Success: A Story of Dreams Come True, Burnout, and Finding Joy Again
My mom, Sue Nesbitt, and I. Both Masters National Champions in the solo event in 2021.
Maybe it’s easy to write about success when I’ve had a gold medal around my neck, multiple appointments to the United States National Team, and numerous national championship titles to my name, or, maybe the achievements make it an even more challenging topic to discuss. With the margin for error being so small and the expectations of success so high, it feels like only a matter of time before one of these things has to give.
People often ask me what it was like to grow up in my household; a house built on the foundation of career-coach parents in two different sports–hockey and artistic swimming–with two extremely different coaching objectives: do anything it takes to win (yes, anything) and working toward the magical culmination of time, ethics, technique and trying your very best each and every day to eventually achieve the loftiest of goals. I would like to think I am a beautiful combination of both philosophies. Efficiently ethical and masterful with the high expectation of perfection and of course, winning, combined with having fun, enjoying the journey, and the mentality that if all else fails, I will learn something new along the way. As with any philosophy, even my wonderful combination comes with its own special set of flaws and is definitely far from perfect! ☺
At the age of eight, I began participating in artistic swimming at a competitive level. I remember absolutely loving the sport and being thrilled to be the tiniest little peanut on my team on top of all the platform lifts and thrown off all the stack lifts (since we didn’t do basket tosses back in my day!). Who doesn’t love a good breath at the end of the routine, eh? I also really loved showing off my skills to the music and performing, something I still really enjoy to this day.
People often ask me if I continued to swim each year because my mom was my coach. Believe it or not, my mom was actually not my coach until the later portion of my career and really only for about three seasons. Growing up, my parents entrusted me with making my own decision to swim or not each and every season, and in those early years, there was NOTHING that was going to keep me away from that pool. Although my mom was the head coach of my club and coached ‘the older girls,’ she had an incredibly well-versed team of coaches under her to take care of us younger kiddos, and yes, my sister and I were just two little water bugs included in the mix. No magical concoction of coaching or special formula was created for us as the head coach’s kids; just the standard, run-of-the-mill, club team, system. As I continued in the sport and grew up with the club mentality my mom had created, I became a little more successful in my skills each season. Luckily, my achievements began to grow with my increasing skills success. This continued to fuel my inner competitive fire, especially when I would find myself coming home with gold medals and 1st place ribbons to have my father call me “Champ!” and tell me to “Keep Going!”
Absolutely, Dad. There was nothing that was going to stop me. Nothing, however until that tricky high school age of about 15 years old.
In my era, I competed at the junior level, ages 14-18. My sister Stephanie, two years older than me, was projected to be one of the junior stars that year and was a favorite to win the figures and solo event at the Junior National Championships. A few months prior to the championships, Stephanie was selected to join the 2004 Olympic Training Team which took her out of the running to compete at the Junior National Championship that year. A few months prior, I remember writing out my goals for the season on a piece of paper to turn into my coaches, a ritual we took part in at the beginning of every season. We would meet individually with the coaches to go over our goals, so our coaches could better assist us in the process. I still remember this conversation as if it was yesterday. I remember watching my coach (my mother at this time since I had ‘aged up’ into her program) look down at my sheet of paper and start to read what I wrote out loud.
“I would like to win solo at the Junior National Championships.”
Chills came over my whole body followed by a fever of fear. In that moment, I couldn’t even believe I actually wrote that down. After several moments of silence from both of us, I shyly followed with … “I guess what I mean is … I would like to win solo … at some point … but … perhaps … maybe … not this year…”
My coach nodded, took some notes on my sheet, and our conversation carried on. She did not call me crazy. She did not laugh or think it was silly. She nodded and agreed and gave me a solid plan as to how I would achieve this goal. I was empowered and invigorated that my coach didn’t even think it was that far-fetched. She didn’t even act surprised! From there, my fire started to burn a little stronger.
Dial a few months forward to the Junior National Championships…
There is something interesting about success. Sometimes people are successful when they least expect it. When they are fearless, as if they have nothing to lose, right? This was me. During the 2003 Junior National Championships, this was my exact situation. Going into the figure competition I knew I had prepared extremely hard, but I also knew I was 15 years old, and there were favored 17 and 18-year-old competitors that would likely want to play hardball for their last shot at winning the title. I went in confidently and stuck to the strategy we had developed that worked for me. I was extremely proud of my performance, but we all know how a figure competition goes with several hundreds of competitors … do you really get out of the pool knowing how you measured up to the rest?
When I woke up the next morning, something strange happened to me. First, let me let you in on a secret. Did you know I used to be TERRIBLE at figures? Yes, it used to be my worst event! Knowing this, you will understand that I needed a strategy when looking at figure results to help me mentally get through the possible letdown of defeat. Before looking at the results, I would take a deep breath, start at the top of the list, and hold my breath until my name appeared on the sheet in hopes that I didn’t run out of air while finding my name. Luckily we can all hold our breaths for quite a while, eh? At this specific Junior National Championships, the one where I had spoken my lofty goal out loud, I performed my normal ritual. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, held it in, and peered up at the top of the list. Well, it only took me one name before I blew out my air in sheer shock, dismay, and surprise. My name was at the top. First place. Yes, a 15-year-old in 1st place at the Junior National Championships.
