What is PLAYfree?

In the Fall of 2020, I was given the opportunity to be featured on Curito, a platform that highlights the work and lives of people in health, wellness, and business spaces. It was two-fold: A podcast chat that centered around the importance of awareness in performance - the topic of this month’s blog - and a long-form written interview that gave me the opportunity to share my own journey through sports and how I arrived at the kind of work that I do. Some things have changed since that interview 5 years ago, and yet in reading back over it, some things are still fundamental to the lens through which I see sports.

It’s been fun to look back and see what stuck, what has grown, and what beliefs I’ve shed as I’ve evolved through the daily experiences of living and working in sport and support spaces. The following is an excerpt that describes the thought process behind the name of my business:

Jenn Huang of Curito: 

“What does PLAYfree stand for? Can you elaborate on what mental & emotional performance is?”

Me:

“In the world of developmental science, education, parenting, and sport sociology, there is a growing movement to reintroduce what is called “free play,” which essentially means allowing kids to just go out and create without adult interference. It can be as simple as rolling a ball out onto a field or just letting kids run with their imagination. Ever watch 6-year-olds just hang out and play? They come up with the most amazing imaginary worlds when the adults in the room don’t mess it up by imposing their notions of “how things are supposed to look.” It’s easier for us grown-ups to at least try to imagine staying mostly hands-off when the kids are very young as long as they are within visual range, but at some point – a point that unfortunately is getting earlier and earlier in organized sports and in parenting in general – we start imposing adult sensibilities, priorities, and fears on our children. 

In sport, the focus becomes winning, trophies, making travel teams, being ranked and recruited and getting scholarship offers and making money, which turns young athletes (and students) into a commodity. We also equate safety (from the big bad world) and structure with success, leading us to over-structure and over-schedule and over-coach them, stripping away their autonomy and ability to use their imaginations, to create, to just go out and play for the joy of the game. One serious consequence of this is that we create people who believe that they are entitled to having someone else solve their problems for them - because that’s what their parents are doing. This leads to fragility and a lack of resilience and other critical life skills. Sports are a place where we’re seeing this lack of resilience manifest. 

Unfortunately, those same parents, coaches, and administrators often expect a lot from their kids, even while they’re making it impossible for the kids to develop the tools that are necessary to perform. So, PLAYfree honors the need to let the children play, and focuses on helping coaches, program leaders, and parents understand the developmental, social, and emotional needs of young people, as well as how to best support their young athletes’ holistic well-being, self-determination, and love for the sport and themselves.

The other part of PLAYfree’s mission is rooted in principles of sport and performance psychology. As athletes and coaches, we experience the full range of human emotions, and we do it in an environment where it is necessary to perform under changing, usually uncontrollable, and often pressurized conditions. We experience thoughts that distract or confuse us or change our self-perception, and it can hurt both our performance and our well-being. What I try to do is give athletes and coaches the skills to “play free” from the burden of expectations, pressure, anxiety, self-doubt, and uncertainty. That’s not to say that we’re trying not to feel or think those things, only that we are learning to handle them, to develop resilience through intentional training in areas like mindfulness, goal setting, self-talk, visualization, and identification of core values and priorities.”

You can read the full interview, find other essays and links to podcasts and other media, learn more about PLAYfree, and get in touch with me, by visiting the website. Just click the button below!

If reading anything here inspires you to think, or you want to discuss it further, please reach out. If you know anyone who would enjoy this newsletter or could benefit from it, please forward it along!

Thanks for joining in the conversation.

A Little Mindfulness Goes a Long Way | 11.4.25

“It all starts with awareness.”

These words, from the late Kobe Bryant, continue to resonate with me every day and form one of the pillars of my life. Everything I’m seeing around me, everything I’m experiencing in my work and my world, and every relationship and friendship and interaction reinforces the truth of those words and the importance of the practice of paying attention. Paying attention to what’s happening around me, yes; more importantly, paying attention to what’s happening inside of me as I move through my daily life. 

