When you grow up as a student-athlete,
you don’t realize how much external validation is baked into your everyday life.
Every week there’s a scoreboard.
Every season has stats.
Every semester brings report cards.
Every year offers a new level to rise to.
You’re constantly surrounded by milestones that get noticed by coaches, teachers, teammates, parents, friends, and fans.
It’s not that anyone means to make you dependent on recognition.
It’s just part of the system …
And …
It’s great to feel seen.
It’s great to feel valued.
It’s great to be acknowledged for all the hard work you put in.
But here’s what no one talks about enough …
When that system goes away, when you’re no longer a student-athlete, when the games stop and the grades stop and the trophies stop … it can be unsettling.
Life gets … quiet.
Even if you’re doing well as an adult working hard, showing up, figuring things out, learning and growing the recognition and applause becomes much less frequent. Especially when most of that stuff is “expected” of adults. Everyone is doing it. It’s no longer “special” or clap worthy, even if you’re learning bigger things and growing at a faster pace and putting yourself in far more uncomfortable situations to do so than you did as a student-athlete.
There are no more stat sheets.
No more game days.
Far less built-in celebration of your effort or growth.
And what is built in, is often only seen within the circle in which it’s built.
Which can be very different from your sports experience where there is a lot more visibility of game performance, your stats, and so on.
And that difference between adult life and your past sports life can leave you searching.
Searching for the next “thing” to achieve, the next version of success to chase.
Not because it’s what your soul is calling for,
but because part of you misses being seen.
Part of you is starting to feel invisible, unimportant, insignificant.
After an entire childhood of the opposite.
And here’s where it gets real:
Some of your greatest growth after sports won’t come with a medal or title or Instagram-worthy moment.
It’ll come quietly through learning, through healing, through reflection, through shifts in how you think, respond, choose, love, lead.
You might be evolving in massive ways!
And yet, no one’s cheering.
No one’s watching.
Sometimes, no one even knows.
That’s why it matters so much to be able to recognize it yourself.
To notice your own growth and progress.
To see what’s changing on the inside even if it’s not always evident on the outside yet.
To honor the courage it takes to keep becoming, even if only God knows.
Because adult life won’t always give you external recognition for your emotional growth, your integrity, your inner breakthroughs, your boundaries, your healing.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
It matters so much more than you may be giving yourself credit for.
You’re not just becoming someone who achieves.
You’re becoming someone who’s rooted in what matters.
Someone who knows who they are, even when no one else is clapping.
That’s why I care so much about the inner work.
Because at some point, every high-achiever faces this question:
Can you keep showing up, growing, healing, leading … even when there’s no one there to cheer you on along the way. Even if “all you’re doing” is living a “usual” adult life with a job, with promotions, with finally getting your own space, buying your own car, paying your own bills, making your own investments, building your relationships, raising your own children, maybe even starting or running a business, etc, etc, etc.
The thing is when the applause fades,
your own voice becomes the one you hear the most.
And that voice, your personal leadership, your grounded center, your Inside Out OS …
Needs to be strong.
Steady.
Kind.
Anchored.
So if you’ve been wondering why this growth work matters, especially after sports…
This is why.
Because when the adulting begins, so many former athletes feel broken or lost or less than or like they’re not doing or being enough when none of that is true.
They’re just learning how to lead themselves well now …
not for external validation, but for their own truth and their own growth and their own healing and their own personal development.
And that kind of personal leadership?
Rooted in inner strength, forged in fire …
It changes everything.
