We all face disappointments in life. But in sport, and especially as referees, there are factors that make these disappointments harder to take. Officials sometimes have to wait a long time fir the next game to put right what went wrong, and along with that endure sometimes long journeys and gruelling training with no guarantee of an appointment to another game the next week.
The best way to deal with disappointment is to create the right conditions in your life before disappointment occurs so that you are ready when it does. This means having balance in your life. When you are focused exclusively on one outcome, failure to achieve it can be devastating. But within the context of a life in which you find fulfilment from various avenues (relationships, friends and family, other interests or making a contribution outside of your role as a referee) then as devastating as disappointment is, it will not be such a threat to your sense of self and purpose.
This is easy to say, but of course sporting culture does not support this. In an era of high professionalism, refereeing often really is your life, and needs to be for your highest standard of officiating to be attained. The work of an official is not contained within a 40 hour week, but is a 24/7 lifestyle, impacting every decision around diet, how you socialise, when you sleep and many other factors. So given that, how can a referee manage disappointment when achieving that goal of being promoted or appointed to a cup final really does mean everything?
Ten Points To Help You Cope
One: Accept. You cannot avoid feeling deep disappointment and agony. This is natural and inevitable. The issue is to not get stuck in the ‘if onlys’, acceptance means allowing yourself to feel as rubbish as you feel and not try to shut it out by disconnecting or using alcohol or whatever ways you have to stop feelings. Feelings that are suppressed have ways of finding an outlet somewhere. Better to feel what you feel and use that feeling constructively.
Two: Get Support. Olympic athletes, Adam Gemili and Lutalo Muhammad spoke in interviews about the comfort they had received through the support of others following their disappointments. It can be tempting to act like it’s fine and withdraw into yourself, but expressing how upset you are allows others to know what you need from them. Sports counselling or psychotherapy could help if you struggle to ask for support or show vulnerability, or if you do not have a support network around you who are able to be there for you in such moments. Try to evaluate your options when it comes to a support network and make sure you have fall backs in the event of your first choices being unavailable in your time of need. You could contact your Referee Development Officer/Manager, Chairperson/Secretary of your local RA Branch, Your Coach or Mentor. Quite often referees need support immediately after a difficult game, which is more than likely outside of office hours, in this situation referees from across the UK can call the Ref Support UK hotline 24 hours a day on: 0300 311 1966
Three: Support Yourself. Step two is a form of supporting yourself through reaching out to others at a time when it is very difficult to maintain positive feelings. But ultimately, you will need to be your own best friend in the tough times. Supporting yourself is different from denying or trying to block out your feelings. Nor is it about relentless positive thinking in a way that doesn’t acknowledge the devastation of what you’ve missed out on. Instead it’s about acknowledging how you feel AND also maintaining hope for the future, good feelings about yourself and avoiding beating yourself up. This is so hard in those first moments, especially if you’re not practised in being kind to yourself. That’s why it’s good to allow others to step in as a bridge until you can offer yourself that kind of support. It also means that you need to make sure you are in the habit of being nurturing to yourself. If this is not something you are used to doing in the good times, you will find it incredibly difficult in the bad times.
Four: Take Responsibility. Maybe not straight away, but when the intensity of the disappointment has faded somewhat, it’s time to take some responsibility for your choices. This is not about giving yourself a hard time. This is instead about supporting yourself through the inevitable ups and downs of a refereeing career, a career you have chosen to pursue. As an official, you have to hold the tension between the possibility of never achieving what you want and the belief that you will get it. The fact is that, as a referee, you have chosen a career path that is filled with risk and with it, the possibility of great highs and great lows. This is the nature of sport and this is what you have signed up to. The fact you have made this choice and are able to live with this degree of risk and uncertainty shows you have some fight in you. You will need to harness this aspect of your self identity to move forward.
