During my ‘athletic career’ I have come across excellent coaches that can get the most out of all of their athletes. however, I have also come across coaches that can really knock their athlete’s confidence and diminish their love for the sport. The latter one is the reason I stopped playing football a few years back, the coach at the time had his favourites like all coaches do, but he always made sure they got played even when others were performing better, he played people out of position so his ‘favourites’ would get their desired position, don’t get me wrong I still absolutely love football but he made me not want to play anymore, which was quite a hard decision to make because at that age I was crazy about football. However, he knocked my confidence so much that it made me question why I was I playing it. One other negative example of a coach before I finally write something positive for once, my former coach always underlooked my achievements and never seemed to give me the time of day and everytime I improved on what he wanted me to he found something else to criticise but I found a club that coaches me well and gives my crewmates and I opportunities when we had earned them. I am thankful for my new set of coaches and all my old karate instructors for helping me build the physical and mental resilience to carry on during the tough times during sport.

Now moving onto teammates, over the years of sports I have met so many people some people I still talk to and some I will probably never meet again, in team sports like football and rowing (in some circumstances) the relationship with your teammates is vital to get the results you all want, especially now as I am in a double, my relationship with my doubles partner is so important, I hope he agrees but he is my best mate on and off the water and we both have respect for each other to gain the goals we want on the water. You meet people throughout your time as a sportsman or woman, not always within your own team but the people you compete against, they make you a better athlete, that is why I am thankful for all the people I’ve beaten or lost to because they have made me more confident and made me a better athlete cause you need to have losses and you need to make mistakes to improve.

To conclude, I just want to say I am not here trying to disrespect my former coaches and teammates that have been diffucult or tried to hold me back, I am thankful to you because when I do finally succeed whether that is in sport or academia, you learn most from how you recover from the bad times, like Arnold Schwarzenegger said “don’t be afraid to fail”, make sure you use your setbacks and failures to your advantage and improve.

I hope everyone is having a good day

I have a few more ideas in the works so stay tuned and follow my Instagram, if you want to ask any questions to me personally: Sean_a331

Mental health issues are more common than people think, 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. More specifically, 3.3 out of 100 people suffer from depression, 5.9 out of 100 people suffer from Generalised anxiety disorder, 4.4 out of 100 people suffer from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and 7.8 people suffer from mixed anxiety and depression.

The way in which we are dealing with mental health issues has worsened as there are higher reports of self-harm or having suicidal thoughts have increased. 7.3 out of 100 people self-harm and 6.7 out of 100 have attempted suicide.

I know that may sound very doom and gloom and I myself have experienced anxiety and depression as a result of traumatic family events. However, sport and exercise have always been a very good way to cope with things as it is an escape, I used to play football, water polo, karate and currently I am a rower, regardless of these sports being physically and mentally draining it was overcoming that barrier and finishing the task, whether that be to score the winning goal or cross the finish line first, it always felt like I had achieved something. Even when I didn’t win the event I felt good, participating in sport made me more confident in my body and myself. Especially now as a rower it is a very therapeutic sport, yes it is extremely difficult, technically and physically but when you’re on the water and it’s just you and the environment nothing beats it in my opinion.

I was gonna go on about sports teams but I’ll save that for next time!

I’ll probably post again tomorrow but I’ve got training so who knows 😊

Any feedback would be helpful.

Thanks for giving it a read, I’m mainly gonna be talking about the way in which sport helps me cope and deal with my mental health issues

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. Michael Jordan