Episode 7: The 9-5 Adjustment

In Episode 7 of The Locker Room, I talk about the 9-to-5 adjustment after sports. This episode explores the shift from chasing clear goals, recognition, and the next level to navigating work, adulthood, slower progress, and learning how to find purpose in ordinary life.

The Locker Room is a podcast for former athletes navigating the confusing and often painful transition from a life centered around sports to a life outside of the game. For many athletes, walking away from sports is more than the end of a season. It can feel like losing purpose, community, and even a piece of who you are. One day, your life is built around competition and performance. Then suddenly, it's not. No schedule. No team. No clear version of who you are supposed to become next. This podcast explores the emotional weight of that transition: the identity crisis, the anxiety, the depression, the feeling of being lost, and the pressure to “move on” before you have fully processed what you left behind. Through honest conversations, personal reflection, and relatable stories, The Locker Room creates space for former athletes to feel seen, understood, and reminded that they are not alone. Life after sports is not just about finding a new career or routine. It is about rediscovering purpose, rebuilding identity, and learning that who you are has always been bigger than what you did. 

Transcript

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What's up y'all? It's your boy Jalen and welcome or welcome back to the Locker Room Podcast. In the last episode, we talked about the transition from the structure sports naturally provide to becoming self-driven enough to create structure for yourself outside of sports. We talked about how once sports ends, nobody is building your day for you anymore. You have to do that for yourself. And I think that leads directly into the conversation for today. Because once you start building structure for yourself, the next challenge is adjusting to a world that moves very differently than sports does. This episode is about the 9-to-5 adjustment. And when I say that, I'm not just talking about getting a job. I'm talking about the adjustment former athletes have to make from everyday sports and a lifetime of chasing the next level, whether that's becoming a starter, a captain, all conference, all region, or an all-American, to the reality that in a work environment, progress and recognition do not always move together. In sports, if you become one of the best players on your team, that usually means something. If you become one of the best in the country, that definitely means something. There is a clear relationship between growth, recognition, and reward. But in a nine to five environment, that's not always how it works. You may make progress, you may even become the best there is at what you do, and that still doesn't guarantee a promotion, a raise, or even congratulations. That can be difficult to accept. Because a nine to five adjustment is about more than recognition. It's about pace, it's about culture. It's about the fact that while everybody may come together to help the company run, everybody still has their own life, their own motivations, and their own reasons for being there. Some people are there for insurance, some are there to pay the bills, to retire, some are there because they need another job, and some, like I was, are just trying to figure life out. In sports, there's usually one mission to win, to improve, to be the best, and to reach the next level. My first job showed me that work life was fundamentally different from sports life. It was actually a great team environment. But even though I was new, I could already tell that once I got established and things became normal, that was pretty much it. There was no clear next level, no bigger stage, no obvious ladder to climb. It was mostly just doing more of what I was already doing or doing it in a different way. Another major difference was the stress. Even when sports was stressful, there was still a part of me that knew I could probably still find some kind of way to make a living. But once sports ended and work became how I actually survived, the stakes felt much heavier. Now, if I got something wrong, it had real world implications, not just for performance, for my livelihood. And I think one of the hardest parts of that adjustment was the people. Not because they were bad, but because I couldn't relate to most of them the same way I related to teammates. Most of them had families. Most of them were almost twice my age. The younger ones were easier to connect with, but even then, they had already been working a lot longer than I had. In sports, you're usually within a few years of your teammates. You're all in school, you're all chasing something, and you're all sharing similar experiences. In a work environment, that's not always the case. So in this episode, I want to talk about how similar sports and work can be in some ways, but also how different they are in the ways that matter most. And by the end of this episode, I want you to understand that while the difference between the two can make for a difficult adjustment, the same self-driven mindset that helps you survive after sports can also help you grow in work and in life. Because even if the recognition is not the same, the hard work is still worth it. And if you learn how to shift your focus from recognition to growth, that work can still pay off in the future. Unless this is your first episode, you've heard me talk about how difficult the transition out of sports is. You lose structure, you lose the routine, you lose a team environment. But this article really puts that reality into words. It explains that for many athletes, the sport does not simply become part of their life. It becomes the organizing principle of their life. That matters for this episode because if sports were the organizing principle of your life, then work life is going to be categorically different from that. Because in sports, every day has a target. Every day has a scoreboard, a standard, and a role that fits within a broader scheme. The article also says this the sudden absence of this structure is not experienced as freedom. It is experienced as disorientation, purposelessness, and a kind of persistent low-level dread. That's where I want to get to with a 9-5 adjustment. Because when you step into regular work life after sports, you're not just adjusting to having a job. You're adjusting to a slower pace, a different culture, a different kind of pressure, a different level of recognition, and sometimes a much weaker sense of purpose than what you were used to. So in this episode, I want to talk about why work life can feel so underwhelming compared to sports life, while that can mess with your sense of direction, and how former