in motion can comes with its own challenges – being cut from a team, suffering a career-ending injury, needing to fill other obligations in your family or community – but even when you meet transition with excitement, it can be difficult. When you’ve been devoted to your sport for years (or decades), one of the biggest challenges can be coping with change. Below, are five areas of change many athletes encounter when they transition out of their sport. Ask yourself if any of these sound familiar to you and see if you can try some strategies for caring for yourself around these changes.
Changes in your social world
As an athlete, you may be used to spending your day with a group of teammates who share your passion. Many athletes find it difficult to stay in touch with teammates who are continuing to play, especially when transitioning brings them to a new city and new lifestyle. Athletes can also feel weird about initiating connection with others when they’re used to sport creating a social world for them.
Tips: Make plans with a few teammates to stay in touch (ex. once a week phone call), particularly for the first year or so of transition. Reach out to childhood friends and other people who knew you before the peak of your career – some athletes find their old friends are thrilled when transition brings more time to hang out together, even if the last get together was years ago. Commit to putting energy into connecting with new people who interest you.
Changes in your identity
You may be used to everybody, including yourself, knowing you as your sport. In transition, some athletes feel lost when people ask them to introduce themselves. You may find yourself wondering, “Am I still Sam, the soccer player? Am I now Sam, the former-soccer player? Am I Sam, the-person-trying-new-things-and-figuring-out-who-I-am-in-this-stage-of-my-life?”
Tips: Try journaling (or talking to a friend). Think about who you were as an athlete. Were you hardworking? Creative? Resilient? Tuned into your teammates? Next, ask yourself who you want to be now. Do you want to hold onto some of the qualities that made you a great athlete? Are there ways you want to be different in the next stage of your life? Think about what it means to you to have the label of your sport and consider how you want to maintain your connection with that label and how you want to nourish growth in new directions.
Changes in your routine
Many athletes are used to structure. Sport can provide you with a rhythm for each day, each week, each year or even four-year cycle. Transition often requires athletes to create their own routines, which can feel like a welcome luxury, but can also feel overwhelming.
Tips: If structure is comforting to you, use it. If you went to bed at 9 when you were training, go to bed at 9 in transition. If you’re used to looking forward to competing on Saturday afternoons, schedule something else to look forward to – plan a bike ride with a friend, watch a movie that excites you, cook a special meal. Over time, you may find yourself wanting to move away from this structured lifestyle. It’s normal for it to take some time to figure things out, and it’s also normal for your wants and needs to change as you move through your transition process.
Changes in your purpose
A sport can feel like a higher cause that deserves the best efforts of your favorite parts of yourself. Sometimes, it can feel like every action you took that left you feeling good, you did not for yourself, but for your sport. Some athletes find that when they transition, they’re left without a reason to put their best effort into anything. Their first job may not inspire them to work as hard as they’re used to, they may no longer have a community to which they want to contribute, they may be too tired from coping with the change to feel like exercising, etc. Some athletes do put immense effort into their new activities, but find themselves wondering why that effort doesn’t leave them feeling as good as the effort that went into their sport. When athletes are used to sport providing them with purpose, life in transition can feel unmotivating and unrewarding.
Tips: Ask yourself why you did your sport. Was it to be remembered? To provide financially for family members? To express yourself and feel seen? To connect with a caretaker? To feel alive? Some athletes find it helpful to develop awareness of why they did their sport, and then to consider how they can continue pursuing this “why” in the next phase of life. You may pursue this “why” through your next career, volunteer work, writing a book, etc. This can be a tough question, so return to it each year to see if your answer evolves as you continue learning about yourself in transition.
Changes in your focal point
As an athlete, you may be used to thinking about your sport more than anything else. This makes sense, and you may continue thinking about your sport more than anything else during your transition. You may also find yourself thinking about things that you felt you didn’t have time to think about while you were doing your sport. Some of these topics may be fun and exciting, and others may be scary or difficult. You may find yourself wondering where these things came from or why you didn’t think about them before, while you were playing. You are not the only one to experience this. When you’re familiar with something and good at it, it can feel like a refuge from parts of your life that are overwhelming, chaotic, new, or unpleasant. Sport can feel like a safe place for an athlete’s mind to go. For some athletes, the intensity of their focus on sport gives them a break from thoughts about other, difficult things or provides a controlled environment for coping with these things through the physicality of the sport. In transition, your focus may shift away from sport and new topics may jostle for spots in the center of your mind.
Tips: If sport gave you something safe to think about, exercise self-compassion during transition. It can be exciting to start working on all the things you didn’t have time for during your athletic career, but doing this all the time may be unsustainable. Go to therapy, but also give yourself breaks – watch relaxing tv shows, let yourself get into new sports or hobbies that occupy your mind, read books that absorb you.
Bala Cynwyd Therapist
Carinthia Bank is a therapist practicing at our office in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Carinthia supports people across the Main Line and from the city of Philadelphia to develop a healthier relationship with themselves through mindfulness and DBT therapy. She can support you in transitioning out of a sport based career . To schedule with Carinthia for an appointment at our Bala Cynwyd office please click here.