Standing out of the spotlight

Between 2020-2024, I lived out most of my wildest dreams. Most of the dreams I’ve ever had at some point in my life, I managed to pull off in that four year span.

I…

✅ Worked for professional sports teams
✅ Worked with professional athletes, coaches, clubs and agents.
✅ Taught a course at a university
✅ Helped to manage two non-profits, including a soccer club.
✅ Existed within a sport as a “professional athlete” in my own right.

You see, since I started coaching in 2014, I’ve always had several boxes within my life that I can check off. Several boxes that bring additional value and meaning to my life, and importantly, how I feel about myself.

I’ve never liked to accept the idea that I’m just like everyone else, and that’s likely why I’ve often chased the less traditional paths and simultaneously, the spotlight.

And living in a spotlight, even if a supremely small one, is fun and cool. But it shouldn’t necessarily be the way in which someone like me ascribes meaning to their life, or, importantly, how they feel about themselves.

Now in 2025, I’m finally at a place where the meaning that I ascribe in my life is not through external measures stemming from the spotlight. The meaning that I am now able to ascribe is through:

✅ The person that I am (and want to be).
✅ The things that I am extremely happy to have in my life (such as family and friends), rather than the things that I do in my life (such as writing and running).

Profoundly, I’m less inclined to feel a need for additional items on some sort of list to be checked off. I’m not trying to find meaning elsewhere through some new, exciting, additional role in society. I’m actually happy in a state of doing less.

Part of this all stems from moving to a new place, after I moved across Canada from Ontario to B.C. It also partially stems from something I’ve spoken about in many an article – recognizing what truly matters most.

If wanting to be harsh on myself, I could so easily characterize this as a lack of motivation. Or, maybe, a lack of that same kind of ambition I once had to teach at universities and amass thousands of views on football articles. But I don’t see myself as an unmotivated person, and I definitely don’t think I’ve lost any ambition.

Instead, my ambition has just been distilled down to fewer directions.

✅ Trail running at the high-end of the sport, whilst sharing what I learn as I go.
✅ Writing for myself, with anyone desiring to read coming as an added bonus.
✅ Maintaining healthy and happy relationships with the people I cherish most.
✅ Identifying the best ways to make what I do at work better for everyone.

As 2025 enters the horizon, these will be my ‘core four’. These are the four things that I want to pay the most attention to this year, in bringing meaning and value to my life.

I don’t need to work with professional athletes or clubs this year, I don’t need to enter poetry contests, and I don’t need to teach at a university (although I will miss that one). I don’t need to add anything new to the repertoire, or try to ascribe meaning to my life by some sort of selfish need to contribute more to society.

I don’t need to do any of that. I can simply focus on the four items listed above, and ensure that those things are well attended to throughout the year. If I can manage that, it will be an incredible year. To add more and to create any sort of significant change could simply be too much.

So while I now go home from work and don’t immediately rush out to something new, that’s okay. Instead, I can prioritize my relationships. Or my writing. Instead of spending time driving to all of my different part-time gigs and outlandish opportunities, I can spend that time running. Or strategizing about work.

While it’s cool to be ambitious and chase that next project, it’s also okay to NOT chase that next project or extreme adventure, and prioritize family and friendships instead. It’s okay to do what truly matters to you and condense that core four to even two or three. It’s okay to be the one that dictates what’s in your own cup.

So as you go through your bucket list to life, or even your resolutions to the year, continue to remember what matters most to you, and where you want to spend the majority of your time. You don’t need the extra meaning in your life in seven different directions. You definitely don’t need the spotlight. You only need one or two things to truly make a difference in the world. Chances are, you already make that difference.

Thanks for reading and see you soon.