Performance Staff Career Path: A Rite of Passage. Written by Richard Husseiny – Men Behind Sport
Biography
Biography:
Richard worked for over 16 years as a performance with organisations including, the English Institute of Sport, EXOS, and Hintsa Performance. While he enjoyed working in these elite environments, he could not escape imposter syndrome, could not say no and express his boundaries, and felt stuck in his identity as a coach in sports. In 2015 he gave end-of-life care to his mother and that experience changed his life, allowing Richard to truly appreciate what was important to him, and inspiring him to provide the support he felt he didn't have. Ultimately this led Richard to establish Men Behind Sport www.menbehindsport.com
Blog:
Have you ever stopped to consider whether your role in performance sport will be a lifelong career for you?
This is one of the primary questions I support performance staff to answer, and it's not a simple yes/no answer. It's a primary question because we are at a time of evolution within the high-performance sports industry we love. The reason is that, more than ever before, we are hearing the real accounts of the cost of high-performance sports on the men and women supporting athletes at their own expense. The evidence shows that the proportion of coaches and performance staff reporting mental health symptoms at a level that would warrant professional treatment was approximately 40%.
The result of this is that we’re at a tipping point where significant numbers of performance staff are leaving the industry to protect their well-being due to:
Burn out
Physical illness
Mental illness
Prioritising their marriage/relationship
Be present as a parent
To live their life
Young coaches starting in their careers rarely consider this. The only vision they have is of where they want to work (team, organisation, institute) and the level of athlete they want to support. It's the shiny stuff that allures all of us at some point, leaving us blind to the realities of what's ahead. At the other end, senior staff inevitably come to a crossroads in their career. Suddenly they realize that their drive and focus, which have got them so far, become a hindrance to the other facets of their life - such as serious relationships, potential parenthood, and deep personal fulfillment.
Therefore, I want to lay out for you the rites of passage (see Figure 1), that the majority of performance staff pass through, whether they know it or not. This maps my own experience and also many of the 150 performance staff that I've interviewed for my research. I intend to offer you a perspective that will allow you to accept the idea of creating your own life on your terms. Rather than be defined by what is considered the myth of "normal."
Phase 1 - Student/Internship
It's important to highlight that this phase is usually following time as an athlete on some level. Although not the case for everyone, many of the men I've interviewed describe themselves "as a failed athlete." It's important to recognise, because for those that it does describe it seems to set the tone for the drive to "succeed" at all costs. This is a daunting phase because it's what separates those who "succeed" and break in with those who don't. I certainly wouldn't want to be at this phase again, and I look to those who are in full respect for having tenacity and drive, no matter what:
"I didn't really stop to think at all of what I was trying to achieve or how I was feeling, I've just been head down towards success trying to get validation from other people such as success in education then career success."
Key traits:
Take up the call to adventure in your life, to break into performance sport
Single (very few commitments)
Highly driven (at all costs mentality)
Sacrifice, long hours, and a willingness to do all you can to break into this highly competitive field
First paid job
Focus only on upskilling through technical CPD
Have minimal boundaries
Say yes to most opportunities (very often without real clarity on what opportunities are worth taking, and which are not)
This is where I see the dysfunctional traits being established that most often result in the real issues that appear in later phases. I feel that this is where the leads and senior staff must support up-and-coming staff in this phase, because if not, this cycle will continue and great practitioners will continue to leave performance sports maintaining the high turnover of staff.
Phase 2 - Senior Role
Simply put, this phase is most often why we get into performance sport in the first place. We're feeling more settled, we've "proved" ourselves which brings with it a sense of pressure to keep progressing. With more seniority comes more workload and responsibility above and beyond the delivery of the technical requirements of the role.
Very often at this stage relationships are serious with the potential for marriage/family. This brings with it more pressure because we struggle to maintain the quality of our personal life as our careers still take priority. On top of that, we feel that we should be happy and successful, but many don't necessarily feel it:
"I'm a manager and people see me as the example of work hard/play hard and the pressure to maintain that is difficult, I've struggled with authenticity because I'm quite outspoken and direct, I began changing myself to get away from confrontation, I find it very difficult to say no without upsetting people."
"The image of myself as a coach consumes my life, all the conversations I have outside of work stem back to work, I'm either at work or I'm at home reading up about stuff to do with work, I'm in the gym on my days off lifting, I don't do much else, works great but I don't do a lot else and I feel lonely."
