The Impatience Trap: What Elite Athletes and the NCAA are Teaching Us About Trust, Transformation, and the Process.
Too many athletes today are swapping long-term growth for short-term fixes—and it’s costing them. The culture of impatience is undercutting trust, development, and lasting success, showing up everywhere from the revolving door of coaching in tennis to the bloated NCAA transfer portal. Real transformation takes time, and we’re losing sight of it. Somatic training can help athletes return to a slower, steadier way of learning—the kind that lasts.
A Different Kind of Cancel Culture
Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray—two of the most accomplished and mentally resilient tennis players of their generation—recently ended their player-coach partnership just months after it began. The news, reported by The New York Times, raised eyebrows not because short-lived coaching stints are rare, but because they’re increasingly common. Emma Raducanu’s post-U.S. Open carousel of coaches offers another striking example. After winning one of the sport’s most prestigious titles in 2021 under the guidance of a lesser-known coach, she parted ways with him almost immediately—and hasn’t found similar footing or magic since. This instability weighed heavily quickly. A few years after winning that title, she told the press she often wishes she hadn’t.
“When I won I was extremely naive. What I have realized in the past two years, the tour and everything that comes with it, it’s not a very nice, trusting and safe space... You have to be on guard because there are a lot of sharks out there... It has been difficult to navigate. I have been burnt a few times. I have learnt, keep your circle as small as possible.”
A 2021 Journal of Sports Psychology study found that 60% of elite athletes prioritize immediate performance gains over long-term coach rapport, often due to external pressures like sponsors or media scrutiny. This isn’t just a tennis problem; it’s a symptom of a broader culture of impatience seeping into sports. A culture that craves immediate results and discards anything that doesn’t deliver. A culture that, ironically, kills the very conditions required for true transformation: trust, consistency, and time.
The Disruption of Development
The NCAA is a case study in impatience run amok. The rise of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals and the transfer portal—over 20,000 athletes entered it in 2023-2024, a 30% spike from two years prior, per NCAA data—has turned college athletics into a transactional game. Promises are traded like stocks. Loyalty is conditional. Coaches face quicker firings. Players transfer midseason. A 2024 Sports & Fitness Industry Association report revealed that 40% of Division I athletes who transfer report higher stress and lower performance in their first year at new programs.
Athletes feel this chaos. They feel it when a benching threatens their NIL earnings. They feel it when a teammate bolts for a “better” deal. They feel it when agents whisper, “You deserve more.” A 2022 Journal of Athletic Training study found that transferring athletes reported a 25% increase in anxiety compared to those who stayed put. The result? Short-term thinking replaced long-term growth. Mastery took a back seat to maneuvering.
The Slow Work of Change
Contrast this frenzy with Rory McIlroy’s story. This year, McIlroy completed the career grand slam by winning the Masters—a 12-year odyssey with the same mental performance coach in his corner. Twelve years of showing up. Twelve years of trust, setbacks, breakthroughs, and—most importantly—patience. His victory wasn’t just about golf. It was a quiet triumph of process over outcome. Of staying when others might leave. Of doing the slow, unsexy work of transformation.
Or take Simone Biles. After stepping back from competition in 2021 to prioritize mental health, she stayed with her long-term coaches, rebuilding her confidence over multiple years. Her 2024 Olympic comeback, earning multiple medals, proved the value of consistency. A 2019 International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching study supports this: athletes with coaching relationships lasting five years or more were 35% more likely to achieve career-best performances.
We don’t tell those stories enough. We don’t celebrate the athletes and coaches who choose depth over drama. Because in today’s sports culture, the slow burn doesn’t trend—but it does win.
The Somatic Advantage
This is where somatic training becomes so vital. Practices like yoga, mindfulness, breathwork, meditation, and brainspotting don’t just aid recovery and emotional regulation—they’re training grounds for patience. They teach athletes to feel before they fix, to stay before they shift, and to nurture the kind of mindset that doesn’t panic when results lag behind effort.
A 2023 Journal of Sports Sciences study found that mindfulness-based interventions, including somatic practices, reduced performance anxiety by 20% in collegiate athletes, improving focus and resilience. That’s because somatic work grounds players in their bodies, helps them trust the rhythms of change, and reminds them that adaptation takes time. It’s the antidote to transactional mindsets and revolving-door dynamics that dominate athletes’ current thinking. It’s not magic—it’s repetition, discipline, and trust.
What’s at Stake
When we abandon the process too soon—whether it’s a coach, a team, or ourselves—we don’t just miss growth. We sabotage the relationships that make growth possible. Trust isn’t built in quick fixes; it’s forged in consistency, in staying when it’s uncertain or uncomfortable. A 2024 Sport Management Review study found that teams with high trust scores had 15% better win rates in high-pressure games, proving that trust translates to performance.
As Dawn Staley, South Carolina’s championship-winning coach, put it, “You don’t build a program by chasing shiny objects. You build it by showing up, day after day, for your people.” Transformation doesn’t happen at the speed of transactions. It happens at the speed of trust.
We owe it to athletes to teach them not just how to win, but how to stay—stay present, stay grounded, and stay with the processes shaping them into champions, long before the scoreboard says so.
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If you’re an athlete or coach tired of transactional outcomes and looking to get back to trust and consistency, reach out. My somatic training programs help teams and individuals rebuild patience, deepen focus, and unlock lasting potential. Let’s start paving a new path of meaningful and lasting transformation together—one that honors your craft while expanding your potential in ways you never thought possible.
Metta,
Drewsome.
