Student athletes are busy. Sometimes, really busy! The struggle to maintain a healthy school-sport-life balance can become very challenging, especially for students who are diligently striving to excel at the highest levels, both academically and in their sport.
A group of college athletes gathered together on the GameChange YouTube show The Conversation, and they had plenty to say about the subject.
Former USC soccer player Simone Jackson, now playing professionally for the Orlando Pride, talked about the strains put on her schedule when she agreed to requests from people who didn’t always understand just how busy student athletes can be. She said, “At the end of the day, it’s not them who has to stay up late to finish homework and then wake up the next day to do practice.”
It is important for student athletes to understand that time is a commodity that has its limitations. There are only 24 hours in a day, and it is up to you to choose wisely for how you spend them. “You’ve got to set your boundaries, and you have to stick to them, or else you’ll be the one to suffer,” explained Jackson.
So how do you decide what you do and don’t have time for? The first step is having a really good understanding of your schedule. Former USC basketball player Talia von Oelhoffen explained how detailed she gets when planning her week. “I schedule out every hour of my day, and I know that if I have an assignment, I can tell you I’m probably going to do it Wednesday at four,” laughed von Oelhoffen. She added, “I feel like just having a plan and being prepared is the biggest thing.”
UCLA women’s rugby player Madison Purves also believes that chunking your activities into clearly defined time slots can be very important when seeking to create balance in your life. She said, “I found that having a routine and schedule really helps me, and sometimes I even have to schedule out, ‘Okay, this is my free time, and this is when I don’t think about anything.’”
Maintaining a strict schedule can intuitively seem the opposite of having balance in your life, but it’s just a matter of perspective. Although finding balance can absolutely be achieved, it is unrealistic to expect every single day to be perfectly timed out. There is a time for school, a time to train, and a time to chill, but sometimes they don’t all happen on the same day. Von Oelhoffen explained how she does it. “I make it a point to not have a single thing to do on my off day. If I have to do extra things, I’ll just load it all up into one day so that I can just have one single day where I’m like, ‘I’m not doing anything.’”
