This past week my younger sister Mary (the youngest of my five siblings) submitted her common app application! One of my favorite things about my family is that we all help each other whenever needed, so naturally we all pitched in and helped read over her essays and application. In her main essay, Mary wrote about being the smallest fish in our rather large family pond, learning to be okay with challenging or overwhelming situations, and how through these experiences she has learned her most formative lessons.
This was extremely pertinent for me to read as the past few weeks have been both challenging and a bit overwhelming as we’ve had to constantly shift plans to accommodate changing schedules, training availability and weather. Although this is pretty typical for ski racing, I have never been fully in charge during these periods, and that responsibility has been more work and stress than I anticipated! (Big kudos to all the coaches out there :) ) There is also extremely limited availability for training right now during the early season which makes our rescheduling even more complicated. But reading Mary’s essay reminded me that this is just like every other challenge skiing has thrown at me: an opportunity to learn and grow.
The biggest struggle for me during the past two weeks has been the consistent uncertainty. The training situation in Copper this year is very complicated and difficult to navigate. In the past it has been pretty easy to show up to Copper and as a World Cup level athlete jump in with other teams for training. However, this year it’s much more difficult, and the speed lanes are completely controlled by the US team. I am very lucky that they have granted me training access for the next two weeks (starting on the 9th) but even though this is written in my Independent Athlete contract, there is always uncertainty when I join the US team because of past experiences of inconsistent delivery on promises made. Furthermore, Stef has had to totally change her training schedule as she was only just told that she won’t be guaranteed training in Copper and it is too risky for her to stay with no training set in stone. So she will head to Nakiska with our coach to get confirmed training with the mens Canadian speed team. While we are trying to do everything in our power to come up with a concrete plan, I’ve realized that it is actually better to be aware and okay with the fact that certainty is unrealistic. This mindset better prepares me for when the plans do inevitably change and then instead of panicking I’m ready to adopt. This is something I’m naturally pretty good at so it came as a bit of a surprise for me that I was so stressed the past two weeks. To try to mitigate this I’ve been reminding myself to let go of the certainty and focus on what is in my control on a day to day basis.
The second big lesson of the week for me was the (continued!) importance of being humble enough to ask others for help. This is something that does not come naturally for me at all! But I’ve put in a lot of work in this area, as I know it would be impossible and quite naive to think I would be even close to successful on my own. A helpful realization of late is that one of the most important aspects of asking for help is being able to articulate to others what I need help with. I like thinking about it in this way because it forces me to be organized with what I’m working towards, the steps needed to get there and who might be able to help me make those steps. I will admit that this is still a big struggle for me, but I hope I’m making some progress.
The final breakthrough of the week, and perhaps the most important, has been reminding myself that the busyness I’m feeling is my own choice. In fact, everything I am doing is my choice, and so instead of feeling put out by these continual obstacles or uncontrollable uncertainty I should be welcoming the challenges with alacrity.
This blog has been an interesting opportunity for me to both share and reflect on my journey and struggles along the way. I know I have written about similar themes before, and I’m sure I will be reminded of them again in the future. But I’m hoping that the more I’m challenged to look at hard situations as opportunities to grow, the more I can cause these habits and mindset shifts to happen naturally with out me needing to remind myself! This is exactly what I’m working on with my sports psychologist as well: continually repeating the same thought processes and actions until they become the default. Will keep you posted on how that progresses :)
p.s. I’ve had a lot of new subscribers from my recent Ski Racing Media article, so if you are new and a bit confused about who I am and what I’m doing you can read this blog post for some history :)
Photos from the week:
Great post Tricia! Love the pictures with ADM and the snow in CO. Enjoy the speed runs be they short or long. Xoxo AA
You’ll get back to the A team Tricia. Just keep going. Wish I could be at the Sync event to hear from you and Stef.