Ep.5 Balancing Sports and Life

Intro

Hey guys, welcome back to Growth on the Daily, the personal development podcast for athletes. My name is Rey. I'm a former competitive hockey player, passionate about self-growth and I'm here to support you on your journey to becoming the best version of you. For those of you who are new to the show thank you so much for finding us and welcome to Growth on the Daily. And for those of you who are back for another episode, thank you again for your continuous support. Just before we dive in guys, just a reminder to follow us on Instagram @growthonthedaily to stay up to date with the show. With that, let's dive into the episode.

Today's episode is titled Balancing Sports and Life. In terms of Specialties for Success, we are focused on spiritual. The spiritual category talks about what brings you peace. If you were at a point in life where you want to establish balance in your athletic lifestyle, then this episode is for you. Alright let's hear from the experts.

No Cap, All Facts

In my research this week, I really wanted to understand two things. The first, why is balanced actually needed in an athletic lifestyle? And two, what does that balance look like? So to answer the first question, I took a look at two articles. The first comes from Youth Sports Psychology, which states the following "frequently kids burn out and never go back to sports to help avoid burnout, parents help their kids lead a well-rounded life rather than focusing solely on sports". I think many of us who've played sports as a child can agree with this. How many people have you seen drop out of sports? Whether they're just over it, or it was just too much for them. I can't tell you how many kids have done that through my hockey career and as well as other sports.

Another article that I thought was interesting was from Peak Sports and they have the perfect analogy for why you actually need balance and why you should want balance as an athlete in your life. And they state this, "The train eat, sleep, repeat mindset is an eggs-all-in-one-basket investment. Competitions become all or nothing, success or failure and that's a risky proposition. Think of it in terms of investing money, you would never dream of taking every penny and everything you own and investing in only one stock. So why would you do the same thing athletically? The key to athletic success is having a balance in your life". Like I said, I think you guys can completely agree with this one. That is the perfect analogy for those of you struggling and don't really understand why you might be over-training or why that's even a problem. So let's talk about more what does that balance look like now that we know that we need this balance?

And that's where we're going to look to an article from Training 2XL, who states a couple of examples of how you can actually establish this balance. So their recommendation is to "have something outside of your sport or activity, plan activities with friends and family, have a lazy day, sit at a coffee shop and read for a couple of hours laying in your bed and take 10 deep breaths. Find something to compliment your grind." I think that last section of that quote there finding something to compliment your grind is the key to finding balance because we live in a culture right now that is very "hustle nation", "grind all the time", you know? Don't worry about anyone else and focus on hard work, putting in the work. And if you're not productivity 10X all the time, then you're slacking. And that's a lot of pressure no wonder we're over-training. So knowing that we have to find what compliments our grind. What else can we do to balance the scales of our training, of our commitment to being a competitive athlete.

And that's what we're going to discover more throughout this episode. So I hope at this point, you guys understand that you need balance in your athletic lifestyles and that there's ways to establish that and how we're going to look to do that is by complimenting your grind. So now guys, let's hear my take. I want to share with you a few ways that I compliment my grind and establish that balance in my lifestyle.

Rey's Remedy

The first thing I want to mention is I am by no means an expert in time management. I like to say I'm constantly learning and I know that's cliche because everyone says that "I'm a lifelong learner" but it's honestly the truth. I find myself getting a grasp of my schedule. I feel a little bit well-oriented. And then all of a sudden, now I'm seeing a new doctor or I got a new job, or there's somebody new in my life that I have to make time for. And when that happens, my schedule completely shifts and then everything kind of falls out of whack again. By no means I'm an expert in the subject, but rather that I have a lot of experiences by trying to do this in many different ways.

And at this point, I know a little bit about what works for me and what doesn't, and hopefully you guys can takeaway something from my constant trial and error process. The first thing is make a schedule. I am such a calendar person. I don't care if I have an important business meeting, a doctor's appointment, or my friend wants to catch up on FaceTime. Everything goes in the calendar because there's so much going on around us that I found that I can miss the little things. And oftentimes it's the little things that are the most significant, like calling that friend. So that's why I keep a schedule.

Now, I've done this a ton of different ways. I've done everything from tracking every single minute of my day, to just important meetings, to things here and there that I think are important that I really want to make sure I don't forget about. And now I'm kind of in the middle of it all, to be honest. I throw everything in my calendar, but unless it's a meeting with another person, it doesn't have to happen at that time. It just means I have to do it in that day. And so that's really more about listening to me because sometimes I'm like, I know I have to get this done, but my brain is not just there right now. And I need to give it that break.

