Semi Pro

I’ve never been good at controlling things out of my control. It sounds silly – if things are obviously out of your control, why would you try to control them? Good question. But that’s what I do. And then I fail, naturally, since they were out of my control to begin with. 

In a way, this is a reflection of what happened at the New Orleans AVP; or rather, what didn’t happen, which was my partner and I making it to the tournament. For those that don’t know, we had flights scheduled, but they were delayed multiple times and eventually cancelled due to flooding at the airport (once in a lifetime flooding – the entire runway was under 1 ft + of water). By the time we knew the extent of the situation, it was too late to get any other flight out of any other airport in Florida, so we missed the event. 

There are SO many uncontrollables in volleyball. So many. From the time you leave for the tournament to the time you get home, there are actually very few variables that you completely command. Our attempt to get to New Orleans was a prime example of that.

I used to get so frustrated at practice when things felt off. You know, rule of thirds – one third of the time your performance will be average, one third of the time it’ll exceed average, and one third of the time it’ll be below average. Whenever I was in that lower third, I would compound issues. A not so great pass would turn into an error, which would then turn into an even worse pass on the next serve until I let myself spiral and just wrote it off as a bad practice. I created this mental block that would impede my progress. I gave my inner saboteur power. 

Recently, I’ve found myself consistently more level headed when I’m having a tough practice. I couldn’t tell you exactly when this changed, but now if something is off – serve receive isn’t great, missing swings by a small margin, serving too easy, anything – I encourage myself, “Now is your chance to get better. Take advantage of it.” That moment: the one when you’re in the dumps, struggling to make things work, feeling sideout pressure: that’s when you can really squeeze the juice out of practice. Make your worst third better. Raise the average. 

I have found myself getting more from each practice by simply telling myself that this moment (yes, the one that feels awful) is a great opportunity to improve. It’s crazy how powerful the mind is. 

Reminding myself to forget what I can’t control – points, partners, if I’m having an off day, how work has been, etc – has allowed me to really dive in to what I can – focus at practice, effort in the weight room, emphasis on adding to my game. The mental energy wasted fighting against the current, so to speak, can now be pointed towards things that will actually change when I emphasize them.

And I’ve seen this year that the self growth and hyper focus on my own game is rewarding me with improvement. The constant worry about who I would play with, if we would be main draw, when we would practice, etc. has not fully disappeared, but it is definitely no longer on the forefront of my mind. I’ll be in the qualifier? That’s ok, I’m confident in my game. I haven’t had much practice with my partner? That’s ok, the other team won’t know how we play together. I didn’t sleep well? That’s ok, I’ve been successful in that situation before; I can do it again. 

I’m putting on my blinders and blocking out the noise. I’m controlling what I can control. And I’m letting the rest fall into place

-Megan