Although I had just lost all my air with the gut punch of surprise and the struggle to comprehend what was in front of me, I tried to maintain an air of neutrality. It was our club culture to choose to look at the posted results or not. Remember, this is before things were posted on the internet! But regardless, we were not to react; a skill I had practiced since age eight. I continued my walk into the pool area, excused myself to a private stall in the restroom, and celebrated with a victory dance in the handicap stall of the bathroom.
What. A. RUSH!
After several minutes, I composed myself to carry on and get back on track for the day's events. The competition was not over, yet.
I did go on to win the solo event at the 2003 Junior National Championships, which was a tremendous upset to my favored competitors and, yet again, a complete surprise to me. But what came after was a shock to everyone in my life. The very next season, I quit artistic swimming altogether. Yes, you heard that right. After the most successful season of my career and arguably the winningest performance by a 15-year-old in history at that point, I came to the conclusion that I just couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. The sport was just no longer fun. The stakes were too high and I did not want to carry that weight on my shoulders.
It’s interesting what happens to ‘successful’ people. For many, it is only a matter of time before they get into some sort of trouble. For me at age 15, winning the Junior National Championships without really realizing what I had done was my trouble spot. I needed to figure out how to find myself and my joy through the sport again.
Luckily for me, as I explained earlier, it was my decision each season to choose if I wanted to continue competing in artistic swimming. Although incredibly painful, for my mom specifically, I am both thankful and grateful for that time away from the sport my parents allowed me. During this time, I became a ‘normal’ kid. No pressures of winning high achievements, no National Team Trials, no summers traveling abroad with the Junior National Team. I swam and played water polo (not well, I might add) for my high school team, got reasonably good grades, went to all the football games and high school dances, and stayed up late on the weekends. Man, did I think I had really hit the jackpot!
That summer, my family traveled to Athens, Greece, to watch my sister, Stephanie compete in the Olympics. Watching her stand on the podium and accept her bronze medal as part of Team USA with all the USA Artistic Swimming fans hootin’ and hollerin’ loud and proud like us Americans like to do was truly awe-inspiring, to say the least. But it wasn’t really that moment that changed it all for me. Having the opportunity to watch our very own Team USA take their last deep breath together and then leave all their worries, doubts, and fears at their feet and walk so confidently onto that platform, perform their pre-deckwork, and hit that striking pose before the whistle? I held my breath feeling the goosebumps of anticipation and the nerves fire within me. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to return to artistic swimming.
Now, I know, what you are thinking. Most people would say at they wanted to also compete at the Olympic Games for a medal. For so many high-level athletes, the end dream is the same, but that wasn’t the case for me. I always knew my sister had an Olympic Dream. For me, I knew if I never felt what it was like to stand on the deck before a swim again, and train as hard as I could to be the very best swimmer in the pool, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
So, I guess the rest is history. My sister won a bronze medal as a part of Team USA at the 2004 Olympic Games in artistic swimming. I returned to artistic swimming the very next season, 2005, after one season off, and was once again rejuvenated in my love of the sport, and in my mind, I loved it more than I ever did in the first place. What does this have to do with success? I guess when you think about it, success can be viewed in so many different ways and may look very different to different people. When you get caught up in what others think of you and attempt to be successful according to what others view as success, it becomes a recipe for breakdown and burnout. That is a lot like what happened along my journey. Swimming my very best, achieving a higher height on my barracuda, and staying on the marker during my figures were enough to deem me successful, not winning every competition.
Maya Angelou, famous American author, poet, and civil rights activist says it best:
Maya Angelou, success quote.
I am sure many of you are wondering what my return to artistic swimming was like. You’re probably guessing right. It was hard work! But guess what? I loved every moment of it! My fire was burning bright. I was excited to be back on a team, swimming to music that I loved, and expressing myself to the music in the water where I always felt at home. Did I end up winning competitions that year? Some of them, yes. A lot of them, no! Did that matter? Honestly, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I am competitive. I think you all know that by now! I wanted to be the best, but I also understood it did not and was not going to define who I was. Secondly, no, it didn’t matter because just like Maya Angelou’s sentiment, I loved my routines, I loved what I was doing in the sport, and I absolutely loved the journey I was on. I guess you can say that’s still true today since I somehow, maaannnyyy years later, continue to find myself back out there on the deck after the whistle has blown, in front of the judges, ready to perform, each and every season.
These days when I want to measure my success, I ask myself three questions.
Do I like who I am right now?
Do I like what I am doing?
Do I like how I am doing it?
When the answer is yes to all three, I know I can take pride in a job well done, no matter the result or circumstances.