Falling Out of Love with Your Sport: When Ego Takes the Wheel
If you’re here, you’ve probably felt that dizzying, intoxicating feeling of falling in love with a new sport. Wether it was the first time you stood on a surfboard and wobbled your way into the shore, or felt the crunch of concrete underneath the wheels of your skateboard, or maybe the slide of your bike down a steep mountain trail… whatever it is, it can take over pretty quickly.
Quickly you’re finding friends in the same sport as you, and it seems all you talk about is that sport. You trade reels throughout the day, and in your downtime you find yourself searching videos on YouTube. Life becomes split into two categories; the sport, and then everything else keeping you from more time doing that sport. It’s like when you just start dating someone new and you’re in a frenzy, you’re having sex all the time, they can do no wrong, when you’re not with them, you’re thinking about them… and it feels like they were hand-picked and sent to you as the answer to all your problems.
You come out of the water, out of the skate park, out off the mountain with an unconquerable high, you feel like you felt the first and four-hundreth time you heard Shania Twain sing ‘let’s go, girls!‘- like you could kick down a damn door and take on the world.
You start seeing small improvements and start wanting to push yourself harder, faster. Perhaps you start surfing unbroken waves, or nail a slide, or go for the harder trails, and the intoxication builds. Maybe you want more, quicker. You take videos and share them on insta, you start comparing your progress to pictures you see of other people.
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And then…
And then… you look at a photo of you after a surf session and realize the wave wasn’t as big as you thought.
You realize you’re not ready for a drop in the bowl, when you really wanted to be.
Maybe you crash off your bike and get injured.
You start judging yourself, or feeling disappointed with yourself. Suddenly, the next time you’re about to paddle out or skate or whatever, you feel anxiety instead of excitement. Maybe you’re even kind of dreading your next session, because what if you don’t perform how you want to? What if everyone around you is better than you, faster, braver, more stylish?
Without even realizing it, you’re realizing what was once an activity of pure, raw joy and adrenaline, has become something heavy and… kind of not fun at all. What has happened? And how can you get back to that place of excitement and enjoyment?
When Ego Creeps In
Ego, in a way, has taken over. But before you start berating yourself for letting ego take over, know that ego isn’t inherently bad. Ego can push us to try harder, to improve and overcome challenges. It’s actually kind of fun in certain circumstances to attack wave or a drop or a jump with a bit of fuckoff irreverence, a bit of overconfidence. As long as you’re not spraying it all over others, really what is the harm of having a few Shania Twain moments in a day, a few moments where you feel truly unbreakable and on top of the world?
The problem is when it fully takes the wheel, to the point of taking us away from why we started our sport in the first place.
Suddenly we want more
At one point it was enough to just enjoy the ride, and suddenly you’re measuring yourself against personal bests and everyone around you. You have this sense of needing to win or conquer something, but you’re not exactly sure what. To what end? At which point do you go- okay, achieved. Answer, you don’t. Not at any point. Because it never ends, ever. There will always be the next thing to nail, to unlock, to learn, the bigger risk to take, the faster pace to go. Suddenly, it’s not enough to just enjoy the ride. You need to hit personal bests. And you need to win. You need to be recognized for your efforts.
It can happen that you’re either achieving so fast you’re not really celebrating your milestones. Or it can happen that you’re not achieving as fast as you’d like, and that’s when frustration, comparison and self-doubt creep in.
What once felt light and freeing starts to feel heavy and exhausting.
How chasing progress and lead you to falling out of love with your sport
Progress, of course, is motivating and exciting, but if left unchecked, the desperate pursuit of progress can become a trap. When our focus shifts too heavily toward results- the bigger wave, more wave, smoother maneuvers, cooler pics and vids for insta- it’s so easy to lose sight of the process. And the process is quite literally where we fell in love. Where we started, when we expected nothing of ourselves and were just happy to have a pocket in our day to learn and experience a new sport.
Because here’s the thing; we cannot be in constant, unhindered progress forever. We plateau, we get injured, the season ends, we have other responsibilities. The ebb and flow of life is completely normal, as is the ebb and flow of a sport, and if progress is the only goal, we can find ourselves becoming frustrated or feeling flat in those times we can’t be striving and breaking personal barriers.
