Adjusting to Life After Competitive Sports
Organized and competitive athletics such as club teams, high school teams, and college teams can be experiences that are extremely impactful and shape our perceptions of ourselves. Being an athlete can become part of one’s identity. Playing sports at any level can shape our lives, goals, interests, and perceptions of ourselves.
Sports tend to be a long-term commitment and a significant commitment of time. Being dedicated to sports can become something that feels like a lifestyle and can shape the way you live your life even outside of practices and competitions. Therefore, adjusting to life after sports can be a significant change and a tough adjustment for many people. This adjustment can create a variety of different barriers. It can lead to stress, over exercising individually, changing your workouts, noticing changes to your athletic ability, and noticing changes to your body. Below are some ways that you can help yourself start adjusting to some of these changes.
How You Can Begin Adjusting to Lifestyle Changes
1. Leaving competitive athletics can sometimes mean leaving a very organized form of exercise.
Navigating what it looks like to exercise on your own can feel overwhelming. If exercise is something you want to continue doing, allow yourself to be open minded to the idea of exploring new options to see what works for you. If you notice that something you liked about sports was exercising with a group, look into exercise classes that are led by an instructor coaching you through the exercise and other people exercising with you.
If you still greatly enjoy competing, then explore the idea of looking for recreational leagues or clubs near you, so you can continue to participate in a sport you enjoy. Sometimes, no longer being involved in sports gives you the opportunity to try new things. This could be a great time to try a new sport or type of exercise and find something that you enjoy even more. Start off by asking yourself, “what is my purpose for exercising now?” “What does exercising mean to me now?” “What are my exercise goals?” These can be good questions to help you reevaluate what you want and to explore new ideas.
2. Leaving competitive athletics can create many lifestyle changes.
This can result in feeling like your athletic abilities and body image change. Give yourself compassion and permission to let these changes happen. Your body and athletic ability will naturally change throughout life, so letting yourself become comfortable with this goes far beyond athletics.
Pay attention to your eating behaviors and self talk as these can typically be areas of concern for people who leave athletics. Check in with yourself about your new purpose for exercising, and ask yourself if your actions support those new values.
This could make the transition feel easier because you can still create a sense of succeeding for yourself by reminding yourself that you are achieving goals and living in alignment with your values.
Overall, leaving competitive athletics is a big adjustment and like other adjustments will take some time to get used to. There will likely be some trial and error in finding out what is your new way of doing things. Allow yourself the opportunity to explore different exercises, kinds of nutrition, and lifestyles until you find the one that works best for you now. Also allow yourself the opportunity to grieve this change. It is significant, and depending on the length of time you spent participating in sports, you might find that you don’t know who you are without it. Use other supports that you have in your life during this transition so that you can be reminded that there are other aspects that make up who you are outside of sports.
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Written by: Lindsay Fortier, LGPC
Lindsay is a Licensed Graduate Professional Counselor (LGPC) at LifeSpring Counseling Services in Maryland, and she specializes in anxiety, depression, and life transitions. She works closely with college students and athletes.
Photo Credit: RF._.studio, Monstera, Karolina Grabowska, and William Fortunato
Date of download: 9/29/2022
