The former professional soccer player has shown her worth throughout her professional career. It's safe to say nothing stood her way, or was there?
(Image Credit: Alexa Coyle)
Recently, I sat down with Alexa Coyle and discussed her experiences with mental health. It can be very helpful to hear from personal experience and to understand how others navigate obstacles in their athletic careers such as mental health. Those who can learn how to mentally stabilize themselves to guide them in their career will be able to improve their performance on and off the field in everyday life.
The former collegiate and professional soccer player for Hibernian FC (Scottish Women’s Premier League), University of Montana D1 Women’s Soccer team, and co-business founder of The Female Edge (a business providing mentoring and services to female athletes to empower them to reach their goals – Learn more here) is no stranger to the obstacles affecting her everyday life as a player and individual. With countless accolades to her name, it’s hard to find a point in her career where obstacles were ever apparent. Finding the balance between who she was as an athlete and who she was in other parts of her life was difficult, but, not impossible. Mental health is different for everyone and how they define it, but, for her, it is defined through your ability to confidently make decisions in-tune with who you are.
“For me it’s making decisions that are fully in tune with yourself, being confident in those and when you’re in a place of quality mental health you’re able to make more in tune or accurate decisions, whether it be small or big decisions related to what you desire confidently. This for me, in my life, is when my mental health in my life is at its best when I’m confident day in and day out with the decisions I’m making.”
“When I reverse it, I feel I’m not in my very best place, I feel I struggle with decision making and decisions that I’m weighing factors on that aren’t what’s best for me as compared to when you do have quality mental health. Mental health is something that you work on every day, it’s working on yourself and your health every day.”
As Alexa says, mental health for her is a state at which you’re either able or unable to effectively or appropriately make decisions confidently and in tune with who you are, and what you truly desire. When the added factors like the stress of a penalty shot missed, for example, transfers over to your social life affecting your behavior and decision-making, your confidence in who you are and what you do can be affected negatively. As a former professional and college athlete, she describes one experience during her sophomore year in college when she encountered one of her toughest obstacles yet.
“Particularly in my sophomore year in my collegiate career I had a big moment where I realized too much of my identity was in my sport which then affected me, my mental health and I suffered from that.”
(Image Credit: Alexa Coyle)
“Growing up in a small town, I was always a starter, had success, never really hit any speed bumps and my freshman year was the same, I was a starter. Then we had a coaching change my sophomore year, I started off strong but then ended up losing my starting position and that was honestly the biggest piece of adversity I’d faced in my career.”
Not only did she encounter an opponent that she was unfamiliar with, but she experienced a mixture of stress and anxiety whenever she stepped onto a soccer field. She began to overanalyze every pass, touch, play, and movement she did on the field. The constant stress and anxiety began to pile up. She slowly felt she was unable to express who she truly was as a player and it ultimately affected her overall performance and her life off the field.
“My confidence dropped, my light outside the sport was affected, because I let disappointment in the sport bleed into everywhere else in my life and had to face the reality of not wanting to feel this way.”
A critical point in her career faced her without fear. It tested her ability to react in a way that would challenge her mind to figure out and problem-solve how to overcome an obstacle like this. The struggles with her identity from this adversity were difficult, but Alexa slowly discovered something from within herself to change that narrative.
“I had to, one, confront how I was feeling and how it was affecting me inside and outside my sport. Two, I had to be real with myself, that too much of my identity was in my sport. It definitely took time. I had to actively talk with myself. Inner dialogue, not worrying about things out of my control and control change to not have anxiety, stress, etc.”
Between her identity on the field and off the field, change needed to happen. This change began to develop from her drive to work on herself and ultimately stop experiencing the way she was feeling during this time.
“It’s easier said than done, but I focused on Alexa as an athlete at practice and really separated my time from the sport to anything outside of that. If I went on a hike, walk, did a workout, or was spending time with friends, I was Alexa in those moments and not soccer Alexa.”
(Image Credit: Alexa Coyle)
Alexa began to make this conscious separation over time, compartmentalizing who she was in whatever she did to focus and be present in the moment. One by one, with the additional support of her friends and family, she developed a mindset through these strategies to combat thoughts of crisis in her identity, stress, and anxiety.
“I found my identity and viewing myself as more than just an athlete was a big part of what helped me overcome it.”
This created a mental shift in her life, realizing she was so much more than just a soccer player, and even though she had lost her starting spot, she didn’t give up. No, these experiences made her into an even stronger version of herself, helping her find her confidence again to win back her starting position and elevate her career. She won her starting position back right before their conference tournament, started each match, scored a goal in the semi-final, then scored the game-winning goal in the championship to win the conference championship and earned a spot on the all-tournament team.
Setbacks like this can be difficult in any athlete’s career. Individuals like Alexa are symbols of hope, hope that athletes struggling with separating their identities from their sports and outside life challenges can be overcome. Mental health can come in any shape, or form, and how each person experiences it. If we can each personally find a way to; organize our minds, slowly work on ourselves, and strategize, when we experience something difficult in that period time of time, we too, can discover positive mental health in situations like this as Alexa did.
“Know that you are so much more than an athlete and that you offer so much more than just your performance as an athlete. It’s a short life and your period of time playing your sport is short. You want to have the ability to look back at your time playing your sport and enjoy it, have fun, express yourself, and attempt to be the best you can be.”
“You’re not alone in any struggles you may be having; so many people can relate and every athlete has experienced some form or shape of mental health.” -Alexa Coyle
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