The most basic tenet of mindfulness is the practice of non-judgmental awareness and acceptance of my present-moment experience with the intention of first being where I am, and then choosing what I’m going to do with the information that I’ve just learned when I let go of the past and future and just center myself in the present moment reality. The addition of action to awareness in a mindfulness practice is important; while learning to just be is often a huge challenge and is a crucial first step, the truth is that we also have to live in the world, engage in our lives, and be present not just for the stillness but also for the motion of life on Earth. Choice is critical – and yes, sometimes the choice is to be still or just be – and the discernment with which we make choices goes a long way to determining the quality, usefulness, safety, joyfulness, and direction (among other things) of our experiences and our lives in general.

So, mindfulness with directional intention, or as sport psychologist George Mumford would say, “right action.” The combination of awareness of where I am in a given moment (physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, relationally, socially, spiritually) and the space created by my heart-led and mindful examination of that moment, allows me to determine what I’m going to do next by asking: What’s Important Now?

The answer lets me know where and how to apply or direct my attention or effort. This is important because we can expend a lot of finite personal resources – attention, energy, willpower, empathy – trying to accomplish the wrong things (by wrong, I simply mean what’s not important now, what’s not within my control, or what’s not aligned with the good). So what are the right things?

The truth is, as a grad school mentor of mine would say, that it depends. This doesn’t at all mean that you should just do whatever you want, because “right action” has a moral center and is grounded in self-awareness, intuition, humility, compassion, and social conscience. It’s just that each moment requires us to evaluate what is needed. Sometimes this need comes from the outside, like when my team or my family or community needs me to show up for them; these still require self-awareness but are often easier to recognize because we are accustomed and built to look outwardly.

Other times, and usually more difficultly, the “right action” comes from within. What do I need in this moment? What is really important, or what will be most effective in helping me reach the next step in the process? 

We’re not always going to like the answer, especially when the “right action” dictates that we risk disappointing someone or going against an established norm by setting a boundary. In these moments, it is crucial to understand that in order to recharge the resources that help us navigate life in a healthy, relatively balanced, and useful way - resources that we need in order to choose right action or effort - boundaries are necessary.

These boundaries are, ideally, based on our own self-knowledge, mindful engagement, self-respect, and awareness. If what I need or what is required of me – What’s Important Now – means that I need to take care of myself rather than giving everything of myself to a cause or a goal or a person, I have to honor that need. This type of self-care isn’t selfish; it’s how we rebuild the resources required to serve others. Practicing awareness of when those resources are running low - and choosing to recharge - is how we avoid burnout.

Awareness is also the first step in understanding what we need to do to perform; it’s how we recognize opportunity and stay committed to whatever it takes to maximize that opportunity. If I don’t know myself, I don’t know what I’m capable of or what tools I have at my disposal. If I’m not aware of my experience, I can’t choose improve or change it. If I don’t understand where I am, how can I get to where I want to be? If I can’t objectively and compassionately evaluate my performance, how can I make use of the learning and growth opportunity embedded in my mistakes and failures? 

It’s not about doing this all at once; we have to start small. Here’s a way to begin:

1. Take a couple of deep breaths, take a moment, and tap into the truth of WHAT IS right now, both externally and - more importantly - internally. No judgment, no criticism, no value attached to it, and no need to do anything about it. 

2. Ask yourself, “what does this moment need? What do I need right now?” Whatever the answers are, as long as it has a moral center and is grounded in self-awareness, humility, and compassion (for yourself, too, don’t forget), it’s ok.

3. Can you give yourself the gift of that thing right now? Maybe it’s something simple, like a glass of water or a breath of fresh air. If it’s something a little bigger, how can you take a step towards it? If it’s something you need to do in order to get to a goal, what steps can you take or moves can you make from where you are right now to get yourself a little closer?

4. Take the first step in that action.

5. Take a couple of deep breaths, take a moment, and ask yourself…

Whenever you can, in an available moment and as often as necessary, run through this process. Eventually you will get quicker and more decisive, and become more mindful in relation to your choices and actions.

Sometimes paying attention is hard; boundaries also help us decide what we are and are not willing to give our attention and energy and resources to. Does it resonate with that deeper, intuitive and humble and curious place from which you’re making your evaluation? If not, maybe let it go. Whatever the next move, it all begins with awareness.

All photos and content are the intellectual property of Aaron S. Goldman and are not to be reused or reproduced without express written permission.