Five: Find The Higher Purpose. Your ultimate goal might be to referee on the Premier League let’s say, but it’s important to know why you want that. To find out, ask yourself: what does it mean if I am promoted to that level? What does it do for me? Maybe it means you that you’ve achieved your potential. Keep asking the question. So if you have achieved your potential, what does that do for you? And so on. Keep going until you have found the highest positive intention (as is said in NLP). Perhaps achieving your potential means you have made people proud. If they are proud it means you’ve made a useful contribution to the world and your life has meaning. Then you have a clue that your ultimate goal is around having meaning through contribution. Find other ways to express your contribution so that it doesn’t hinge on this one thing. The idea is that if you don’t get what you want, you are dealing with disappointment only, rather than a wholesale sense of worthlessness and loss of meaning.
Six: Broaden Your Identity. Research shows that when you have a singular sporting identity, there is a much greater chance of falling apart when things go wrong. Instead, cultivate a broader sense of self through understanding yourself outside of your refereeing career. Even if you don’t have time to do much else outside of officiating, you can still work on valuing yourself as a person and your personal characteristics and qualities, so that your accomplishments as a referee are not your only avenue for self worth. Think of five non sport related skills, accomplishments or qualities as a starting point.
Seven: Move The Goal Posts. This isn’t about changing the goal as much as broadening the goal and shifting your perspective towards relishing the whole experience of a refereeing career rather than being exclusively focused on a particular outcome. There needs to be some element of reward in the journey. Along the way, this means noticing after a training session what you feel good about, so that the sense of accomplishment is ongoing and not limited to matchdays. In this perspective, one of your goals needs to be a commitment to finding the learning and growth at all times, even in disappointment. Knowing that you have come to terms with a disappointing performance builds huge resilience and will contribute to reducing your fear of failure, freeing you up to take risks knowing you can live with what happens next. Ask yourself: How can I use this to become a better version of me (as an official and in life)? How can I learn from this? Getting through something difficult, living with it, is an act of personal growth that you can feel proud of.
Eight: Rewrite The Story. You may have had in mind a story with a final chapter in which you are promoted to the Select Group of referees who operate on the Premier League and all your dreams come true. But you are not in the final chapter! Even if you are in the final chapter in terms of retirement, you are not in the final chapter of your life. Overcoming great disappointment and using it constructively can become part of your story. You can support yourself by looking at the huge number of stories of performance disappointment on the road to success that you can find in the lives of just about everyone who has achieved anything.
Nine: Let Go Of Responsibility For Others. You may have issues of shame, or a feeling of letting others down who have supported you. Those who are involved in sport as players or as fans are caught in the exact same drama as you in terms of the deep highs and lows and uncertainty and have to accept that. In fact, that’s what makes it so exciting. Much as we might want our team to win all the time, in truth, if they did, we would miss the excitement and roller-coaster of emotion that goes with the ups and downs. Ultimately, you are not responsible for anyone else’s hopes and dreams. That can be hard, especially in relation to people closest to you who may have also offered huge levels of support and sacrifice of their own. Regardless, this remains their own choice. Accepting this and letting go of responsibility for other people can be particularly difficult if this is a feature of your character generally. If you are someone who might be commonly described as a ‘people pleaser’ or whose self-esteem is highly reliant upon approval from others, this can be very challenging. Sports psychotherapy can help with this, in looking at the ways in which you take responsibility for others’ feelings not just in sport, but in life.
Ten: Get Some Perspective. If all else fails, get perspective. No-one died. It’s only one game of your refereeing career. You are fortunate in so many ways. Count your blessings and express gratitude for all the good things in your life.
At The Third Team I work individually and in collaboration with different professionals where I have developed workshops associated with Resilience and Mental Toughness Development to help referees. The workshops are interactive, where referees are encouraged to open up and share their experiences to help each other.
Feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about my workshops and how I could help you or your officials.
Best Wishes,
Nathan Sherratt
Referee Educator & Managing Director of The Third Team
Nathan Sherratt
Nathan Sherratt, Referee Educator, Resilience Trainer and Managing Director of The Third Team. A Mental Toughness Practitioner based in County Durham, North East England.