Last week the PWBA started. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve competed so I had all the feels. Something surprised me during the event that I wasn’t even expecting. I had a chance to connect with a few younger stars of the PWBA tour throughout the weekend.

When I first arrived, I noticed that as usual, there were a lot of new girls right out of college. Some of them might know me through my Elite Youth Tour, but I figured others maybe wouldn’t even know who I am, being too young to have seen me at my peak. So I figured I wouldn’t draw much attention from any of them. 

During the 12 games qualifying, I got to bowl with Maria from Russia who bowled for Vanderbilt University, a great university with an incredible bowling team. It surprised me when, before we started bowling, she approached me and asked if I had a piece of advice for a rookie out there for the first time. She was looking at me with these scared eyes. My response was, “Oh my gosh, I have so much advice for you!” I am always so happy to share my insights. The hard part was to narrow it down to just one.

I love that on tour I can be out there alongside young bowlers, with the chance to connect and share advice from the experiences I’ve had in my career.

As we were talking, it was really hard for me to narrow down just one piece of advice for her though. After sifting through all the advice in my brain I finally came up with the piece of advice I thought was the most important for her, a rookie on the professional tour. “Do not come out here and bowl like you have something to prove. If you do this, then you won’t allow yourself to “BE.” And, you will be your best on the lanes if you find a way to “just be.” I went on to tell her that she has nothing to prove here- and that she belonged. If you are bowling with something to prove, then you will never be your best self. If you can find a way to go out there and focus on the present in each shot and being your best, then you’ll allow yourself to just be… instead of trying to be something. You are your best self when you are at your most authentic, vulnerable as that may feel sometimes. 

The young players will get out there and think that they need to prove how good they are and that they belong there. And they don’t.

We all just have to be, whatever level of experience we are at. We all belong.
It’s finding a way to be ourselves and allowing ourselves to compete in the moment that’s the secret.

I had a conversation with my friend, Kayla, who also is a multiple-time Elite Youth Tour Champion and also a rookie on tour. I could tell how she was feeling, not making the cut. “This doesn’t define who you are,” I told her. I know it can feel that way but the truth is, making or not making a cut doesn’t determine how great you are. It just means that for that day of qualifying, something could have gone better. When we can not take our results personally- we can look at things as they are, not how they make us feel. 

I said, I know it feels like you have to prove something and prove that you belong here and I know how it feels when you’re just trying to make the cut but you don’t have to prove anything because you do already belong. When I told her that her eyes immediately welled up with tears because she said that was exactly what she was feeling.

I think every bowler, no matter what their experience or what they’ve done, has moments of doubt and finds themselves sometimes asking themselves, “am I good enough to be here?”

We just have to trust that we belong. One block, one day, or one tour can never define us. Just keep showing up, no matter what. I could bowl 12 games that are the best I’ve ever bowled, and I could be in first, but that doesn’t mean I’m the best there. I can also bowl 12 games poorly, not making the cut, and that doesn’t make me the worst. Neither case defines me or means that’s where my level is. It’s just how I bowled in that moment. Bowling is so hard that way. There are so many factors from one game to the next. So we just have to keep consistent by showing up, knowing we are where we are meant to be and that we belong. 

I tell others that they don’t need to prove themselves, but it’s something very real I also face.

Last week being my first time on tour in a while, I had to remind myself that I belong too. No one is immune to these feelings of doubt. When I caught myself feeling a little nervous up on the approach during a few shots last week, I’d tell myself that I also did not need to prove anything to anyone, especially not myself. I’d silently tell myself that I belonged there. I rely on knowing that I am the only me – nobody else is me. I’d look around and see that nobody has my experiences. No one has my wins and my losses and my lessons that I learned along the way to get me onto that lane in that moment.

And that is my superpower out on the lanes. That’s how I get back to feeling like I belong. I dig into feeling ME and my unique experience and differences propels me forward.

When these moments happen, I just dig into feeling what it means to be ME. We all belong and we have unique experiences that got us there. And whatever happens on the lanes has everything to do with our own unique journey and nothing to do with our worthiness.

Sometimes we all need to be reminded though.

So, here’s a challenge for you this week…Remind someone else this too:
You’re meant to be here. You belong.

And I’d love to hear about who you told.