It's sad to say that we often hear about athletes feeling as though the sports they participate in become a laboring job to them. Especially once they get to college. If you just so happen to go to college on a scholarship for sports, everything within that organization is now mandatory to you. You have special obligations to attend to and the work for that sport feels like someone is forcing you to love it.
It's hard to love something when you're forced to do it every day. So often you hear about the passion that athletes have for the sport dying. Why is that?
From my own personal experiences, I swam in college. I only swam my freshmen year because I just couldn't take it anymore. The sport I once loved became something I wasn't happy about. Why was it that I was swimming the best I had ever swam in my life, yet I wasn't happy?
I can tell you one thing: I have realized that when you take the passion out of a sport, it's hard to want to continue. When you have coaches who don't really don't care about you as a person, but you as an athlete, it's hard to continue. When you have teammates who feel the same way you do, it's hard to continue.
It's so important that we realize this is happening more and more frequently. So often college sports become something we have to do, and the fun we once had is taken away from us. It becomes a part of you. And i'm not talking about in "a good way", no. You get labeled as your sport and not as your name. You get separated from others, and you're no longer you. It's sad because you once loved your sport dearly.
You have hours that you have to be there everyday, and you work your butt off to not be appreciated. You deserve more appreciation than what is given. Often you're even told "Oh, you didn't try hard enough today," but deep down you know you gave it your all. Maybe your all just wasn't good enough for that coach and that team. And that's exactly our problem. We start to blame ourselves and be hard on ourselves. We're our biggest critics when you know that others would kill to be as great as an athlete as you, but it still isn't enough for your expectations.
It's so important to find the reasons you started in the first place. Look back on where you are and be proud of yourself. We often forget to take the time to do this and get so caught up in our monotonous obligations. If there's one thing I've learned, it's to remember what motivated you to get here. All that hard work needs to be rewarding to you, not just another task completed off the list of things to do.
