5 Ways You're In A Relationship With Your Sport

As athletes, no matter what sport we play, we all have something in common: we are all in committed, long term relationships with our sports. Here are 5 ways you’re in a relationship with your sport.

1. Work and Effort is a Requirement
I’m sure almost everyone reading this has either heard or used the phrase, ‘Marriage/relationships are work’ and, just like the girlfriend who complains to her friends that ‘insert name doesn’t put any effort in’, the same applies to our sport.

As athletes, we’ve had work ethic drilled into our mentality. We are constantly held accountable by our coaches and teammates, and as a result, we’ve learned that our sport can be unforgiving if we don’t give 100% of ourselves. "Just like any other relationship, if you stop putting in the work and making an effort, your sport will have no hesitation in finding a new replacement".

2. No Matter What, the Love is Always There
Like all relationships, our relationship with your sport certainly comes with ups and downs. It’s that love-hate relationship we never want to let go. Sure, our relationship hurts us; we get bruised, battered, and experience mental, physical, and, emotional exhaustion. We get pushed to our limits and constantly have more expected from us. We fight uphill battles and get shown no mercy, and yet, we stay faithful to our sport; we don’t turn our backs. Our sport makes us stronger, it shows us our strengths, it fills us with adrenaline, and it rewards us with feelings of success incomparable to anything else; it’s for these reasons that we find it next to impossible to leave.

3. We Experience Growth
Being in a relationship teaches us a lot about ourselves. No one is the same person they were at the start of a relationship. We pick up attributes, traits, and mentality from other people which then shapes who we become. Our relationship with our sport provides us with enormous growth. When we began our sport, we were nothing like who we’ve become today. It’s the accumulation of all the advice we’ve encountered, alongside our failures, successes, pain and rewards, that has influenced how we’ve developed as athletes.

4. Can’t Imagine a Life Without Our Sport
Most of us have experienced that What If moment. It’s when we see regular students who don’t know what a 6am punishment run looks like, who don’t understand the panic of hearing the words “on the line!”, who have never spoke the words “I can’t go, I have practice”. It’s during these encounters we wonder, What If? What if I was a regular student? What if I wasn’t tied down to this demanding relationship? The truth is we have devoted so much time to maintaining our relationship with our sport that to imagine our lives without it is an absurd thought. We can’t imagine a life of a future where our sport isn’t a part of who we are.

5. Bittersweet Endings and Next Levels
At every stage, we see athletes part ways with competitive sports, and at every step we see others take their relationship to the next level. The length of an athlete’s competitive days varies for everyone. Sometimes the wear and tear of our relationship gets the best of us, sometimes our lives take us down a different path from competitive sport, and other times we reach a point when our sport makes the decision for us. If we could play our sports forever, we would. But the reality is there comes a time when our glory days of competitive sports reach an end. However, our relationship is never truly over. Sure, we may no longer spend as much time on our sport, we may no longer be as devoted, or simply no longer have the means to maintain the same level of relationship, yet we always have that bond. We share memories with our sport, we still follow and keep in touch with our sport, and we always have love for our sport.

Source: https://an.athletenetwork.com/blog/5-ways-youre-in-a-relationship-with-your-sport?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=AthleteNet&utm_content=5%20Ways%20You%27re%20In%20A%20Relationship%20With%20Your%20Sport