Finding Your Purpose through Athletics
Many young athletes and parents believe they may be the next Tom Brady, make it to the NFL, or even make it to D1. Unfortunately, for many avid dreamers, those chances are very slim. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, and of course, I want that for all of my athletes, but a lack of awareness and a misguided North Star is a fool’s greatest folly.
My purpose for this blog is not to ruin your dreams; it’s to help you find your purpose and bring some reality to a dream that may or may not be what you were brought here for.
Do not be a fool. Do not spend your whole life chasing a dream that isn’t nearly as great as it seems.
Reality
According to a 2016 survey, only 6.8% of high school players went to college to play football at any of the three divisions. How many of those who made it to college made it pro? 1.5%. (1)
Think you’re a part of the 1.5% of the 6.8%? That’s the .1% of players who actually play high school football.
How did I make it? I have no idea. To be honest, I wasn’t supposed to. The number of times I overcame doubt and criticism to make it to the NFL can’t be counted on two hands, but I didn’t let those remarks prevent me from working hard and doing all that I could at the time. In fact, it’s probably the doubt that fueled my incessant drive to prevail despite the circumstances.
How about this reality? A 2009 article in Sports Illustrated said that 35% of NFL players, 60% of NBA players, and 78% of MLB players declared bankruptcy within two years of leaving their position. (2)
Or that professional athletes are subject to high rates of burnout, psychological distress, and mental health, similar to the general population. (3)
More money and fame will not solve your heart’s deepest craving. In fact, it will give you more problems to deal with, which is why I’m so worried about today’s high school phenoms who get praised and rewarded for their performance BEFORE they’ve done anything! Excelling in high school is great, but really you haven’t done anything, nor proven yourself. Add money to the equation and these kids will be emotionally unstable when they get to the real world and realize that most people just don’t care about high school stats.
Don’t let this information depress you. While assuredly this information taken out of context can be depressing, a different perspective may be more helpful and uplifting. It all revolves around your perspective on sports and what you think about your unique purpose.
If you decide your mission in life is to make it to the league, and it doesn’t happen, is your life a failure?
Sports will end for all of us, and so will our lives. In the middle of it, where do we find our purpose? Again, if you decide that sports is your only purpose when it ends, you will feel like it was all a waste of time. If you determine your purpose is to make an excessive amount of money, but then you die and can’t take any of it with you, what is the point?
Today, I’m going to walk you through the reason why finding your why early is so critical for developing as an elite athlete and building a life well-lived.
What is purpose?
Purpose, similar to intention, means we have a reason for doing what we do. We work to provide for our family. We eat to nourish our bodies. We exercise to feel good. You live to continue to improve and develop into the best version of yourself. You get the point.
Walking through life without an aim, without a guide, like a little 2-year-old child, will lead us into despair as we go off chasing any whim that comes our way.
Thankfully, our parents guide us away from chasing whims and instead direct us toward pursuing what is best for us, whether real food, reading a book, or spending time outdoors instead of gaming.
What is the proper aim?
There are things that are good for us and bad for us. If we decide to watch TV instead of playing with the dog, the dog gets lazy, fat, and sick, and so do we. If we choose candy instead of meat, our energy fluctuates uncontrollably, our teeth start to decay, and the scale elevates.
Things that are good for us are often what we want to do the least. These things are unenjoyable for a reason: They make us better, which requires a sacrifice of time, energy, enjoyment, etc.
If you’re unwilling to sacrifice one of these things, you’re unwilling to serve the highest good. You’re simply serving the most immediate desire that you’re facing, which soon after leads to more immediate desires. You’re serving the immediate good, which, like a two-year-old child knows, does not take you far.
You may remember the Cookie Test, in which kids have to choose between eating one cookie now or waiting for a certain amount of time to be given two cookies. Kindergartners have a 72% chance of eating the first cookie than waiting. Trust me, it’s harder than it looks.
So, what is the right aim? Sacrificing the most of us in place of serving the highest good for us, our families, and our communities. If we decide to do things for ourselves, then sure enough, what comes next is a sincere lack of meaning and purpose. We have allowed our whims to control our decisions instead of chasing what is highest.
What is the highest aim?
Every single person on earth has unique skills, traits, experiences, interests, tendencies, and weaknesses. Nobody else has the same makeup as we do, which is special!! That is not something to discount! Each person so unique down to the very cell, so why should we act like we are supposed to be chasing the same things? Despite what society encourages us to believe, we’re not meant to be the same as everyone else.
The highest good, then, is to serve and maximize our unique position. Based on our differentiated makeup, we are responsible for making the absolute most of the skills, experiences, and tendencies we’ve been given by sacrificing what our desires tell us to do and instead seeking to use our gifts as tools to give back to the world in a way that only we can do.
Your unique make up is needed in the world.
How to find your purpose?
Your purpose, which is unique to you and only you, is something you must seek for yourself. Finding your purpose requires deep introspection, testing different ideas and activities, and continual education.
