The Unicorn.

I have had athletes ask me how I did it as an athlete. How did I find balance. How did I do it all. The true answer is, most of the time I didn’t.

Balance is like a unicorn. We all talk about it but we’ve never seen it. What I am saying is I personally don’t think we ever really find true balance. Everything is a trade off. When we give one thing more we take away from something else. There never is true balance, just choices. I am not saying that we can’t feel like we have things under control, we for sure can. I am saying that balance means that we have found equality in the things we do and to me that is impossible.

When I was an athlete, especially in high school I for sure burned the fuse at both ends. I would go until I couldn’t, and then I would break down. I was not honest with myself on what I could handle. I was a kid I just kept doing what I thought I was suppose to be doing. In high school I would get up early, go to school, come home, maybe get a little homework done, have a snack, go to practice for 4 hours, come home at 9:30, have “dinner,” do my homework (usually until 12:30 or 1:00 if I was lucky), go to sleep, and do it all over again. It was hard, really freaking hard. But I did it everyday. A lot of mornings I would wake up in tears because I was so tired and stressed. Thought there was no way I could do it but I would get to school and things would slowly start to seem more manageable. I would show up at practice some days thinking there was no way I could get through it, and once in awhile I couldn’t, but the majority of the time I would start moving my body and it just worked.

Why would I do this everyday? Sometimes I don’t think I knew why. Some days I was so tired I wanted to quit everything. But then there were the days that I knew why I did it all. I loved gymnastics. I love the feeling of being challenged, being strong, competing, and learning new skills. I thrived on all of those things. I also took pride in my grades. Again, I love learning. To me that is what life is all about. I did have somewhat of a misguided need to get good grades, partially driven by my father. My parents never put pressure on me in gymnastics. As long as I worked hard and I liked it they were happy but school was a different story. Anything less than an A to my dad was not good enough. He would say “is an A- the best you can do?” I would say “no, an A would be the best.” Looking back however an A- was my best because I always gave everything I had. (Wish I would have realized that then)

As for a social life I had one but I was never big on going out. My best friends were my team mates and they had the same schedule I did so we hung out and had sleepovers when it worked with practice. I never really cared that much about the school events like the dances or football games. I don’t know, it just wasn’t my thing. Maybe that was because I never had the time so it never had the chance to become my thing but honestly, I never felt like I was missing out. I am not taking away from this and saying these things are not important. I know a lot of competitive athletes do feel like they miss out on a lot socially and you do, but you just have to weigh out how important it is to you, and to me at the time, it wasn’t that important. 

I played multiple sports up until college but they were all summer recreational sports with the exception of gymnastics. Playing multiple sports has so many benefits to the body and mind but there does come a time when you do need to choose what your main sport will be if you want to be competitive, It’s just the nature of sports now days. 

So, gymnastics, school, social life, other sports, the question still remains: how do you balance it? The answer is that I have no idea. You just have to try your best. Figure out what is most important at the time and put most of your energy into that. Life takes constant re-evaluating. Every day you have to wake up and figure out what you going to do. Some days are easy and some days are really hard. Some days you will screw up and some days you will get it right. But the thing is, you get to wake up again and make new choices, change your direction or keep your path. That is a really important thing to keep perspective on. I am not saying you get to do exactly what you want everyday but you do get to choose how you react to the things that happen to you. That is powerful.

What happens when we get too overwhelmed? Something has to give. I think we think that quitting something because we are stressed would make life so much easier but the thing is, life will always have something that challenges us. In my opinion if it doesn’t we are not living it right. I also think you never quit something because it is hard, or because you are stressed out. You quit something because you don’t love it anymore. (Yes you can still love something that is hard and stresses you out!) You quit something because it is no longer adding to your life. You quit something because physically your body can’t do it anymore, maybe because of injuries. But you do not quit because it is hard, you are overwhelmed, you are having a bad day, or because you are having a bad month! Getting through those rough patches is what makes you so good at something. It is what makes you good at life. Never give up on yourself because something is hard because you are so much stronger than you think you are. 

Now, all this being said it is also very important to know when you need a break. When you need to take a step back. There are going to be days where you can’t do it all and that is ok. Take a day off, cry it out, go play outside, hang out with a friend. Do what you need to do do get your self back on whatever track you’re on and ready to take on life. It is also so much easier to handle the stresses of life wires you have a good support system around you. Make sure you have those people you can go to when you need to talk.

To sum it up, Balance in life is a myth. It doesn’t exist. What does exist is your power to make choices. Put your energy into the things you need to and want to then redirect that energy when needed. Just work hard, know your limits, and keep going. You are doing great.