In high school, I played one year of club volleyball during the off-season.
The first day of tryouts, I walked into a gym full of girls who had many varying levels of talent.
Some had played volleyball for years. Some had only played for a couple seasons. Some were newbies.
I had only played for a season or two when I decided to play for Metrowest Juniors Volleyball Club, so I was intimidated by the girls who were killer. I watched them warm up a bit as I slid my knee pads on and tied my court shoes. Commence the fear.
It’s of no surprise I started off tryouts playing horribly. I couldn’t seem to set up my setter. My serves were all over the place. I couldn’t pass for shit. My head was not in the game whatsoever, and it was obvious… big time.
Rightfully so, I was on the worst court, too. The gym was set up in such a way that the first court was where all the best players were, and the last court was where the worst were. It was clear as day who was crushing it and who was subpar at best.
I wasn’t a star player on a good day by any means, but I definitely wasn’t the worst, either.
By the looks of it, I wasn’t leaving the worst court. Coaches were looking right past me, I wasn’t improving as the scrimmage went on, and there was no sign of letting up as I was so in my head about the whole thing.
And then it dawned on me. A lightbulb went off, and I had an idea.
On the court, in between points, I had a quick pow wow with myself.
It went something like this:
Me to me: “Okay, we’re playing like royal shit, but I’ll be damned if we spend a whole season on a team well below our skill level because of one bad day. We have to make up for our performance, and we have to do it now.”
Then came the hard part. Putting what I said I was going to do into action. Not just thinking it but actually doing it.
Racking my temporarily dysfunctional brain, I had to come up with an action item I knew I could carry out. I then settled on doing what I was positive I was good at.
Since the little voice in my head wouldn’t shut up all day, I decided I would put it to good use and make it talk aloud.
As libero (the person who plays in the middle back position—the one in the opposite colored jersey), I was, more or less, the eyes and ears of the court. I could see everything from where I played, so I was in the perfect position to talk through what I could see.
I started calling when the ball was about to be served, if it looked like the opposite team was going to tip it over versus hit, where to cover, etc. To be honest, it was a little obnoxious. I was loud, I was talking for the entire play, and I’m sure it was annoying to a few players.
Except, I really did not care. If I was going to make the worst club team, I wasn’t going down without fighting my way out of the slump that put me there.
After my constant yapping, when the play was over, I quickly huddled the girls who were on my makeshift tryout team together. I suggested we come together after every play, point lost or won (a very typical volleyball thing to do), and they agreed.
The next thing I knew, my passing improved, my serves were stronger, and my setter was able to set up our hitters for a fighting chance at a point.
After mere minutes of the personal shift I made, the coaches pulled me from the worst court I was stuck at and moved me up. And then I got moved up again. And moved up again.
Later on in the day, we broke out into hitting drills, and as you may know, I’m 4’11. I never saw the net from the front row while playing volleyball, so although I wasn’t really ever going to hit during a real match, everyone on the tryout team was expected to know how to approach and swing if the ball came their way.
To this day I remember how hard I hit in those drills. Each one of my approaches were perfectly timed, and I swung like my life depended on it. I was genuinely shocked at my hitting abilities because I didn’t know where that strength or that precision had been hiding.
It was a total transformation—night and day. I went from almost making the worst team in the league, being overlooked by coaches, and feeling horrible about how I was performing, to making a much more competitive team, being pulled up by coaches who noticed me, and feeling confident about my skills.
“How did I do it?” you may wonder.
There’s no secret. It was one conscious thought that pulled me from my slump.
One decision to approach my situation differently. One simple act of doing what I knew I could.
You know how easy it would’ve been for me to have thrown in the towel and given up? To have said, “Fuck it, I don’t care if I’m about to make the worst team.” To have let the voice in my head dictate an entire season’s worth of practices, games, and tournaments because of one bad day?
I know how easy it would have been because I was on the cusp of giving into that voice. I was minutes away from not caring anymore and carrying out the entirety of the narrative consuming my mind.
~
I want you to know: the voice in your head will tell you the craziest things about yourself.
That you’re not good enough.
That everyone else is right and you’re wrong.
That you’re incapable of making it happen.
That you are the odd one out, and you better dumb down your ambition.
If you let it run rampant, it will.
Change doesn’t have to be drastic. In fact, if you go balls to the wall too early, chances are, you’ll burn out.
Change starts with one conscious thought. You break a cycle by interrupting that series of bogusness with one singular, self-imposed thought.
Which can be really difficult to grasp and accept if you’re in a hard place right now.
Change is usually not easy or fun, but let’s entertain this thought: clearly the voice that’s bringing you down isn’t doing you any good. You feel like shit. Your motivation is super low. You’re angry with the world. And you’re still in the same place, mentally and maybe physically.
So why not pause that voice for half a second. That’s all I’m asking for—half a second.
Why not just tell yourself a different story. Better yet, just one different opening sentence.
~
Your outer world matches what your inner world looks like, but the only way the two can coincide is if you start with what’s inside first.
The beauty of the story I just told you is that everything you need is already within you. The change-making can start today. It can start right now.
~
May you pow wow your way through shitty plays and horrible hitting. May you empower the voice within and utilize it to get to the court you belong on.
May you recognize you are only one conscious thought away from a completely different life.
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