What athletes and coaches give up.
Let’s be real, athletes and coaches make a ton of sacrifices both on and off the field. We dedicate so much time to conditioning and training, scouting opponents and watching video, mentally preparing, traveling to compete, and recovering in the training room. Throughout our athletic careers, we are conditioned to make great physical, emotional, and social sacrifices to compete at the expense of our mental and physical health.
What does it mean to have an athletic identity?
Your athletic identity is the degree to which you identify with your role as an athlete competing in your sport (Giannone, Haney, Kealy, & Ogrodniczuk, 2017). It’s basically a framework for an athlete’s self-concept. Sometimes, being an athlete can become such a big part of who you are that it overshadows other aspects of yourself and life can feel unbalanced.
Evaluating your athletic identity.
To assess athletic identity you can use the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale, also known as (AIMS). AIMS is a 10 item self-reporting assessment based on a 1 to 7 Likert-scale that athletes can do to determine their level of athletic identity. The assessment includes statements such as “I consider myself an athlete”, “most of my friends are athletes”, & “I spend more time thinking about sport than anything else”. However the simplest way to check if your athletic identity is out of balance is to describe who you are without mentioning your sport. Can you do it?
If you struggle to describe yourself without reference to your sport, that might be a sign that you have an unhealthy or imbalanced athletic identity and it’s time to balance the scale.
Signs to watch out for.
There are several risks and costs associated with having an imbalanced or unhealthy athletic identity. Athletes with an imbalanced athletic identity are more susceptible to depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and early burnout from sport. Signs to watch out for include reduced self-esteem or low confidence, irrational fear of failure, feelings of guilt, increased aggression, and difficulty in decision-making.
Finding a healthy balance.
One of the most of effective ways you can balance your athletic identity is to make and maintain friendships outside of your sport that don’t care about your performance or the amount of playing time you get. Another way to maintain a healthy athletic identity is to find hobbies to do outside of your sport like cooking, gardening or making art and music. Having a healthy balance will not only improve your overall mental health, but it will also strengthen your mental resilience in sport during transitions in playing time, during periods of injury and retirement from sport.
Wrapping it up
Your sport should not define you. As an athlete, or a coach, your athletic identity is just one of part of you are. A healthy athletic identity maintains a balance between your sport and life outside of sport. This includes prioritizing family, maintaining friendships outside of your sport, hobbies that have nothing to do with your sport and maybe even some ideas about what you want to do after your athletic career is over. That’s what a healthy balance looks like. You are more than just your sport.
References
Adams, C., Coffee, P., & Lavallee, D. (2015). Athletes’ perceptions about the availability of social support during within-career transitions. Sport & Exercise Psychology Review, 11(2), 37–48.
Beachy, E. G., & Brewer, B. W. (2018). Associations between Activist and Athletic Identities in College Students. Journal of Sport Behavior, 41(4), 369.
Burton, Damon & Raedeke, Thomas, D. (2008). Sport Psychology for Coaches. Human Kinetics.
Crust, Lee & Clough, Peter J. (2011). Developing mental toughness: From Research to Practice, Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 2:1, 21-32, https://doi.org/10.1080/21520704.2011.563436.
Giannone, Z. A., Haney, C. J., Kealy, D., & Ogrodniczuk, J. S. (2017). Athletic identity and psychiatric symptoms following retirement from varsity sports. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 63(7), 598.
Lochbaum, M., Cooper, S., & Limp, S. (2022). The Athletic Identity Measurement Scale: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis from 1993 to 2021. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education (EJIHPE), 12(9). https://doi-org.uws.idm.oclc.org/10.3390/ejihpe12090097