Working hard and hidden disadvantages

Like many Canadians, I played hockey as a kid. For 8 years. Playing in an all girls league was pretty tough in the 90s. We got the worst ice times. We often had to be up before 5 am to get ice time, but that’s besides the point.

A few years into my hockey career, I was coming off my shift and just gearing to go again. At the end of my game once, I bragged to my dad, that all the other girls were coming off panting for air and so tired and I was just always ready to keep going.

My dad just LAUGHED and replied “Did you ever think that maybe you’re not working as hard as everyone else on the ice?”

Talk about perspective shift.

I don’t recall if it was an immediate change but I took that criticism to heart. I started going out and pushing myself as hard as i could every time. And I got much better.?

The thing about energy and drive is we treat it like a finite resource—to be preserved and saved for when it's needed. But I have found the harder you push yourself, the more capacity for energy you have. So going 150% for a short 2 min shift makes my future capacity even greater. And that moment of panting and being absolutely drained—after it passes you feel so much better than if you hadn’t pushed so hard.?(Obviously resting in between shifts is key here!)

Now here’s the thing—after that moment—I started going out?and pushed as hard as I could. I started skating faster passing better and maneuvering quicker—but I didn’t really become a better player.?

I played right wing and while I was contributing to the team, I wasn’t scoring many goals. Like, embarrassingly few. I tried so hard, I was fast—great at getting around players—got many breakaways. But I just wasn’t able to seal the deal and score a goal.?

And I was extremely hard on myself about it. I thought about quitting, maybe this sport was wasn’t for me, I studied other players, watched a lot of pro hockey to try to figure out what I was doing wrong. In my mind, the only explanation was I was a failure.

I played right wing for 7 of my 8 years playing. My last year I had a new coach and he suggested I try defence.

It felt like a demotion. Defence is not nearly as exciting (in my mind at the time), but I accepted defeat and committed to learning a position and doing the best I could.?

Something absolutely crazy happened that season.?

I scored more goals as defence than the entire seven years I played forward. And I killed it in the defence position too. In fact I received an award for being “Most inspiring player.”?

What changed? It wasn’t the coach, or the team or even the new position I learned.?

That year I got contact lenses.?

I had glasses but I HATED wearing them so I never wore them for sports or on the weekends. However my eyesight was BAD (-5.5 in one eye and -7.5 in the other, my near sighted friends will understand just how terrible that is). When I was 12 my parents finally let me get contact lenses which I wore all the time including while playing sports.

I was so used to not seeing that I didn’t realize how much it affected my life and what a disadvantage it was to me. No one around me knew I couldn’t see well so it was never suggested that might be the issue.?

I take a lot of lessons of perseverance from this but also to realize that sometimes you might be experiencing hidden disadvantages. It could be a physical ailment, a disability or even implicit bias that’s putting you at a disadvantage.?

And what I still need to learn is how to identify when these hidden disadvantages are holding me back.?

Recently, I started taking medication for ADHD. I had been diagnosed as a teenager and I took meds while I was in college. It helped tremendously but I also spent that time reading as many books and learning as much as I can about it to try to learn to navigate the world without medication. I did it successfully for many years (if you don’t count having a messy desk and home and a few other neurospicy quirks).?

However, recently, as my 8 year old has gone through the diagnosis process and now taking medication, I have realized the disadvantage I’d been putting myself through. I also realized that after having a baby—with the massive addition to my cognitive load plus the great reduction in quality sleep—that I was really suffering beyond anything I could naturally navigate my way out of. In short I was giving 150% every day, but not progressing the way I knew that I should have been.

The first day I took medication, I re-organized my laundry room. It had been a disaster since we had moved a year prior and that stress was just weighing on me. I cried. The thought of doing that task felt so hard and impossible and it just got done so easily in a single day without even really thinking about it. And in the next few weeks I cleared so many of these simply tasks that were just weighing on me for weeks, months and even years.

I’m still working my way out of it, but I feel like a new person. I can think clearly, organize and prioritize. There’s still a lot of weight to shed, but I’m heading in the right direction. I can’t believe I didn’t see how hard I was making things on myself while just trying to push through.?

And like I felt without my contact lenses, I felt like I was completely failing and doing so poorly when there was just one little thing holding me back.?So channeling my inner hockey player again and hoping for a big year.

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Side note: as a former female hockey player I am SO excited by the new PWHL league and looking forward to supporting the Ottawa Charge team!