I just signed up for another coed doubles beach volleyball league on Sundays. I was able to find a partner last minute and take the last spot in the league, which was super clutch. Unfortunately, my partner couldn’t come so I desperately asked around if a girl could sub in for my team. After like 2 hours of waiting on answers, I couldn’t find anybody to sub, but it wasn’t because I asked everyone I knew who could play. There was one girl who I met randomly like a month ago who had indoor experience; you could clearly tell her level was at least an A (at least IMO). I usually say I’m a BB based on the experience here in Tucson (here’s a good website to describe skills levels in general: https://www.alpharettabeach.com/skill-levels).
I was afraid to ask her because I usually like playing with people that I already know or who are the same level as I am. I didn’t know her that well and I felt like I would let her down if she saw my skill level, but I felt like I had nothing to lose at this point. If she didn’t say yes, then I would forfeit. In hindsight, I don’t know why I gave myself such a hard time. So I asked and like 10 minutes later, she said yes!
During The Game
We played great. We had great team energy and made some amazing plays, but there was one thing that came up during our plays, which was my inability to put away points with my spikes. This has always been something I struggled with. Whenever I’m about to go up to hit, I have this big fear that I’ll hit it out. So I end up dialing back my power and not completing my arm swing during hitting. This often resulted in the opposing team digging most of my hit balls.
The weird thing is that if my teammate hits it out from spiking, then I have no issue. I even recalled telling her like “keep being aggressive”. On the other hand, if I hit it out, then I like cuss myself out in my mind because I lost my team a point. During plays, she gave me some feedback saying that I needed to complete my arm swing and snap my wrist in order to drive the ball into the ground. I was taking it in as much as I could but as soon as the next play came, I would forget to do what she told me and repeat the same move.
Thoughts While Driving Back Home
I kept asking myself on my drive back home – why is it that I am afraid of hitting the balls with more power when I have really good sets? I can hit it hard when I’m warming up but as soon as I start playing, I just get scared about losing points and hitting it out. I mean…it’s a good thing that I am making up my lack in power with cleverly placed shots and cuts, but that just limits my ability to move up in skill level. The more I thought, the more it felt like my approach to being aggressive at the net was an expression of who I was a person and how I lived my life, which was playing it safe and not being confident in my own abilities. Since my teammate was better than me, I felt like I was more focused on trying to impress my teammate by keeping the ball in than trying to improve my own abilities.
As I’m working on trying to improve myself in various areas of my life (career, volleyball, health, financials, etc…), I wanted to share some thoughts that I try to remind myself of and things that I will change for my volleyball game:
- Be confident in your ability to learn from your own mistakes. I personally feel and know the negative stigma attached to failure, but as I’m trying new things and making mistakes, I’m realizing that the key is not to focus on the fact that you made the mistake. The key is to focus on how to learn, grow, and move forward. Making a mistake will show you your limits and expose how you need to adjust to move past your obstacle. For me, I’m setting a goal before I go to my volleyball games to hit with more power. If I hit it out, I’ll make a record for myself on what I did wrong so I can readjust for next time.
- Impress yourself before trying to impress others. It’s important to be proud of who you are. If you are seeking the validation of others, you are giving others control over your happiness. That’s just like handing the other team points in volleyball. If you aren’t confident in your skills, especially for beach volleyball doubles, you’ll handicap yourself before you even start the game. The way I’m living this truth out is constantly reminding myself to compare myself to myself. Whether it’s comparing myself to who I was yesterday or last year, if I’m making improvements in the right direction, then it makes me confident that I’m doing what I believe is best for myself.
As always,
Be Confident. Stay Curious.
