Soccer is just a game. Soccer is an act of creativity. Soccer is an act of a team harmoniously dismantling the other. The best soccer is played where you learn to trust your teammates, learn to lean on them in need, learn to understand your part on that team. You will play your best soccer when you learn to combine; creativity, confidence, team work, risk, and hard-work(the one thing you can always control).

The way in which you go about garnering those traits is highly individual. There are those who don’t think about it and just play. There are those who rely on the wrong traits, and garner them through the wrong avenues. Avenues that have themselves as priority one. There are those that overthink and tend to put too much pressure on themselves to do these things. That’s the category I’m in. How I combat this?

Have you ever watched a ballet dancer dance? An artist paint? An improvisational saxophonist solo? What do these professionals have in common?

In order to light the fire beneath quick thinking, creativity and harmony it’s important to release. I think of a growing Lilly flower. It becomes beautiful only when it blooms, when the pedals of the flower twist and turn in the wind. When the flower becomes vulnerable.

So now how do we become the free flowing and yet also symbiotic soloing saxophonist?

Your identity cannot be connected to your soccer achievements. You have to learn to spread your wins in different aspects of your life. Some that aren’t needed to be “won”.

I left my home, my friends, my family, my hobbies, things that brought attention away from the greater goal that I wanted to achieve. I thought leaving those things behind and focusing solely on this goal of mine will be the fast-track. And it worked for a while, until the stakes got higher, and the soccer quality rose. I did everything you can think of, counted calories, studied countless hours on the best in-season, pre-season physical regiments. Every day was planned around soccer. Every decision I made throughout the day was tethered to soccer. This may work for some but I became a robot.

I am grateful I travelled this path and that I had this awakening. I learned so much along the way, things that I still do to this day in terms of athletic performance. Now, how I changed?

I added a human element…haha. I learned to spread my wins under a greater umbrella, this lifted pressure off of my soccer career and I returned to my best soccer. I go out, I hang out with friends, I try to have fun in the locker room, I have non-soccer duties, fulfilling ones, I was closed to all that, I am open now. A Lilly flower that grew high but forgot to bloom. I am blooming and it feels good.

If you’re reading this and want to take one thing from this remember; to become a great soccer player you have to sacrifice many things. However, you should not sacrifice things that are essential to a happy life as well.

Time is finite, and the amount of inexplicably beautiful things you’ll find on earth is infinite.