Key traits:
Objective "success" e.g. winning athletes, papers published, conference speaker e.t.c
Entry into leadership positions
Recognised by your peers as "successful"
Defined by your role in sport
Career takes priority
Serious intimate relationship/marriage
Struggling to maintain quality in personal life
Enter into personal development work
Phase 3 - Work:Life
This phase is where the culture and our self-imposed demands of high-performance sports are driving us to lose balance in our life. The cost of this can be massive, including short-term relationships, divorce, being an absent parent, and physical and emotional illness. As performance staff, our success is so often solely defined by external results, such as win-lose, KPIs, and other objective markers of success. But underneath these external measures are our own stories within us that lead us to self-sabotage our own life. It seems unlikely that we would intentionally sabotage ourselves, yet we do, and the consequences can be caustic.
Here are 3 common reasons:
Many find it hard to be alone with their thoughts.
Many expend great energy in sustaining an identity that no longer serves them.
Many seek validation by overworking, overly self-critical, and people-pleasing because there is a sense that they "aren't good enough" and a sense of lack.
Chronic self-sabotage depletes drive and motivation and leaves us sad, anxious, and deeply unfulfilled:
"My relationship broke down. I'm always away. I'm always down on energy, unable to see friends and family. I feel guilty that it's my fault, and I'm tired of every human interaction being a transaction. I'm lonely."
"I have been fulfilling the requirements of a contract for someone else’s benefit, without actually taking much for my own sense of purpose or wellbeing. Everywhere I have worked I’ve experienced this, and it’s only since I went through some tough times, that I recognised I need to take more control of every situation I am in based on the qualities I can bring to the table. I'm tired of the nonsense, I'm tired of the politics, I'm tired of the backstabbing people."
"As an intern I was worried about what people thought because that's what I was conditioned to think, I feel like I have to impress people all the time, always an appraisal and assessment of my performance in the job role and I'm tired of it."
Key traits:
Career progress
Significant leadership positions
Potential parenthood
Significant overwhelm
Realisation things must change/can't continue like this
Feeling the toll of missing out on social life (low energy, overwhelm & feel potentially trapped)
Felt sense of pressure to "keep progressing" (focus still solely on technical CPD)
Beginning to seek new ways of understanding yourself/life
Phase 4 - Crossroads
To be at a crossroads is a point in your life where you have to make a decision. This decision will determine which path you will take - either positive or negative. It's a time of opportunity or a time of crisis. This doesn't mean it's obvious, and not everyone is aware of this immediately. We tend to cling to our known situation even if it keeps us unhappy:
"I've lost track of what normal people feel, I always feel that I'll leave the sport and go do something for myself but I don't know what will finally make me make that decision."
The starting point of a transition can be complex. Multiple aspects of your life are affected. The crossroad can creep up on you or hit you like a ton of bricks. Emotions like anger, disappointment, frustration, plummeting self-confidence, and resentment are common reactions to feeling stuck or lost without direction.
"I want stability but I catch myself always looking for the 'next' thing, I find it hard to really vibe with other coaches who just want to talk about work, I want more depth in life, I ask myself am I blinkered by my career in sport, am I lacking the ability to decide to step out of sport so I can begin to live my life how I want. Success in life is much more valuable than success in a profession."
Key traits:
Priorities changing
Entered into the process of reassessing your current identities that guide your life
Seeking more to life outside of sport
Been through significant life challenges that initiate reflection (e.g. grief of a person, a job, a relationship, etc.)
Realisation that decisions affect both personal and professional life, but until now always favoured the professional
Choosing between applying to ‘random’ next-stage jobs and carving out a job and income to allow you to live in a way you want to, where you want to
Seeking to understand if your challenges of wanting to break away from your career in sport are because you need to take stock of and remodel yourself to get the best out of your adapted career
Reflecting on whether it's time to progress into another related area in sport or have a complete change of career
Reach out to coach/mentor for guidance
In my life, I began to rethink my decisions. I began to look at the people I chose to associate with. I began to educate myself as a man, not as a coach. I looked to others for help with understanding life. I began to ask critical questions. I figuratively died and went in the opposite direction of everything I knew and understood.
Visit www.menbehindsport.com for more information.
Contact:
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-husseiny-a18aa928/?originalSubdomain=uk
X: @richardhusseiny