athletes can learn to find meaning, growth, and purpose in a life that no longer looks anything like the one they came from. First, I want to talk about what felt different about work life from the very beginning. Before I got into it, I didn't really know what to expect. It was my first real job. I worked with the kids from ages five to eighteen and adults as old as seventy and older. So it was a wide range of people and personalities. I wasn't expecting work to give me purpose the way sports had, but I do think I expected to feel more established as an adult. I thought it would help me feel like I had things figured out. I thought it would give me some mental clarity. I thought it would satisfy me more than it did. The first thing that really felt different once I started working full time was my lack of satisfaction. I hardly ever felt content with my life during that season. That was one of the first signs to me that work life was gonna take some time to adjust to. The pace was a lot slower. In sports, there was always something coming up, something new, another team to prepare for, another opponent to study, another competition to focus on. Work didn't feel like that. Because I was doing a lot of the same things every day, it got boring at times. There was more time to read the room and react, more time to come up with the best solution to whatever problem was in front of me. And while that can be a good thing, it was also just different. There wasn't nearly as much joking around. The environment was calmer. The energy was good, but it wasn't the same kind of energy. Sports have a different kind of life to them, a different kind of edge. And one thing I never fully got used to was going from being around teammates my age to being around coworkers in a completely different stage of life. It stopped being weird once I got used to the routine and got to know people better, but there was always some level of disconnect. Because in sports, you're usually around people close to your age, sharing similar experiences, living in similar seasons of life, and all pushing towards something together. I probably miss competition the most. I miss measuring myself against my peers. I miss seeing where I stood and where I needed to improve. That doesn't mean you can't find ways to measure growth and work, but again, it's different. I missed entering an environment where I could forget everything else for a few hours and focus on getting a win from myself or from my team. That was harder to find in regular life. It made normal life feel underwhelming. There aren't many moments where you get that adrenaline rush. There's pressure to perform well, but not in the same way. When you do the same thing every day, life starts to feel like a blur, like you're on autopilot. In sports, there's always another opponent, another challenge, another game plan, another moment to rise to. So adjusting to the fact that normal life is often repetitive and uneventful unless you change it was definitely strange for me. That was one of the hardest parts early on of the 9-5 adjustment. Regular life did not provide the same stimulation and satisfaction that sports did. And once I realized the 9-5 life wasn't going to give me the same kind of fulfillment, the harder part of the adjustment started showing up. The hardest thing about going from high performance sports to a regular work environment was feeling like I was meant for more while also knowing I didn't put all the work in to get where I really wanted to be. And that tension was crazy because life is moving forward, whether you're ready or not. You still have to work, you still have to provide, you still have to figure things out. Then there's this part of you that knows the life you're living isn't the life you thought you'd be living, or even the life you wanted. That messed with me big time. It took a long time to accept that this part of my life would primarily consist of work that wouldn't mean much to me outside of putting food on a table and gas in a tank. One of the hardest pills I've had to swallow. The worst part was that this was the fallback, the rebound. This was literally what I had chosen in case sports didn't work out. And when you look at your life like that, it's hard to feel deeply connected to what you're doing. So along with that came a lack of desire. I wasn't passionate about improving the same way I had been. I was driven enough to establish myself and make sure I wasn't a weak link, but I wasn't bought in. A lot of my energy was still stuck in the past. I spent so much of my time reliving my last days in sports, thinking about what could have been, reliving regret, reliving shame, reliving guilt. When you're doing that while also trying to build a new life, it becomes extremely challenging to be fully present in the life you have. That's why I felt behind the curve most days. I felt like I had no real aim in life. My identity was still intact in some ways, but my purpose wasn't. I didn't feel like I was doing much of anything that really mattered in the grand scheme of things, and that brought a lot of insecurity to the surface. I was insecure about my lack of skills, I was insecure about my lack of motivation, I was insecure about how ignorant I felt about life. I was insecure about my lack of connections and relationships. I was insecure about the opportunities I had wasted that could have made me a better athlete and put me in a better position after sports. And underneath all that, I was insecure about my lack of purpose. That's what it kept coming back to. The lack of competition, brotherhood, and clear goals made all of it even worse. Because they had always given me the motivation to improve. They had given me accountability and reasons to stay sharp. Once they were gone, I didn't really have anything pushing me in the same way. There were many moments when I felt like I was going through the motions instead of actually living with purpose. Honestly, I felt that way for most of the time I was there, but especially once I had gotten comfortable with the people and the routine. It was almost like I was backseat driving my own life, like I was spectating someone else living in my body. And at that point, I didn't really know what it meant to live with purpose. I knew I should strive to be better. I knew I should care more. But that's what made this part of the adjustment so tough. I was learning how to live in the real world, which no longer gave me the same meaning, motivation, and direction I had gotten used to in sports. And until I learned how to build that for myself, everything else just felt like motion without meaning. Once I broke through and got tired of feeling like I was just going through the motions, that's when I had to start asking the question, how do I build a life that actually means something to