Article 1: Welcome to Grounded Athletics
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the Grounded Athletics blog! I am very excited to be starting this project, as I have been working to develop it over the last few years. My motivation to start a platform to share my experiences in athletics and personal development stems from developing habits and strategies that positively impact my life. Throughout the last 4 years, I have gone through some very troubling times and often did not know which direction to take in order to move forward. I was living my life day to day, not delivering on responsibilities that I had promised to myself and others, and had no real long term plan for the future. I was putting off work, studying, and other responsibilities and did not really seem to care about what would happen. After being in this phase for close to a year, I finally realized there is no reasonable way to continue living my life like this. I was in my junior year of college at the University of Delaware when this really started- I was behind my fellow classmates and teammates in credits, and needed an extra 5th year to finish my degree. In the back of my mind I knew then that I did not have it in me to finish my college degree at that moment, but took no action to resolve the issue. I spent the first semester of my 5th year completely miserable. Most of my teammates and friends had graduated and I fell into a recluse state, where I was not opening up myself to new experiences and people. I felt like I was massively behind others at that point in my life and was losing motivation to focus on my responsibilities. After putting things off for a few months, I finally realized that I needed to change my outlook on life and the direction I was headed.
The one thing that kept me going through these hard times was staying active. Sports, athletics, being outside and exploring new hobbies had always been my outlet growing up. It was what brought me the most joy and pleasure growing up, so I knew I could rely on those things to at least bring some positivity to myself. However, I realized how hard it was to do those activities while my mental state was impaired. That is when I thought of the idea of “Grounded Athletics”, combining mental practices with physical training in order to bring positive change to daily life. This experience showed me how important the mental component of sports and competition is and why it is just as, if not more important that physical training and health. I also wanted to start documenting my training progress, in order to measure and compare myself to where I was previously. Even after coming up with this idea, I have had a hard time actually starting and working on it, but that is now changing. Previously, I was anxious about what other people would think of it, but now I’ve realized that the satisfaction and fulfillment I receive from putting my energy towards this project is a massive driving factor for me. I am very much looking forward to sharing more of my thoughts and experiences with you guys, and show people that they too can climb out of hard and troubling times and find a new direction to point themselves to.
The main way that I actually developed the thought processes to improve myself was through introspection and finding solitude. Most people think that being alone is a bad thing, but there is a difference with being alone and being lonely. Solitude is where a person finds true contentment within themselves, unbothered by external factors and distractions, leading to an inner peace and harmony that cannot be found in any other way. With how fast paced modern life is, many people cannot, or are unwilling to find solitude. Many people are scared of being alone, but finding our unique passions and aspirations in life can only truly be found by ourselves. When you are able to break away from the distractions and external factors that influence you, whether you realize them or not, it is amazing what can be achieved. I spent a lot of time by myself over the last 2 years, trying to figure out my unique purpose in life. I am finally now feeling more ready to open myself back up to new experiences. It was a hard and painful process at times, but taught me more about myself than I could have imagined. That is how I got to where I am now- ready to unload the things that I have learned about myself, mental health, physical health, and how to tie it all together in order to benefit your life. This was a short introduction to why I am starting this project. In the next article, I will discuss strategies to help you find your own inner peace and harmony, and what events I am currently training for.
