The Pedastal

As an athlete myself, this is probably what hurt me the most. Ever since I was a kid, my dream has always been to play football professionally in Europe. A few years ago that dream became only to play NCAA Division 1. ‘Only’ is a really cocky way to describe my change in ambitions, but it is a good reflection of my real thinking going into that decision. However, as ‘cocky’ as I have been since that shift, my body and my mind, as a result of consequent decisions, have made

We are constantly told by our coaches, our parents, our teachers, our teammates, sideliners watching on, and even the great stars and athletes we see on TV to “STAY HUMBLE”. To humble ourselves. To humble our character. To humble our magnitude as an athlete who's given their life to a sport that they love, sacrificing who knows what in their lives, closing off who knows how many doors to take this one path and bet on it, shutting away how many voices, turning down how many p

My generation of rising athletes is the most competitive, polished and professional batch of athletes that the sporting world has seen. I say that with a certain pride, knowing that I am apart of the group. We give ourselves the label of ‘athletes’. We spend an unimaginable amount of time editing our highlights and branding ourselves as a commodity. We track our performance, our recovery, our sleep. We are becoming, by each day, more and more professional. Athletes who know h

Flow Balancing the Pendulum (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Much like each of the other factors, the key to maximising your chances of uncovering your flow state is to find that particular sweet spot. In this case, the level of challenge and skill that brings out a flow state comes at a specialised Goldilocks zone. This refers to the task being hard enough to keep you fully engaged yet not so hard that you’ll choke. Here we are introduced to two psychological laws, the first bein

Athletes are like performers. They are the actors in the production process. They are the spotlight, the protagonists, the stars. They are who we see on screens. They are the ones that earn the big bucks, the faces that you have posters on in your bedroom. They are the ones with the most followers on social media, the ones that fans will travel a sea-length to see. But who are actors without their fans, their agent, their backstage staff, their director, their marketing crew

Congratulations. You made it here. Congratulations, because you survived the pedastal, and that’s something not many can afford, and not many has afforded. It’s a true achievement. An achievement for the few, by the few. You’ve let the pedestal get the best of you, you’ve let the pedestal hand you its inherent rewards, yet you haven’t fallen off. By doing so, you’ve given yourself the rare gift of a slower, more deliberate descent. You chose to step down, rather than lettin

The Objectification of Athletes They say sports are the purest form of human expression. But somewhere along the way, the purity got packaged. Sold. Broadcast. Clipped and captioned. Athletes became products. Highlights became currency. Pain became content. We stopped watching people. We started consuming them. The world doesn’t always see the human behind the jersey. They see stats. A contract. A body moving at inhuman speeds, and they expect performance on demand — like a m

Loris Karius started his career playing for local team SG Mettenberg and SSV Ulm 1846 before joining VfB Stuttgart. Talented in his reflexes and shot-stopping abilities, he rapidly rose through the youth ranks and appeared for the German under-16 national team against FYROM in September 2008. Manchester City invited Karius and his family to England after watching him in Germany's under-16 game against Azerbaijan, and completed his signing on 1 July 2009. Karius played for the

For many youth athletes, their identity becomes intertwined with their sport. This phenomenon can lead to an "identity foreclosure," where young athletes define themselves solely by their athletic achievements. While this can be propelling for an athlete’s drive, it also concurrently sets them in vulnerability. A setback or impediment that ever so slightly goes over a personal tolerance mark can induce compounded detriments over oneself. When you define yourself in attachment

The sport for me is football. I don’t really know how it came to me. I used to go to the park with my parents every weekend when I was five or so, and my parents recalled that I would stick my face up to the green-painted, rust-stained steel fences that enclosed a five-a-side football field every day, eagerly peeking into a group of boys, a year or so older than me, kicking a rubber ball around frantically. I remember seeing a coach clad in a white compression shirt with blac

So, how does this apply to us athletes? Well, 21.5 million young footballers, again, is a huge number, and that is an understatement. And yet what makes us so minuscule sparks that flame that lasts all the while until it blows out. Why? Why do we put free time that could be spent elsewhere to attempt to attain a ratio that increasingly stacks against our will? Why is every Saturday morning spent on the training ground? Why is every Sunday night spent pondering over a bad game

Research has shown that the size of the competition group can significantly impact individual motivation levels—a phenomenon known as the N-effect (Stevens & Abarbanell, 2013). When competing in smaller groups, individuals often feel more motivated to excel because they perceive a clearer opportunity for social comparison and recognition. In larger groups, however, the motivation tends to diminish as the likelihood of standing out decreases. The paper titled "The N-Effect: Mo

A snowball effect is a process that begins with a minor significance and grows (an exacerbating feedback), becoming larger (graver, more serious), and possibly more dangerous or disastrous (a vicious circle). Young athletes go through a similar process. As they come to realize just how difficult it is to break through, it becomes rather explicit that mediocrity won’t get them anywhere near their goals. And what is the result of that understanding? The consistent yearning to o

On a day in May 2019, Manchester United teammates Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard shared the same cryptic message on Instagram: "0.012%." It wasn’t random. The number represented the harsh reality that of the 1.5 million boys playing youth football in England, only 180 would ever make it to the Premier League. The odds of success were only slightly better than being struck by lightning—a sobering thought for anyone chasing the dream of top-flight football. There are around

You put me on a pedestal and tell me I'm the best Raise me up into the sky until I'm short of breath Fill me up with confidence, I say what's in my chest Spill my words and tear me down until there's nothing left Rearrange the pieces just to fit me with the rest, In 1994 Andreas Escobar was put on the pedestal. He was the ‘Gentlemen’ of Colombia, an icon for the entire country. The world gave him their flowers—to do what he does best. To go out to the grass of the Beautiful