Here we are in the heart of the summer, just 4 weeks from the start of the fall sports season in Nebraska.There is a good chance if you are reading this, you are an athlete, and regardless of what season you compete in - fall, winter, or spring - you’ve been putting in work this summer. You’ve been grinding! 😉 

Before I dive into this week’s journal activity I want to say that I greatly value hard work. I expect my athletes to work hard. I expect myself to work hard and take pride in the fact that I’m willing to put in more work than most people. If you want to become the best version of yourself as an athlete or person, you have to be willing to do the hard work. This will often require you to work harder than you want to or make you go further than you think you are capable of going. HARD WORK IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. But just like anything in life, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

In their book “Peak Performance” Steve Magness & Brad Stulberg present and give evidence for what they call the growth equation: Stress + Rest = Growth. The research is clear that PEAK PERFORMANCE in all areas, physical or mental, is achieved through following this simple equation.

Yes, we need to work hard. But for us to be our best we also need to have a rhythm of rest and recharging in our lives. For many of us we struggle with that. I appreciate how Steve Magness & Brad Stulberg recognize this in their book. They write:

“But hopefully by now you also realize that hard work only becomes smart and sustainable work when it’s supported by rest. The irony is that resting hard often takes more guts than working hard. Just ask an author like Stephen King (“For me, not working is the real work") or a runner like Deena Kastor (“My workouts are the easy part”). Feelings of guilt and anxiety creep in when we step away from our work, especially if we perceive that our competition is still going at it.”

Can you relate to the feelings of guilt or anxiety when you are resting? We need to have the courage to rest. The “grind culture” has infiltrated its way into our youth and high school sports in an unhealthy way. I would argue this why we so many student athletes struggle with motivation, injury, and face burn-out in increasing numbers year after year. Just think of the word GRIND…its definition is “reduce something to small particles or dust by crushing it.” At FREE2COMPETE that is the last thing we want for the athletes we work with…to be crushed. Yet must of our athletes feel that way at some point, especially the most successful. This is often because their STRESS + REST = GROWTH equation is all STRESS and no rest and they’ve finally hit their breaking point. Again, we need to have the courage to rest.

Part of the problem is we as adults have not modeled this idea of rest well in our lives and we can be quick to identify the REST portion of your life as LAZY. We as adults can often wear BUSYNESS like a badge of honor. I’m sorry we haven’t modeled this better for you.

Watch this video (~7.5 minutes) and then on to this week’s journal activity:

JOURNAL ACTIVITY

Your “grind” mentality might be fine for the summer, because you’ve got more time to rest without school taking up a large part of your waking hours. But that is going to change before we know it. As an athlete, or someone who desires to be a peak performer in any area of their life, it is critically important to make a plan for your rhythm of rest before the school year starts. After all the Championship Phase of your sport will take place in the busyness of the school year and we want you entering that part of the season mentally sharp and focused.

So, here are some questions I’d like you to reflect on and write about in your journal:

1. What helps you recharge your mental & physical batteries?

   • For me it is time outside in nature. A couple of miles on a trail, even around Walnut Creek in Papillion, is good for my soul.

2. What is something you used a lot of in your life that in this phase of your life less time has been devoted to and you miss it?

   • For me it is reading. The past couple of years I’ve drifted away from this and I want to get back into a rhythm of this.

3. How can you incorporate your answers to #1 and #2 into your week, every 2 weeks, or month during the school year?

If you are coach reading this, how can you be a better model of rest for your athletes? Especially during the crucial parts of your season? We need to be mentally sharp and focused at that time as well, our athletes deserve us at our best.

Even one of the most quoted Psalms in the Bible speaks to a rhythm of rest in our lives. Don’t forget that even God rested on the 7th day after 6 days of work in Genesis.