For so long, I thought I was one thing. Diandra Asbaty: Team USA. You begin to think that this IS your identity and without that thing, maybe you’re no one. We get tricked into thinking that our identity belongs to those moments so that nothing else matters. No one ever told me any different.

But that’s just not true. At all. 

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It’s important to let go of the version of yourself that you were in the past.

Letting go of our past selves is the only way we can evolve. 

No one ever gave me that permission to say to myself, “you were the world’s best and now your life looks different and that’s okay.” It doesn’t make me less than.

I wish someone had told me, “You should be proud of what you’ve done and you’re going to do amazing things to come. They’re just going to look different. Your life and identity do not belong to those moments.” I think it would have been an easier transition for me if someone had reminded me of that.

It’s totally okay to acknowledge that you’re worried or you’re scared about your future. Or when you look at it, it looks different than from what you know. 

Everybody is going to worry at some point about transitions. I don’t think it’s healthy to pretend that it’s not there. The key is to acknowledge it and redirect it. Acknowledging the fact that it’s hard and redirecting it to, I’m going to do as best I can in this moment anyway and find ways to focus your energy on doing that, rather than the uncertainty about what’s next. Acknowledge the worries or fears and then move on from them, use them as fuel even for moving forward. And also realize that your identity doesn’t belong to one thing in life. Just because you’re good at something and you decide to flip that thing on it’s head, it doesn’t mean you’re less worthy. It just means you are evolving. 

I think that the easiest example is when I won my biggest tournament, the Queens. I was a new mom. I was going to this tournament without all the confidence in the world that I normally had. I needed to give myself permission to be whatever I was at that moment, instead of hanging on to what I was in the past. I had the experience to get me to the end and that’s not going to go away just because I had a baby. So I just acknowledged that it was all part of who I was becoming, which was something different than anything I was before when I had bowled. And that was okay, but nobody ever told me that. I had to give myself permission to go forward with courage, to not be blinded by any doubts. I didn’t let doubt win.

After I won, I fully gave myself permission to just be who I had become and to not feel the need to prove anything. Or to stay inside the box that I lived in for so long. World’s Best. Team USA…. I could be Diandra on my own terms, not feeling any pressure to always be number one. Do not misunderstand- when I’m out there I want it just as bad. The difference is, my life doesn’t revolved around it anymore.

Who would have thought I would have even more influence AFTER my “glory days” on the lanes? Who would have thought I would be able to influence and affect so many people’s lives? Maybe if I would have known that, it wouldn’t have been so scary for me. 

I see so many young bowlers, in their early or mid-twenties, who think that all that life is bowling, winning, and being the best. I understand that, because I felt that. To them I say, although this is what matters to you most right now, it’s ok to allow it to evolve. I get that it is a priority to win but just don’t worry that there’s nothing else out there after that because that’s being short-sighted and it’s giving all of the power of your identity away to that one focus, that one thing. 

I remember feeling that too. That all that mattered was bowling, that all that mattered was holding on to being a world champion bowler. Now I realize that the most important impact I’ve made in the sport of bowling came after my prime years of being a world champion or the world bowler of the year. That was the journey I lived and I just found out along the way how much more I could do. Sometimes we’re meant to learn that way and not supposed to know how the journey turns out. It’s just important to acknowledge how we’re feeling, and let go so we can move on and focus on growing into whatever comes next. 

So maybe I’m not known as “Diandra Asbaty- Team USA, World Champion” anymore but I like to think I am known as “Diandra Asbaty- Bowling Influencer, Youth Bowler Advocate.” And to me, that’s pretty dang important.

What part of yourself is hard for you to let go of? I’d love to hear it and maybe writing it out to me is just the nudge you need to acknowledge and move on from it…