When Your Dreams Don't Come True

I need to start by congratulating the new 2020 USA Olympic Softball team that was announced yesterday.

I cannot wait to watch this team do their thing in Tokyo next year, and hopefully come home with a gold medal. Making the National Team and going to the Olympics is the pinnacle of softball achievement, and it is the dream of almost every elite player to make this team. These players have dedicated a huge portion of their lives to training for this moment, and I am so excited and happy for them, and proud for the USA to have such a strong team.

But I can't help but also think about the players who did not get selected.

The announcement brings back emotion-filled memories for me, and even though my playing days were 20 years ago now, there are certain things that I vividly remember about my own road to the National Team selection camp, where I had dreams of making the team.

After the camp/tryouts, I remember our hotel room, and how my roommate and I were anxiously waiting for the news of who would make it onto Team USA. I'm not sure exactly how it's done these days but back then they would slide a paper under your hotel room door to let you know if you had made the team. I can't remember exactly what my letter said. I just remember my roommate and friend getting hers and knowing that she had made the National Team. And I had not.

We looked at each other, both knowing each other’s news and she said something like, "I can't believe it.” I remember telling her that I was happy for her and that I would be ok. She deserved it and she should not to let my non-selection affect her. We were both genuinely understanding. She then had to run off to her new team and get her picture taken (I wonder if they still do that? Make the girls get ready at some horrible early hour. I hope not!), at which point I was left in the room alone. This was essentially my last chance to make Team USA. It was over for me. I'm sure there were some tears in that moment, but I actually don't remember that detail. What I do remember is more of a long drawn out sadness, it was probably a sort of grieving in hindsight, that all I had worked for up to that point was now in the past and there would be no future in softball playing for me. My dream did not come true.

I see so many quotes by successful people to the effect of "if you work hard enough, you can accomplish anything." People usually say things like that in their post-championship interview. But what about the person who had to go up against that eventual champion?

Did they also not work hard? Were they not as deserving? What would their quote be?

In my case, maybe I was deserving. I certainly thought I was. But maybe someone else was more deserving based on their work ethic, their talent, or any other host of reasons-- I will never really know. And these things were out of my control anyway.

Ultimately the reason I didn’t get picked did not matter. It was not meant to be for me. I had other things that I was to accomplish, and I just did not know it yet. I ended up starting a career that has allowed me to travel the world and use other talents of mine outside of softball to accomplish many other things. Life most definitely went on.

In that moment in the hotel room and for some time after though, I could not and did not want to see any of this. I only knew the life I had led up to that point, which was completely dedicated to softball. In that one decision by the selection committee, my life was completely re-tracked.

And at that point I had my own decision to make about how to react.

I decided to pick myself up and keep going. And I formed new dreams.

Hard work will not always be recognized

One thing this experience taught me is that you will work hard and STILL fail sometimes. It's not always like the champions say it is in their post-game interviews. And this isn't just in softball or sports. In the business world there have been so many times I have worked for months on a project that never came to fruition. It is so frustrating and demoralizing -- why did I just spend all this time working my butt off for something that is never going to be realized? Up until my softball career ended, I had never experienced this! My hard work had ALWAYS paid off, in the classroom and on the field. I hadn't realized how lucky I was. Working hard doesn't always lead to a dream coming true, especially when a good portion of the outcome is tied up in forces outside of your control.

It's going to hurt

Having your dreams unfulfilled is painful. But I have learned that the journey is worth it in the end. You might want to protect yourself from trying so hard for something that is a long shot because you are afraid of coming up short.

But that is not how people who get the most out of life operate. You must be willing to take the risk and the pain, even if there is no guarantee that your hard work will pay off. Because sometimes it does. But all is not lost if it doesn't.

Keep going

It may not be down the path you had envisioned or hoped for, but you will find a new path that may lead to something you can't yet even fathom, and it might be fantastic.

So to all the girls and women who had dreams of making this team or any other team--

be kind to yourself. Just because you were not selected does not mean you have failed. There are things that may have been completely beyond your control that went into this decision by a handful of humans. Know that there are great things waiting for you. And now is your time to go find those opportunities and cultivate a new dream. You will be a better person for it.