The Athlete's Inner Game
You’ve been in this for a while now.
Long enough that the slump is starting to feel like it’s writing the story of the season. Like this stretch is going to define what the year was. Like everything that happened before it is being erased by what’s happening now.
I want to offer some perspective. Not to dismiss what you’re in. But to help you see it at the right size.
Read this passage slowly.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13–14 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Forgetting what is behind. Not pretending it didn’t happen. Not denying the struggle. Just not letting the rearview mirror determine the direction.
A slump is a chapter, not the book. And when you’re in the middle of a chapter, it can be hard to remember that there are chapters before and after it. The bad chapter feels like it’s rewriting everything that came before and determining everything that comes after.
It’s not. A season is long. A career is longer. The slump that feels like it’s defining this year will be, in most cases, a small part of the story when you look back at it from any distance.
That perspective doesn’t make the slump less real or less painful. But it does change how you respond to it. The athlete who is convinced the slump defines the season responds by contracting — playing safer, protecting themselves from more failure, shrinking. The athlete who sees it as a chapter responds by pressing on — straining toward what’s ahead, keeping the trajectory pointed forward.
This is a chapter. It will end. What comes after it depends partly on what you do in it. Press on.
A slump is a chapter, not the book. The trajectory is what matters, not the current paragraph.
If you look at this slump from the end of the season or the end of your career, how large does it look? What would you need to do in this chapter to be proud of how you responded?
Temporal perspective is the tool. Most athletes find the slump shrinks considerably when they look at it from a distance.
This is a chapter. Keep pressing. What comes next depends on what you do right now.
Best when the slump has gone on long enough that perspective is genuinely needed rather than just encouragement.