Redefine Yourself.
The story of how a career ending concussion led me to redefine who I was beyond sports. An ongoing journey…
Sometimes change comes our way without notice and leaves us searching for our bearings. We feel like we are forced to adapt to what’s presented to us, but in reality we have 100% control over what we do next.
On December 31st, 2019, the team doctor told me that I could not play basketball anymore. I had too many concussions. I found myself with a huge void in what I perceived as my identity… before we go further, let me backtrack to what led me to this moment…
Since I was 13, I dreamed of playing D1 basketball in the NCAA. At 16, I made a list of my Top 10 schools and at 19, I was moving from Canada to the United States to play basketball at Purdue University. Purdue was on the original list.
At Purdue, I studied biomedical engineering, pursued 4 minors, served on several leadership roles, started an organization, and started a master in my 4th year. Every single day had a goal since I was 13 and every single hour had a purpose when I got to college (whether that's good or bad, we'll get to it later).
Everyone who plays sports knows that teams need at least one person who always brings the energy no matter how she feels. Someone who’s always going to dive on the floor and give her 100% in practice, knowing full well that she’s probably not going to play the next game. BUT, if ever she gets a chance (most likely in the last minute of the game when we’re winning by 40), she’ll give it her all… That was me. That was my new way to contribute.
When the doctor told me that I couldn't play basketball anymore, I was obviously devastated. I honestly think that I cried more salty water out of my body that day, than sweat for the whole year.
Role Transition
I didn't play a lot in college I went from playing 40 minutes per game and being “the mom” of the team in Canada to having to completely adjust my role. I became “the energy bunny” (while learning how to speak English).
Since I was 13, being a basketball player was part of what I perceived as my identity. Hearing that I couldn’t keep going anymore left a void into who I was. However, surprisingly, it did not fully destabilize me (just yet).
In January 2020, I wrote in my journal a story called “STOP, EVALUATE, ASSESS, RESET and MOVE FORWARD”.
It didn't take me long before I filled the “identity void” (that was dangerous and I didn't even realize it at the time). I still had a year and a half in College and I was grateful to keep my scholarship… So I became a “student-coach” for the team, I found ways to diversify my energy while continuing to follow my purpose. I started an organization and got even more involved on campus.
The real struggle came when I had to leave Purdue and go into the “real world”.
That felt like I was throwing myself into the deep end without knowing if I will ever touch the ground.
I felt like I never had solid ground. Like I was moving in moving sand all the time. I was used to having a full schedule from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM, so when I got out of school, I filled my schedule with work only, deprioritized exercise and found myself searching for my bearings.
Graduating from Purdue
The moment when I was stepping into the unknown.
It took me about a year to find a resemblance of solid ground again. Truthfully, writing in my journal helped me associate language to my experiences and navigate my reality. One of the stories was called “Empower Yourself”.
I wrote this story on April 9th 2023 after someone asked me “have you ever thought about what it could mean for you to empower yourself?”
I say often that my purpose is to empower people to pursue their full potential. During my freshman year in College, my mom and I were discussing “our whys” (shoutout to Simon Sinek for inspiring this conversation) and I wrote in my journal…
As I am pursuing my full potential, I am driven to empower others to pursue their own, seeing them reach for new heights inspires me to redefine my potential. This becomes a loop that continues to drive me through life.
What I didn't realize at the time was that basketball played a huge role to drive me to pursue my own potential. Basketball was originally the vehicle, the spark, the starter to the loop. Without basketball, there really was no loop. No purpose.
It's now that I realize that basketball was part of my identity deeper than I had imagined.
While I was in college I could still keep the train going because the people I had impacted were still around me. The wheel already had momentum and it was not stopping. When I graduated from Purdue, the environment changed, I couldn't feel my impact, the wheel was losing momentum and I couldn't get a true grasp of why couldn't I keep the wheel moving.
Well, now I know, it's because to have a complete loop, to restart the wheel’s momentum, I had to find other ways to empower myself. For that, I realized that I need to know myself on a deeper level. That's the journey that I leaned into. My first step was to write down what I admire about others and the journey is still ongoing…
We all have to go through transition moments. In the comments below, tell me about a defining moment that led you to redefine yourself?