me? One of the first things that helped me start adapting to work life more healthily was simply accepting that this was my life now and that there was nothing wrong with it. That helped more than most other things I tried, because before that, I was so focused on what I thought I had lost, what could have been, and what I wished my life looked like, that I was overlooking what was actually right in front of me. I had a job, I was able to provide for my family, I was able to keep my lights on, I could drive my car to work every day, I had food, I had everything I needed. And that may sound obvious, but at the time, I wasn't looking at any of that. I was only looking at the negative. And over time, I started to appreciate something about adulthood and work that I couldn't see at first. There's a quote by Pam Beasley from The Office where she says, There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point? And that quote hits home because that's what I was missing for so long. I was so used to the highs and lows of sports, the adrenaline, the competition, the big moments, the visible growth, that ordinary life felt unbelievably underwhelming by comparison. But over time, I started to realize that ordinary life isn't empty. It just doesn't always announce its value the same way sports do. And one thing sports did teach me that I eventually started applying to work was that sometimes the regular, small, boring things produce the most fruit over the long term. Getting the basics right every time takes you a long way, and it gives you a way to spice things up and challenge yourself. Things like showing up on time, having a positive mindset, treating everyone with respect, giving your best effort, making mistakes while going 100%, having uncomfortable conversations, not being afraid to fail and admit when I did. Sports had already beaten that into me enough times that I understood I wasn't perfect, and I wasn't scared to let people around me see that. Those things matter. If I'm being honest, I overlooked them for a while because I wanted out. I wanted the next big thing to come along, so I was looking for shortcuts instead of settling in and doing those small things well. But I wouldn't be telling the whole story if I didn't say my faith and my marriage played a huge role in helping me settle into that stage of life. Without those two things, there is a 100% chance I would have quit first and asked questions later. I wouldn't have waited it out. And it got a lot worse before I got better. There were some very dark moments in that season that I'll talk about another time, but I held on. I just kept sticking to the routine, faking it till I made it, and I really believe actions often produce feelings, not the other way around. The more consistent I was, the better I felt, and the less I stayed in my own head. I also knew I had a responsibility. As a Christian, I knew I wasn't supposed to give up just because life got hard. And as a man, I didn't want to jeopardize the safety and security of my wife by being weak minded and folding under pressure. I'm not saying ignore your mental health. Not at all. If you need a break, take one. If you need a vacation or a leave of absence, do it. A change of scenery and routine can have real impact. But what I would tell a former athlete who feels frustrated by the slowness or normalcy of work life is this. Embrace it. Use it as an opportunity to learn where you can improve. Learn from your mistakes. Use the slowness to grow. Use that normalcy to practice consistency. Ask yourself how well you can do the same things every day without fail. Test your reliability. See what kind of person you become when life isn't exciting all the time. My definition of success has changed a lot because of that. Back then, success looked like recognition, achievement, the next level, all of that. Now, success looks like being able to provide for my wife and my kids with my leadership, time, energy, and money. Success looks like staying in shape without beating myself up for not training like I'm chasing the NFL or the Olympics. Success looks like having one to three things every day that I want to do consistently. And if I do those things well, the most other boxes I care about will get checked too. If there's one thing I want former athletes to understand, it's that adjusting to work life after sports can be harder than it looks. Not because work is bad, not because normal life is meaningless, but because sports and work do not reward the same things in the same way. In sports, growth is usually easier to see, recognition is easier to track, and the mission can often be more clear and concrete. In work, in adulthood, that's not always the case. Sometimes you're improving and nobody says anything. Sometimes you're doing good work and it feels aimless. Sometimes the biggest wins aren't public at all. And I think that's one of the hardest parts of the adjustment. I also think it's important to understand that ordinary life is not meaningless just because it's slower. There really is beauty in ordinary things. There's value in consistency. There's value in reliability. There's value in showing up and doing well even when life doesn't feel exciting. And what I hope you take from this episode is that success after sports may look different than it used to, but that doesn't mean it matters less. It just means you have to learn how to see it differently. I want you to leave with this. If normal life has felt underwhelming compared to sports, you're not crazy for feeling that way. And you're not crazy for realizing that work, adulthood, and responsibility do not come with the same adrenaline or recognition and shared mission that sports gave you. That's a real adjustment. Because in sports, there's always another game, another challenge, another opponent, another clear way to measure whether you're getting better. But in real life, that's not how it works. Sometimes growth is quiet and progress is boring. Sometimes success looks like paying your bills, being dependable, taking care of your family, staying healthy, and doing the small things well over a long period of time. And even though that may not feel as glamorous, it still matters. So if this season of your life feels slower than the one you came from, don't waste it. Use it. Use the ordinary things to become someone dependable, mature, and strong. Because success after sports is still success. It just may not look the way you thought it would. If this episode gave you something to think about, make sure you subscribe, leave a like, and comment your own experience below. I would love to hear what part of the 9 5 adjustment was hardest for you and what helped you settle into this stage of life. And until next time, remember, the game changed, but your story is still being written. Take care and God bless.