Sitting in a bubble full of comfort, you’ll never see what you’re made of and what you love. You must seek to test your boundaries, which is where your greatest joy lies. Paolo Coehlo says in The Alchemist:
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
You do not find your purpose enjoying petty, earthly desires such as watching TV shows or relentlessly scrolling through social media. You find yourself and your heart when you’re tested and when you learn that the more you sacrifice for the greater good, the more you gain in return.
Your purpose must be fervently sought after. You must find out for yourself where your unique abilities are most needed and what makes you shine.
Another quote I love by Rev. Howard Thurman, he says:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Finding Your Purpose through Athletics
If your purpose in life is to be an elite athlete, bravo! But you don’t know that until you get there, and even then, your career will not last forever.
Trust me, if you pursue a career in athletics and realize too late that you’re chasing something largely out of your control, that solicits teenagers for their time, energy, name, and likeness, and will definitely end earlier than you hope, you will surely be disappointed.
Not everyone can be an elite athlete, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be the best you. And actually, that’s our ultimate goal anyway.
To be an athlete is as divine an endeavor as being an artist, public speaker, musician, physician, or any other profession. Your unique physical, mental, and spiritual skills are on display for the world to see.
However, the ultimate outcome on the field is not what is most divine; it’s what’s developed internally, from the dedication to something higher, that prevails as the primary benefit of athletics. Learning how to cultivate the WHOLE person, mind, body, and spirit through discipline, teamwork, perseverance, focus, battling adversity, and learning how to lead makes it all worthwhile.
Athletics are the ultimate training ground for life. They test you, challenge you in mind, body, and spirit, and require a commitment to something outside of yourself in your team that builds lifelong skills and confidence unlike any other.
Your purpose isn’t found in the actual sport. Your purpose is found in the skills you develop because of it. Through athletics, you learn who you are and what you’re made of. Do you crumble at the first sign of a challenge or step up to the plate with courage? Do you see failure as a ceiling or an obstacle to overcome? You learn that your purpose is found in what you’ve sacrificed to help your team succeed, becoming the best version of yourself along the way.
My Journey
If I had set my sights on the NFL at an early age, I don’t know if I would’ve made it. And I surely wouldn’t be where I am today. I took my journey one day at a time and worked as hard as I could at whatever I did. Luckily, I had great tools to work with, and a great environment and teammates helped me progress further than I could ever imagine. However, thinking past the current season wasn’t even in my conscious awareness. This forced me to be present in whichever activity I was engaged in, whether it was school, football, or my social life.
The downside of athletics is that you can easily attribute your value as a person to your success on the field. Throughout Boys and Girls Club and high school ball, I found success and received awards and local fame for my performance. Then, I continued to get rewarded in college and finally in the pros. When my career ended and the past 14 years of being rewarded for tackling people were taken away, I lost complete control of my identity. Do people actually like me for me, or was I just another body on the field?
After years of reflection, I finally learned my value as a person did not reside in my stat line or highlight reel. Crazy enough, I found my value in how I treated and led people on my team and my dedication to working harder than anyone else to achieve my goals. These skills learned through my parents, and sports are more valuable than any trophy or scholarship can reward. They carry over infinitely into every other aspect of life and will pay off more than any NIL deal would’ve afforded. I truly am lucky I did not experience that part of college football, which I believe will lead to innumerably more issues than will be good for the players, unfortunately.
Final Thoughts
We do not know what life has in store for us over the long term. You may want one thing at ten years old but realize two years or two days later that it’s not really what you want, which happens to me daily. And that’s good! That means you’re listening to your heart. Iconic American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Instead of focusing our entire attention on these long-term, unknowable goals, and athletics can be very unknowable, focus your purpose on being the best you can be.
Do the very best you can right here and right now. Listen to your heart and do what you love, knowing there will be times when your life will be challenging and you’ll wonder if you’re on the right path. Trust that the right path will find you if you search for it hard enough.
When you let go of certainty and have faith that your complete dedication to your highest good will prevail, the world will open up to you. You just have to give it a chance.
Learn more
I can only imagine how tough being a parent can be, much less helping your athlete develop into the player you know they can be. Being a coach and parent and general manger is one too many hats to don.
That’s why I’ve created LEADRX, a 6-week online leadership program for 7th -12th graders designed to teach them everything I’ve learned about leadership through my career in football and helping them finding their purpose as a leader and a human. It’s what I wish I had at 15 years old, and I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned with guys who are eager to become their best selves.
Be sure to register now by clicking here. Registration ends May 27th, and the course begins on June 3rd!
Further, sign up for weekly group training classes here. We have options for everyone and hope you begin before the summer rush hits!
References:
- http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing-professional-athletics
- https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/14/money-lessons-learned-from-pro-athletes-financial-fouls.html
- Rice SM, Purcell R, De Silva S, Mawren D, McGorry PD, Parker AG. The Mental Health of Elite Athletes: A Narrative Systematic Review. Sports Med. 2016 Sep;46(9):1333-53. doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0492-2. PMID: 26896951; PMCID: PMC4996886.
