This is the question most high performers never ask. Not because they lack self-awareness. Many are extraordinarily self-aware. They can tell you their strengths, their development areas, their leadership style, their values. But self-awareness and self-knowledge aren’t the same thing. Self-awareness is seeing the pattern. Self-knowledge is understanding what’s underneath it – and being willingContinue reading “Who Am I Without The Performance?”
Tag Archives: athlete transition
What Keeps Driving Me?
High performers tend to share a particular quality. They’re good at what they do. Very good. Exceptionally good. And they work hard to be that good. What gets examined less often is why. Not why in the motivational sense – the goals, the vision, the love of the game or the craft. That part isContinue reading “What Keeps Driving Me?”
Why Do I Keep Ending Up In The Same Place?
When a career comes to an end – or there is a significant shift – most of us do what comes natural. We look for what’s next. A new role. A new challenge. A new environment where we can take what we know and go again. For athletes, it might be coaching, business, media. ForContinue reading “Why Do I Keep Ending Up In The Same Place?”
Creating the conditions for change and transformation.
I originally wrote this as a journal entry – the ‘you’ I’m addressing is a part of me. It felt more honest to keep it in this format rather than hide behind ‘we’ or ‘some people I’ve worked with’ – my hope is that others will recognise part of themselves in this too. True changeContinue reading “Creating the conditions for change and transformation.”
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
We suffer in the denial of what is. We attempt to change it, deny it, suppress it, hide it, ignore it, numb it – anything to avoid feeling discomfort. We crave pleasure and have an aversion to discomfort. Our ‘doing’ is almost always an attempt to move away from pain and toward comfort. We rarely are stillContinue reading “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. “
Who am I? (part 2)
The persona. The mask we wear. The character we choose to become to play our role in the particular drama we found ourselves in. A role given to us and created by us so we could fit in, belong, be accepted, so we could survive. We couldn’t survive alone. We needed to be in relationshipContinue reading “Who am I? (part 2)”
Redefining Strength
I recently read a beautiful chapter from Branden Collinsworth’s upcoming book, The Love That You Are. The chapter, titled A Man’s Worth, is a rich exploration of the achiever, the performer, the competitor, the warrior -identities that exist in all of us, regardless of gender. It speaks to those who have ever felt they had to prove their worth,Continue reading “Redefining Strength”
The Story Behind First Steps
I knew there was a ‘problem’ when I recognised that I was still introducing myself as a lacrosse player 15 years after I’d stopped playing. I was still holding onto an old identity; I was still attached to the sense of who I was when I was 24 years old. This was 2009 andContinue reading “The Story Behind First Steps”
What happens next?
“The only constant is change” – a well-used cliché, and of course, the reason it sticks around is that there is an element of truth in it. Yet at the same time there is the stuff we get used to, become comfortable with and describe as ‘normal’. As human beings we are hugely resilient andContinue reading “What happens next?”
What happens if ‘the fear’ is the best thing about me?
One of the things I have found useful is the exploration of my own sense of fear, not the fear that prevents me doing myself harm but the fear that is a source of my own internal narrative. What I wanted to find out is whether the old stories and the habits they create continueContinue reading “What happens if ‘the fear’ is the best thing about me?”
Clear view 