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Estonia
I flew half way across the globe, fought off brutal jet lag, trained my butt off, and spent way too much money to go to Estonia. I practiced, visualized, prepped, warmed up, did everything that I knew. Then I stepped on court and played the worst badminton I have played in a very very long time. It is hard to lose, and harder to lose when I was unable to bring anything close to my best game. I found this really humbling and if I am honest, while I walked off the court incredibly driven to come back stronger, I also felt immense shame in my performance. Shame can be debilitating. I didn’t want to be seen again in public, and I had a strong desire to stay in my hotel room doing pushups till I magically had a chance for revenge (cue batman music). Sadly the world does not work that way. We don’t get second chances in the moment, nor do we get to run away. I ended up staying at the venue after my match to sit behind and help coach a friend, and back again in the evening for the same. I got to watch other athletes really pull out their best, the whole time fighting off the inner voice that kept up a constant mockery of the way I played. I did workout in my hotel room, but I also stayed at the venue and watched matches. As hard as I train every day, the self control it took to do that was probably the hardest thing I have done in a long time. Which is weird, right? Every athlete has bad days, and we know that people’s opinions of us are not the defining thing…
