Serena’s Evolution
The Path to Greatness (and avoiding burn out) is Evolution vs. Perfection
Serena Williams is a trendsetter.
She began her professional tennis career as a strong, beautiful, powerful, and extremely confident black female athlete, a rarity in the 1990’s in the relatively white, male-dominated world of tennis. Her father had groomed her and her sister, Venus, to dominate women’s tennis. Now, at 41-years-young she is viewed as one of the greatest players of all time. She is the only player to have won 23 Grand Slam singles titles over 4 decades, 10 of which came after the age of 30. While many in her field tend to retire in their early 30’s, Serina was still “fresh” after age 30, a rare oddity in professional tennis.
But how did she stay in the game for so long? A combination of her competitiveness and love for the sport could be the easy answer, but it was what she did in her down-time from tennis and her continuous love of learning that sparked my interest.
Serena recently announced that she is “evolving away from tennis”, an alternative perspective to the common usage of the word “retirement” after stating that the word felt antiquated and old-fashioned.
This gave me pause as I reflected on the word “retirement”. When you look up retirement, the synonyms include: withdrawal, giving up work, stepping down and retreating. But, when you look up evolving, synonyms include: growing, changing, progressing, developing and going forward.
By simple definition, evolving is quite literally the opposite of retiring.
When you look at Serena’s life, a road map appears, revealing additional roads taken while she continued her journey of becoming and actively being the successful professional athlete we know today. During her breaks from professional tennis, she gained a nail technician certification, studied fashion, and focused on enhancing her mental health. She nursed her injuries and gave birth to her daughter, Olympia.
It seems as though Serena has been evolving away from tennis for many years. While most of us may not possess Serena’s tennis talents, we can learn from her way of living, and continuous evolution.
As someone who is in my last phase of my working life, I must ask myself, “what am I evolving towards?”
I don’t picture myself retiring, retreating or withdrawing. Instead, I want to follow Serena’s path of development. I, like many others, burned out as a competitive junior tennis player because of perfectionism, where I was only as good as my last win. I have been evolving away from a perfectionist approach to tennis and now possess more passion for the game than I have had in years. Why? I am not so singularly focused on it and I no longer tie it to my identity. I took time off from playing tennis and experimented with other interests - painting, African dancing, skiing, and rollerblading. While I no longer do most of those things (aside from skiing), I am a much happier and well-rounded person… more energized in living.
And there lies the challenge in life - finding the balance between doing things well and being a human being.
Serina is a prime example of someone who was able to continue to evolve versus letting the weight of having a lofty goal - such as being the best tennis player in the world - make her lose touch with her desire to grow as a person.
Individuals who excel at specific skills often struggle with the word “retirement” because their focus is limited to the one thing that is energizing them. Others burn out or quit because they don’t know how to pace themselves. Serena William’s life not only displays a path of excellence, but of evolution.
So, it seems the path to Greatness is to be constantly evolving—taking periodic breaks, reflecting on how you are feeling about your life/work, and allowing yourself to explore other interests so that, when the time comes when you are bored with your current job or you want to stop working, your other interests or causes can call you forth.
Thank you, Serena, for showing us how not only to be a great athlete but more importantly how to live a life where you are constantly developing as a person. I will miss you seeing you on the tennis court but I look forward to your next evolution!
Articles that support this blog:
Quiet Quitting is Not the Solution to Burnout by Laura Vanderkam, The New York Times, September 13, 2022