Maybe that's going for a walk, exercising, watching Netflix who knows. And then I go back to it later. So it's very much what I call a flexible schedule. You have some fixed times, but a lot of it is variable. Again, this is a trial and error process. That's going to be different for everyone, but that's just what works best for me. So find what schedule works for you. Are you someone who writes things down? If you are like kudos! I don't know anyone who does that so, amazing if you're one of those people! But I'm assuming most of us will just throw things in our phone, on our icalendar if you're an apple user. Or Google Calendar as well works great. Whatever works for you and just throw some things in that you're looking to get done block out a few hours.

If you want to hear more about this, let me know in the comments and I can definitely throw some recommendations on schedule building. My second recommendation is making time for what brings you peace. We talked about the fact that the Specialty for Success for this episode is spiritual. And under the spiritual category that talks about what brings you peace. So you have to understand a couple things. I look at what brings me peace in two different ways, my stressors and my relationships. Stressors means what is constantly in my mind that needs to get done or that's causing me anxiety that I need to handle and get a grip on.

For example, maybe I'm struggling in school. Maybe I'm stressed about money. Maybe I'm stressed about finding a job could be many things. Then the other facet is relationships and I mean relationships with everyone, relationships with yourself, with other people. Obviously it can be family, friends, professional, whatever it is, but those are kind of the two facets, stressors and relationships when it comes to bringing you peace. So I look at what can I do to bring me peace? Look at my stressors. Do I have any stressors? The answer is always yes, because we're always stressed. So. For my stressors. I look at what can I do to relieve this? That's when you get into the whole kind of self-care module and doing things for you. Self-care looks different for everybody. For me, honestly, it's spacing out and I do that in various ways. Honestly, taking a nap just to get a reset. Watching Netflix, if I just want my mind to be elsewhere or going on a nature walk with my dog to literally put myself in a new environment. Those are just some ways that I take care of myself and just calms me down.

But it might be other things like looking at relationships. If you don't really know what's going on in your friend's and family's lives that might mean that there's a gap there for you. So just think about the areas that you can improve on to just calm you down and just let you feel like you have a better handle on your time. The third thing I would say is socialize meaningfully. And I say, do this at least once a week, obviously schedule dependent, who knows what's going on in your life. But my point is make time for it. It doesn't have to be a big thing. You don't have to go to a party or anything, right? Like you can just grab a coffee with a friend.

Be on FaceTime or Zoom or whatever platform you use for an hour, but not related to anything like work, just have fun, have a conversation with your friends, go for a drive with someone. Socialize! Your body needs to interact with other people, because then you're out of your head and you're actually taking action and developing those relationships. So get a handle on your schedule, make that schedule of what works for you. Then make time for what brings you peace. And that's by first understanding what area you should be looking at your stressors or relationships or both. Pick one to start with. And then socialize meaningfully at least once a week to get yourself out of your head, out of your environment, out of your house and do something to develop those relationships and build those experiences. Now that's enough talking from me. So you guys know it's time for a quick shoutout.

Hold the Mic

Alright guys, this is a very important shoutout this week. We are shouting out the Training Ground App. This is a social learning app that is perfect for this audience because they capture everything and more that we do on the show. By helping athletes build confidence and skills for what they call a tech-enabled world through micro-learning and mentorship. So you can learn various topics through their mobile app, including personal development, leadership, investing, personal branding. Tons of things to improve yourself as athletes just as we do on the Growth on the Daily show. So go check out their Instagram @trainingground.app and download the app today and start working through this app alongside listening to the podcast.

Alright, guys, let's wrap this up.

Meaningful Mentions

I have three key takeaways for you for this episode. The first is acknowledge the importance of a balanced lifestyle. Recognize over-training is only doing you more harm than good, and that your time is better spent spread out in various areas of your life. Spending time with family, spending time by yourself, spending time training, spending time resting. Whatever that looks like for you. The second thing is understand the gaps in your lifestyle. What are you not doing that you feel like you should be, or you want to do. Maybe you want to make some more time to travel. Maybe you want to spend more time with your family. Maybe you want some more alone time, make that time, recognize that. But first you're going to have to take the time to reflect on that, to understand where you're at and where you want to be. And then the final step for you guys is making time for your life outside of training. You are an athlete, but that is not all you are. That is part of your identity, not your entire identity.

To keep you guys going on this track this week I have a quote for you from Dolly Parton, country singer, who says these wonderful words "never gets so busy making a living that you forget to make a life". So I hope you guys take that quote with you this week, and hopefully that motivates you to get on track with balancing your athletic lifestyle and your personal life.

Outro

Alright guys, that's all we got this week for this episode. So thank you guys so much for taking the time to tune into this episode. I applaud you guys for committing to learn, grow, and thrive. Send this episode to a friend, family member, teammate or coach or anyone looking to improve themselves because that is how we grow the show and grow this community. And of course, check out our website, www.growthonthedaily.com for more info. And if you've got some time, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our website. We definitely appreciate it. Thanks guys. And see you next week!