This blog post is running late because I picked up a temporary position for the month of January-interim Head Coach for the Indoor Track team at my school.  The head coach had a beautiful baby on New Year’s Eve, and I volunteered to finish out the season for her back in August.

After a relaxing Christmas break, I started second-guessing my choice.  I hadn’t coached indoor track in over a decade.  Those were long meets on Saturdays, cold afternoons for practice (because even though it’s called indoor track, you are actually only indoors for the meets…the rest of the time you are outside, freezing).  What was I thinking?!  What if the kids could see through me and wouldn’t listen to me?  This could be a miserable experience.

However, after the first week, we all settled into a rhythm.  The kids were awesome and were very patient with me.  I got to watch one of my sons set new personal bests and ring the PR bell.  The assistant coaches were also very supportive, and it was a great season.  I realized how much I missed coaching this age group-the kids had great senses of humor, wanted to be there, and worked hard.  The best moments were the bus rides to and from the meet, walks to Starbucks with the injury reserve before the meets started, and sharing meals with them.  My biggest highlight was when our state team was eating a late lunch at Chick-fil-A after the state meet.  They were reminiscing about cross country camp last summer, and one girl said, “Coach Smalley, you HAVE to come with us this year!!”.  It was that moment that I felt like I was truly part of the team, not just a substitute.  That was a part of who I am that I haven’t been able to tap into in a long time, and it made me a happier person every day.  

Why do I bring this up?  I realized that I missed coaching high school athletes, and this experience made me happier than I have been in a while.  I felt less stressed during this season, which is surprising because I had to make a lot of logistical changes, and those were stressful.  But the bottom line was that this coaching assignment brought me so much joy because I got to be my true self.  

When we are able to find joy in our days, whether it’s coaching a group of hilarious high schoolers or something else, this lowers our cortisol levels and keeps our body out of fight or flight mode.  Fight or flight mode occurs when a stressor or potential threat is detected, and your body primes itself to either fight the threat or run away from it.  This response is a protective factor from threats, which in prehistoric times were animals or the elements.  In addition to releasing adrenaline when faced with a threat, our bodies also release cortisol, which the Cleveland Clinic defines as a hormone th at plays a key role in managing the body’s stress response.  Some of its functions include: releasing glucose so your muscles are ready for action, raising your blood pressure, ensuring that you are awake and alert, ready to face danger.  By finding joy, we reduce the need for our bodies to enter fight or flight mode, which is very common in today’s society.  When we can limit the use of fight or flight for true emergencies, we can reduce the release of cortisol and protect our overall health.

One situation that often leads to fight or flight mode that we don’t think about is masking.  Masking involves regularly hiding your true self, whether it’s neurodivergence, your beliefs, or you are making significant sacrifices to be someone else in order to fit in with a group.  Masking is exhausting and can lead to burnout and depression.  Because of this, it’s very important to identify people and places where you can “unmask” and be your true self.  This allows you to rest and recover as you aren’t expending large amounts of energy trying to appear like someone else.  

Interviews are a prime example where everyone masks.  We all want to appear as the model candidate to a prospective employer and during the process, we expend large amounts of effort and energy to appear that way.  If you are neurodivergent, you are also masking your neurodivergent symptoms, in addition to trying to appear as a model candidate.  To make this process easier, I always recommend three tips to my clients:

*Prepare your answers ahead of time: write down your answers to standard questions and save them. 

*Keep your answers concise: I am the queen of wanting to overexplain, but that usually backfires.  Rely on your experience and expertise to give answers that are to the point and then stop.  An interviewer will ask follow-up questions if they need more information.  Overexplaining will likely make your answer confusing or make you appear as though you are disorganized.

*Once you have your answers gathered, practice regularly.  The more comfortable you are with your answers, the more natural you will sound AND feel in an interview.  

If you are someone who feels like you need to frequently mask or are exhausted at the end of the day or after a busy event from “too much peopling”, schedule a free consultation today to see how I can help you employ effective strategies so you can be at your best!