By Christopher Cudworth 

Our early athletic pursuits can bring important boosts in self esteem. But there are risks.

As young athletes we grow up eager to impress our coaches, parents and friends. That habit can become addictive if you let it. Impressing others is fun and rewarding in its way, and our culture revels in celebrating the accomplishments of athletes from a very early age.

Self esteem is the method we use to value our own self worth. When we get into the habit of pursuing constant feedback on how we’re doing in sports it becomes a cycle where the athlete is not satisfied unless someone else tells them they have done well.

If that sounds familiar, you’re far from alone.

Self-esteem can be tricky business when it comes to sustaining motivation, especially when it comes to maintaining a sense of self-esteem outside of sports. If we depend too much on sports for our identity and our mission in life, where is the satisfaction in other pursuits?.

The consequences of self-esteem anchored too much in sports can have profound effects on any individual, especially when those forces converge with propensities for perfectionism.

Running away from success

One woman athlete at a Division III college became nationally ranked, taking All-American honors in track and cross country. The harder she trained, the more her goals became an obsession for her. Ultimately she did not feel fulfilled unless some sort of goal or challenge was on the line.

Even as her body thinned to a dangerously low level of body fat, she kept on training. Then one day during a big race she simply didn’t make the turn going past the lap line and ran right through the gate out of the stadium. She’d had enough. Her immense talent was the center of both her personality and self esteem but the burden of being so imbalanced toward that side of her personality had undermined the hope she felt toward the rest of her life. Something had to give.

Her response was that she chose not compete and temporarily dropped out of the sport. It took a couple years for her to return to casual and then competitive running.

Taking a World Class break

Year-round pursuit of sports can lead to burnout and frazzled self-esteem.

Similarly, world-class soccer player Landon Donovan took an extended break from his professional career last year. It was quite a risk to take time off, pursue some other interests and dedicate time to family. Yet soccer like running and riding can become a year-round pursuit. You can lose yourself in the game. But Donovan did come back with self-esteem intact and a new eagerness to play.

In the most confrontational of sports where one-on-one, mano a mano conflict occurs, having strong self-esteem can be a question of survival. Think back to the boxing match in which Roberto Duran threw up his hands in a “No Mas” gesture and you realize that the mistakes he’d made in lavishing himself in glory following the first defeat of Sugar Ray Leonard had dragged Duran’s self esteem away from the streets where he learned his toughness to the gutter where it temporarily washed away. Yet he too regained his self esteem even after his entire home country ostracized him.

Self esteem? No mas. 

Perhaps you’ve felt the same way at times in training or racing. You arrive at the Saturday morning group ride feeling stale and unmotivated. In the back of your mind are thoughts that you would rather be doing something else than chaining yourself to your bike for a 50 mile slog in the draft of people who don’t seem to care whether you hang on or not.

Those are moments when you should take your self esteem into account for a moment. Does it really matter if you make it through the group ride with the bunch one more week? Or should you take a break and fill your soul and self esteem with something else?

Dedicated to what? 

Self esteem is sometimes knowing when it’s okay to put some things behind you.

Yes, training and racing takes dedication. You can’t quit if you don’t want to run and ride like shit. We all know that fact.

But there’s a part of you that needs to be protected through all your dedication and grit. It’s the real you inside the external you that competes and trains so hard. If you’re not careful, the “external you” can run or ride right over the “internal you” at times.

How do you know when to back off? Take a break? Get yourself back in order?

Here is a quick test of self-esteem measures to know whether you’re running yourself over in the process of trying to become the best athlete you can.

1.    Do you feel good about yourself even on days when you can’t run or ride?That’s one of the first measures of self-esteem in any category. A well-balanced person is one whose self-esteem is based on values as much as accomplishments or activities.

2.    Is your personality wrapped up too tightly in your sport? The athletes I’ve most admired in life are those whose athletic pursuits were a choice. Some of the best athletes are people for whom competition is an outlet for creativity and energy, not an input upon which they eternally feed for self-esteem. One national champion distance runner worked as a college janitor for a year before anyone on the staff learned of his other “identity,” and that was only because someone saw him running in the Olympic trials. Now that’s profound yet constructive humility.

3.    Can you share the spotlight? If you find yourself dominating social conversations to regale company with talk of training, racing or results, you might have a little self-esteem issue going on. Learn to listen more and talk less and you’ll likely find your self-esteem growing through the gains of others and the great friends you have.

4.    Are you seeking too much approval? Those of us who grew up with demanding parents can easily get in the habit of seeking approval from authority figures, and being petulant or angry when we don’t get what we want. If you find yourself jealous of other’s accomplishments or beating yourself up because someone is faster than you, makes more money or lives in a bigger house, your fragile self-esteem is at work.

To have the most fulfilling relationships in life, you need to be aware of your sources of self esteem. So take seriously the “relationship” you have with your sport and if you love it very much, treat both the sport and yourself with love, trust and respect, yet remembering that it is not the end of the world when everything doesn’t go your way. That’s part of living and your self-esteem should be able to stand up to the perils of both success and failure. That’s a healthy way to go through life.