The Work-Life-Rugby Balance (pick 2 of the 3)
It's actually quite tricky, folks. I know others have been doing this balancing act longer than I have, but it's pretty stressful. You can do 2 out of the 3 relatively ok, but when you try to do all 3, it starts to squeeze you from all sides. You want to train as best you can, while investing in your career (you're not getting any younger!), and trying to keep up with friends and family.
Day-to-Day Balance
On the day-to-day level, when you find a work-life-rugby balance that finally works for you, your weekdays become like clockwork and you have a pretty tight schedule. Most of the people I know run a pretty efficient weekly ship. For me, weekdays are all rugby/training+ work. Thankfully, weekends are rugby/training+ life. Needless to say, the "life" portion tends to get squeezed out once the season starts. With games every weekend and practices 2x per week, you invariably end up disappearing off the face of the earth and your friends wonder what black hole you were sucked into from March until mid-June.
As our "off season" (in quotes because there is no real off season if you're in the WNT pool) comes to a close (we start mid-March), I feel myself grasping at the last remnants of "life" before the season starts up again. This weekend I tried to squeeze all of my friends in because who knows when I'll have time to see them again... This last gasp of "life" probably left my immune system a little low after running around meeting friends for dinner, lunch, whiskey tasting, birthday celebration, brunch, etc. Seems a bit like the week before my college graduation...
The "Ripple Effect"
On occasion, I've been known to attempt all 3 in one day (work, rugby, life)- I'll work until 5:30, go to the gym until 7:30/8pm, drive back to Brooklyn and meet a friend (usually Audie) for dinner, make it back home by 11 and asleep by 12. This usually creates a dent in the tight schedule and then I'm tired the next day or can't make my lunch or my 4:30pm snack. That, in turn, means that there's no chance that I'll go to the gym in the morning and that I have to buy lunch and scrounge for food at 4:30pm. What I call the "ripple effect" of trying to do all 3 often creates a dent in your whole week. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to this "ripple effect", but I know that's one of the reasons we don't hang out much after practices. If I didn't have to sleep as much, there's an outside chance at successfully doing all 3 (work, rugby, life) in a given day.
(I've included Tina's Nesberg's inspirational card to help keep everything in perspective - click to read. Sorry if it's a bit blurry, but you can see my Scotland roomie, Tina, in the background!)
Stress
Especially in this World Cup year, this balancing act becomes a lot more difficult. Taking time off from work or finding the money to pay for rugby trips creates an additional stress that never gets easier. I think many of the National Team players have made the decision that they will focus on rugby and put their career on hold for a little while, making sacrifices at work to attend all the events. I know I'm personally grappling with this issue right now as I'm sure many others in the WNT pool are feeling the same kind of stress - one NY teammate has accepted a decreased annual salary to get the necessary time off, another decided to transition to a part-time consultant, and an NRU teammate has had to have several chats with the dean of her law school to negotiate some exceptions.
It's actually quite tricky, folks. I know others have been doing this balancing act longer than I have, but it's pretty stressful. You can do 2 out of the 3 relatively ok, but when you try to do all 3, it starts to squeeze you from all sides. You want to train as best you can, while investing in your career (you're not getting any younger!), and trying to keep up with friends and family.
Day-to-Day Balance
On the day-to-day level, when you find a work-life-rugby balance that finally works for you, your weekdays become like clockwork and you have a pretty tight schedule. Most of the people I know run a pretty efficient weekly ship. For me, weekdays are all rugby/training+ work. Thankfully, weekends are rugby/training+ life. Needless to say, the "life" portion tends to get squeezed out once the season starts. With games every weekend and practices 2x per week, you invariably end up disappearing off the face of the earth and your friends wonder what black hole you were sucked into from March until mid-June.
As our "off season" (in quotes because there is no real off season if you're in the WNT pool) comes to a close (we start mid-March), I feel myself grasping at the last remnants of "life" before the season starts up again. This weekend I tried to squeeze all of my friends in because who knows when I'll have time to see them again... This last gasp of "life" probably left my immune system a little low after running around meeting friends for dinner, lunch, whiskey tasting, birthday celebration, brunch, etc. Seems a bit like the week before my college graduation...
The "Ripple Effect"
On occasion, I've been known to attempt all 3 in one day (work, rugby, life)- I'll work until 5:30, go to the gym until 7:30/8pm, drive back to Brooklyn and meet a friend (usually Audie) for dinner, make it back home by 11 and asleep by 12. This usually creates a dent in the tight schedule and then I'm tired the next day or can't make my lunch or my 4:30pm snack. That, in turn, means that there's no chance that I'll go to the gym in the morning and that I have to buy lunch and scrounge for food at 4:30pm. What I call the "ripple effect" of trying to do all 3 often creates a dent in your whole week. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to this "ripple effect", but I know that's one of the reasons we don't hang out much after practices. If I didn't have to sleep as much, there's an outside chance at successfully doing all 3 (work, rugby, life) in a given day.
(I've included Tina's Nesberg's inspirational card to help keep everything in perspective - click to read. Sorry if it's a bit blurry, but you can see my Scotland roomie, Tina, in the background!)Stress
Especially in this World Cup year, this balancing act becomes a lot more difficult. Taking time off from work or finding the money to pay for rugby trips creates an additional stress that never gets easier. I think many of the National Team players have made the decision that they will focus on rugby and put their career on hold for a little while, making sacrifices at work to attend all the events. I know I'm personally grappling with this issue right now as I'm sure many others in the WNT pool are feeling the same kind of stress - one NY teammate has accepted a decreased annual salary to get the necessary time off, another decided to transition to a part-time consultant, and an NRU teammate has had to have several chats with the dean of her law school to negotiate some exceptions.
posted by Lee Knight at 5:55 PM
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