Articulate Your "Why"

I sat down with a family the other night to talk about their process. She wanted to know what she needed to do, work on and improve in to get recruited by her #1 school. Before we started that discussion, I asked her, "Why do you want to go to school there?" She looked at me with a surprised look on her face. She looked at her mom and then back at me with a 'isn't it obvious?' look on her face. It wasn't obvious. I can understand completely why any 16yo athlete would want to go to a school like this, but what are her reasons specifically? It's almost as if sometimes we are chasing something intangible. An idea of a school vs an actual tangible reason.

This question, "Why is that school your #1?" or even to a lesser extent, "Why are you interested in that school?" is a question that we need to be asking. What is it about that school, location, program or level that draws us in? Why do we want to play in the Big 12 is a great question to answer. Why is that a goal? I feel like I am being a 6 year old that just responds to everything their parents tell him with a "but why?" but coming up with a reason and being able to articulate that reason points to what you want to actually accomplish in your volleyball playing career.

Remember, 95% of the athletes that play high school volleyball are NOT playing in college. You're going to be (potentially) a part of the 5% that do play college volleyball.

Why are you in that group?

What drives you?

What do you hope to accomplish when your college career is over?

What are you hoping to get out of that experience?

When it's all said and done and you look at the last 4 years of college volleyball, what do you want to get out of it? Are you looking back and saying:

I grew...

I became...

I found...

I experienced...

Or is it that "you played..."

I'm not convinced that you all know the answer right now. In fact, I would imagine the answer(s) to this question will change over the years. But I do think it's something that should be reflected on. I say this a lot, but just because an athlete "can" play at a certain level of volleyball, doesn't mean that she "should". There is more to it than that. This is part of that thought process.

You have invested a lot of time, energy and money into this sport. What do you want to get out of all of that? A few sweatshirts, maybe a few medals if your lucky, but is that it? What is in you that drives you to drive 45 minutes to practice; practice for 3 hours; spend 3 days in a convention center...what is behind all of that?

My suggestion is that you get a volleyball journal. Write down some goals in there and date it with todays date. Don't think about it too much, just write down what comes to your mind. Write down some goals and THEN write down the answer to the question, "Why do you want to play college volleyball?" Don't think about it for too long. Just write down what times to you. Then, as you go through this club season start keeping notes after practices, matches, qualifier weekends. Add new goals. Add new reasons why you want to play college volleyball. Write down specific "whys" for different colleges as you begin to go through your recruiting process. Here is something that I have found, and I wish I would have done this earlier in my life, but writing down your goals and what you want to accomplish makes them tangible. When you can grasp something physically, it makes it more real and then you can't turn away from it.

Write it down. Start talking about it. This is why you're playing club and it's why you are going to play college volleyball. It's what drives you! It's worth spending some time thinking about.

Phone Call and June 15th Prep

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