Balancing school, life and sport can feel like an impossible challenge. Especially when you’re constantly being pulled in every direction. Letting even the smallest part of any of these control you can lead to downfall in the others. Each can be consuming and stressful but finding a way to separate and balance all three is so important if you want to be successful in any of them.
The distribution of life, school, and sport is different for everyone. Depending on your major, workload, family/friends background, level of sport (college, high school, etc.) but I think finding the balance to all three is the same no matter how you distribute your efforts.
I’ve talked about this before, but coming to college was a huge shock to me and learning balance was imperative for me to be successful in any area. I went through a major transition and came out the other end, so I feel qualified to give advice on the topic. As an engineering major, most of my struggles come from school workload, simply not making time for…anything else. This, with the constant fear of failing my classes, I didn’t allow much time to think about myself let alone perform my best in running. I remember times where I was panicking at practice because an assignment was due, or completely botching a workout because I was nervous about an upcoming exam. As I’ve talked in depth about before…you’re not going to perform your best stressed and panicking…even when it’s not about running.
Time Management
The most helpful thing I did when coming to college was learn how to properly manage my time. Everyone always talks so highly of student athletes because of our skill in doing this, but the truth is that it’s not easy and at least for me, it didn’t come naturally from years of sport like I think some people expect. Now there are a lot of different ways to do this but it’s really all about allocating enough time to each area and sticking to it. For me this started with making a schedule.
Freshman year when I was stressed about school to no end. I wasn’t sleeping well, sometimes forgot to eat, and wasn’t running well so obviously coach and I sat down to fix it because I would never survive 4 years of college. We made a spreadsheet laying out every hour of every day. When I was going to sleep, eat, do homework, go to class, go to tutoring, practice, etc. It seems tedious to lay out every step of my day, but it’s not like I actually followed it to a T. This was important so I could visualize my day and see that I actually had more time than I thought. Obviously, I couldn’t spend much of my day taking naps and watching TV, but we made sure to add some time each day for that because you can’t be a successful student or athlete without leaving time to take care of yourself…and that has so many layers but just interpret it as your wish for now, that's a whole separate topic.
I spent a week or so loosely following this schedule until I got the hang of it and eventually transitioned to a simple checklist. I listed which assignments I would do which days, as well as when I was going to the training room, taking a nap, going to practice etc. The problem with having so much on my plate was that even if I finished everything for the day, there were a million things I COULD do. The idea of the checklist was to STOP when I finish it because the stuff on tomorrow’s checklist is for TOMORROW.
Now that I’ve learned how to manage my time, at the start of every semester, I lay out my week: what days my assignments are due, when my classes are, our practice schedule, etc. And…I mean I basically follow it every week. Now that I know how to manage my time I can do this in my head, while also making time for last-minute plans every week when they come up. My freshman self never thought I would be able to spare 3 hours a week to go to the training room, go out to dinner when the opportunity arises, take a nap when I need it, go to bed by 9pm, and STILL pass my classes. Now I will say I still have those moments when I feel like I’m approaching academic ineligibility…but I think that might just be life as an engineering major. Anyways even when I feel like I might never graduate or pass my classes, I take a step back and go back to the basics and lay out my schedule.
Separation (be in the moment)
A new found skill of mine is separating the different parts of my life. I’ve always known this is important but until recently I haven’t been able to do it. I think in general it’s helpful to not let your sport consume you. It prolongs the love for the sport and helps avoid burnout. However, that's not the reason I bring this up. In the past, it would be obvious when I had a big test or a lot on my plate, because I would constantly think about it in practice and worry. I would usually run slower, get pulled from workouts, and sit in silence wallowing in my thoughts. NOW I go to practice to run so that's what I think about. When I go to campus I focus on school.
A few things helped me do this:
1. Viewing practice as a break from school
Once I realized I can’t do schoolwork 24-7 anyway, I started distributing my workload around practice in a way that allowed me to use running as a study break. I’m exhausted from working so hard in the classroom so going to practice and have fun with my teammates is like the best break ever. A great side effect to this is it makes running way more fun. Any love from the sport that was sucked out my school consuming me was revived when I was able to view running as a break.
2. Dressing like a normal person on campus
I think I might be in the minority on this one but blending in with the normal Purdue population has been good for me in so many ways. The first is kind of irrelevant to this topic but basically putting together an actual outfit makes feel so much more put together, confident, and productive than wearing the ugly gear we get, looking like I just rolled out of bed. The second makes sense for this topic. In order to effectively focus on school, I need to forget about my responsibilities in the athletic facilities and dressing like a normal student helps me do that.
Now I feel like I didn’t really talk about life balance, but I feel like it’s the same principles and self-explanatory. You can’t be expected to exclusively eat, sleep, study, and run if you want to 1. Like your sport post-college and 2. Survive the 4 years in college. And I’m not talking about going out and partying every night, but simply making time to nap, watch TV, hang out with friends, play games, self-care, the list goes on. Just because we’re athletes, doesn’t mean our sport defines us. I would be so boring if the most interesting thing about me was the fact I run track in college. And plus, there’s a life after sport. Wouldn’t that suck to leave college and have no idea how to spend your time and have fun because you forgot to prioritize balance in college? Anyways I digress, thanks for reading and enjoy finding your balance, you deserve it.
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