Playing Free: What High-Performance Sport Taught Me About Mental Health

By: Courtney O'Malley

I am an assistant coach for a Division I women's soccer program. To me, high performance is any activity executed at a high level, potentially involving stakes, competition, or pressure, with little to no margin for error. I have always loved sports. From a young age, I loved competing but never by myself - always on a team. I loved winning but may have even appreciated the relationships, life lessons, and experiences that sports provided for me even more. After my playing career was over, I chose a profession that kept me in that world.

When Performance and Mental Health Met

My sophomore season of college was the first time I remember recognizing the impact that my mental health could have on my sport performance and vice versa. Change, uncertainty, periods of depression and anxiety became ever-present within my personal life during this time period, and I couldn't separate it from the field. Even at the one place I was used to feeling comfortable, safe, and confident, I struggled.

The Challenges

I struggled immensely with my confidence and bouts of injury throughout my college career. The first one was pretty self-imposed. I relied too heavily on coaches' expectations, selections, and opinions to determine my confidence, rather than trusting my own experiences, controlling what I could control, and using objective measures to gauge it. I also struggled with off-and-on soft tissue injuries for the first time. I often rushed back from injury for fear of having my "spot" taken, didn't take recovery, rehab, or prehab as seriously as I should have, and worried deeply about reinjury. Something else I didn't realize until college was that my identity was largely tethered to my sport. I didn't know who I was outside of my athletic success, outside of my place on my team, and I didn't know what else brought me joy.

What I Learned

I often played with a fear of making mistakes. I wanted to be perfect, and my performance suffered for it. Over time, I got better at understanding that I had to be brave, take risks, and trust my training and my abilities to perform at the highest level. A big learning moment about playing tight, scared, or hesitant for me came after the realization that I often played better after conceding a goal - after there was no longer the pressure of keeping a clean sheet. After conceding a goal, I let myself play free.

What Helped

My teammates were one of my greatest areas of support. People who were going through the same experiences and could understand my day-to-day life and could just walk alongside me in it were helpful. But early on, I kept most of my struggles to myself. Eventually, after letting my closest teammate in and sharing more about what I had been dealing with, she helped get me in touch with our school's counseling department and a therapist who specialized in working with athletes. Then, I spent the next 5 years working directly with a therapist. While at first my struggles seemed directly related to sport and high performance, over time I realized there was a lot more that I needed to uncover about myself and grow with, so I continued therapy for years after my playing career was over. At the end of the day, asking for help from a friend, seeking help from a professional, and utilizing that help consistently for an extended period of time is what supported my growth.

What I Wish I Had Known Earlier

You don't just need to seek help when you are "struggling". There is so much that we can be doing and learning, even when we are feeling great or experiencing success, to stay feeling great, stay at the top, and keep climbing even higher.

How My Perspective on Success Has Changed

I am still early in my coaching career...and am still learning a lot about myself, but if I am positively impacting the women that I am coaching, I would say that I am successful. If I am helping them develop as soccer players and as people, then I am successful. This can be really difficult to remember after the team loses games, concedes goals, and doesn't execute up to their potential. And this is actually going to be a question I continue to ask myself and my teams for as long as I am coaching: How can we define success outside of wins and losses?

To Anyone Who Is Struggling

You have to be vulnerable and honest with yourself and with people around you to grow. You can't do it alone, and you shouldn't have to. Bring people along with you!