It’s not just ego or mindset that can trip us up—our body chemistry plays a sneaky role too. Adrenaline, that powerhouse hormone and neurotransmitter, is what fuels those electric moments of energy, focus, and exhilaration. When we’re chasing high-adrenaline activities regularly, our brain starts to expect the intense dopamine hit that comes with it, like it’s the new normal.
Over time, this creates a new baseline, where everyday life without that rush feels dull—like the volume’s been turned way down. If adrenaline levels drop—because of injury, burnout, or just life slowing down—our brains can sink into a low-energy state, leaving us feeling flat, unmotivated, or even depressed. To make matters worse, our body might start producing less adrenaline naturally if we’ve been relying too heavily on that external rush, making it even harder to feel like ourselves. This cocktail of biochemistry and the emotional frustration that comes with it can feel like massive blow, making it tough to reconnect with joy in the slower moments.
So yes, surf withdrawal is real, and it’s not just in your head. Recognizing that your body and brain might need time to recalibrate can help you be kinder to yourself during slower seasons, to make sure you’re not falling out of love with your sport.
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Have You Felt This Too?
If you relate to any of this, I want you to know it’s normal and you’re not alone. We’re human, we get caught up, we get passionate and things matter to us. But there are a few things you can do to rewire your attitude around your sport so you can feel that pure love again without it feeling so heavy. So flat. Like your performance means something about you (it doesn’t.) Seriously, of all the responsibilities we have in life, of all the sh*t we have to drag ourselves to do even when we don’t feel like it, can we keep our sport as our happy place? We deserve that much, surely.
Rekindling the Spark
If you’re falling out of love with your sport, it’s not necessarily the end of the story. Here are a few ways to reconnect with the joy that first drew you in:
- Shift Your Focus to the Process: Stop looking at videos or pictures of yourself for a while, to get your head out of the what it looks like and back into the how it feels. I have noticed how much, when I’m biking down a trail, if I stop to take videos or self-film myself, it really does interrupt my flow and performance in a big way, because its like I’m trying to be in two places at once. If you’ve been over-judging yourself, take out the equation of how it looks to anyone else and celebrate it as a living thing inside your body. You’re here. Alive. You’re doing this thing. This will help stop you falling out of love with your sport.
- Think about what your inner little girl would think if she saw you doing what you’re doing. I highly doubt she’d be critiquing your form on your backside turn. I think she’d be like ‘future me surfs/ skates??? that’s amazing!’ When in doubt, revert to her.
- Revisit Your “Why”: Take some time to reflect. Why did you start this sport in the first place? What are the most fun memories you’ve had so far with the sport?
- Take the Pressure Off: Give yourself permission to step back. Try playing, exploring, and experimenting without a plan or goal in mind. Remember, it’s okay to just have fun. Truly, it is okay.
- Find Community: Sometimes, the joy comes back when we share it with others. Join a group, attend a casual meet-up, or reconnect with friends who share your passion.
- Diversify Your Passions: If your sport has become too tied to your identity, explore other hobbies or activities. This doesn’t mean giving up on your sport—it means giving yourself space to breathe and rediscover it on your own terms. This, for me, has been key. Key. I’m not so attached to my skill as a surfer because I also like to skate, I also like to mountain bike, and, hell, I like to write, draw and garden and read fantasy. Have more than one thing so the stakes on the thing aren’t so high. Remember to keep some distance between your sport and who you are. So often we can let something like surfer invade our whole personality, which can have it’s downsides. You contain multitudes, my friend, remember that.
Your Story Matters
Have you ever found yourself at this crossroads? What did it feel like, and how did you navigate it? Did you find your way back to your sport, or did you discover a new passion altogether?
We’d love to hear your story. Share it with us in the comments or send us a message. Let’s talk about the highs and lows, the love and frustration, and everything in between.
Because the truth is, our relationships with our passions are rarely linear. And that’s what makes them beautiful.
By sharing this conversation, we hope to remind you—and ourselves—that falling out of love with a sport doesn’t mean the end. Sometimes, it’s an invitation to rediscover it all over again.
Our sports are meant to be joyful, messy, and imperfect—just like us. If you’re struggling, take a breath, give yourself some space, and remember: the love is still there, waiting for you.
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