Stay Present

I walk into my dorm, drop my school bag on the ground, and fall onto my bed, muscles aching from early morning practice. I’m trying to maintain a 4.0, I still need to eat, recover my sore body, and get to bed early just to repeat it all the next day.

For 14 years, since I started playing soccer, this was my dream—to play Division I soccer. My address has changed, my school has changed, my team has changed, but it doesn’t feel any different.

This is a problem I have fallen into too many times to count: not being fully present. Wanting my future dreams to come true, but when they do, life does not feel any different.

After playing in my third ever college game, I started to get sentimental, as I sometimes do. I missed it—I missed how it was when I was little, or even just last year. When my parents would drive me to my game, they’d sit on the sidelines in foldable camp chairs. When it was over, I’d take my cleats off, put my slides on, walk with them back to the car, and we’d go to In-N-Out on a hot Saturday afternoon.

That is what I missed—those Saturdays with my parents.

But I was living my dream, playing in college, wasn’t I?

I had missed it. I had taken those times for granted—a common trap almost every overachiever or athlete striving for success falls into. This illusion that once I get to my dream, I will be happy, my life won’t be complicated, or I will finally be able to relax.

This way of thinking is a delusion that starts to crumble when the thing you wanted finally happens and life still doesn’t magically change.

I have wished almost every part of my life away—chasing a better team, better grades, better friends, anything better.

But the key to happiness as a high-performing athlete who yearns for success is to be present, even when things don’t go your way, and to be grateful for where you are.

So here are my three tips from experience:

1. Start a Gratitude Journal

Write down just a few things from that day that went well, made you smile, or that you are grateful for.

2. Meditate

Take a few minutes each day to sit in stillness and feel the feelings of now. Keep your mind present.

3. Stop Having Such High Expectations

Standards for yourself are good to have, but I have learned that when my expectations for each practice or game are too high, I underperform.

Instead, go into each practice or game with just one word and focus on that word. One that I like is relentless.

Instead of saying, “I need to score two goals,” focus on your word.

This helps you stay present in your sport instead of constantly thinking, I’m not good enough, or I need to play at this level or my coach will pull me.

Focusing only on expectations will diminish your game and lead to overthinking.

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Is it good to have dreams and goals? Yes—of course it is.

But when they start to consume you, you stop living in the moment. You stop fully living in moments that one day you’ll look back on and wish you could return to.

As I focus on living in the moment through gratitude, meditation, and playing with my one word in mind, I’ve noticed that my mental state as an athlete drastically changes when I am less fixated on the future.