Building Resilience in Young Athletes: A Parent’s Playbook With Demi Agaiby

Demi Agaiby is the Founding Director and Mental Performance Consultant at Beyond Horizons Performance, a mental performance consultancy for performers and athletes. With over 20 years of commercial and concert dance training and a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology, Demi has worked with hundreds of performers to master their mindset and mental skills. She has presented at the National Dance Education Organization, the National Dance Coaches Association, the Chicago National Association of Dance Masters, and more.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[02:16] Demi Agaiby shares her journey from dancer to mental performance consultant for athletes and performers
[08:34] Strategies for overcoming performance-related injuries
[10:40] How athletes can reconnect with their core “why”
[13:31] Demi shares a recovery story from one of her clients
[17:53] Using oversimplification techniques to transform fear into confidence
[23:26] How to cultivate transferable skills to foster future performance
[27:33] Demi’s advice for parents supporting young athletes’ challenges
[32:43] The importance of exploration and curiosity in young athletes’ development
[37:54] How praising effort over outcome helps build resilient young athletes

In this episode…

Helping young athletes navigate the highs and lows of competitive sports can be a daunting task for parents. How can they support their children through setbacks like injuries, burnout, and performance pressures, all while fostering resilience and joy?

According to Demi Agaiby, a mental performance consultant and sports psychology expert, focusing on the process rather than the outcome is crucial for boosting performance during setbacks. She highlights the importance of praising effort, maintaining open communication, and building multidimensional identities that allow young athletes to thrive in and out of their sport. By helping children connect to their “why,” parents can guide them back to their intrinsic motivations during challenging times. Demi also emphasizes creating opportunities for exploration and cultivating transferable skills, such as leadership and teamwork, which carry over into every aspect of life.

In this episode of The Coping Podcast, Dr. Leigh Weisz is joined by Demi Agaiby, Founding Director and Mental Performance Consultant at Beyond Horizons Performance, to discuss how parents can build resilience in their young athletes. They explore strategies for managing burnout, balancing identity with sports, and viewing setbacks as growth opportunities. Demi also gives practical advice for creating a support system and fostering emotional intelligence in children.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Related Episodes

Quotable Moments

“There are beautiful moments in the chaos and the unexpected.”
“Your why is the lighthouse, and when athletes are burned out, you get pushed away from your why.”
“Social support, as it relates to any transition, whether it’s injury or retirement, is really integral.”
“Continue to praise effort and bring awareness to the process.”
“Exploration and curiosity are mental skills that have depleted over the years.”

Action Steps

Cultivate emotional intelligence and mindfulness: This practice helps athletes navigate emotional challenges, like injury or burnout, by promoting a healthy approach to emotional well-being and reducing the tendency to ruminate.
Encourage a multidimensional identity: This diversifies athletes’ skills and provides a sense of balance, reducing the risk of identity foreclosure and helping them find joy and fulfillment beyond their primary activity.
Develop a strategic plan for handling setbacks: This proactive approach empowers young athletes to manage stress more effectively and provides a clear framework for parental support during difficult times.
Focus on transferable skills: Understanding the broader application of these skills can motivate athletes to persevere and see the long-term value in their athletic pursuits, even if they don’t pursue them professionally.
Praise effort and process, not just outcomes: This approach helps young athletes internalize the value of effort and personal growth over winning or losing, fostering resilience and a growth mindset.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners.

Coping Partners is a mental health practice dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems and much more in the Chicago suburbs.

Our practitioners are devoted to building on our clients’ strengths and bolstering weaknesses.

To gain insight and tools for getting unstuck check out our website at CopingPartners.com, email us at support@copingpartners.com.

Episode Transcript:

Intro 00:00

Welcome to The Coping Podcast, where we share strategies for coping with the stressors of life, especially the difficulties of parenting. And here is your host, Dr. Leigh Weisz.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 00:15

This is Dr. Leigh Weisz. I am the host of The Coping Podcast, where I feature top experts on topics like raising healthy children, parenting, and so much more. Past guests include DDr. Eli Lebowitz, therapist Ben Kessler, neuropsychologist Doctor Lisa Novak, and many more. Just a quick disclaimer the information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a client therapist relationship. The information provided is not a replacement for being assessed and evaluated by a licensed professional, and is not intended to replace mental health or medical advice. This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners. Coping Partners is a mental health practice in the Chicago suburbs dedicated to helping children, adolescents and adults. We help manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems, and much more. Check out more episodes of our podcast and our website at copingpartners.com, and you can contact us with any questions you have. Before we get into today’s topic, I wanted to introduce our guest, Demi Agaiby, Founder of Beyond Horizons Performance. She is a mental performance consultant for athletes and performers. With over 20 years in the dance world, she gets the unique struggles of athletes and performers. Demi has a master’s degree in sport and performance psychology. Demi has worked with hundreds of performers of all ages in mastering their mindset and mental skills. So thank you so much to me for being here to talk with parents about how they can best help their children and athletes. And before we get started, I would love it if you could kind of tell us a little bit about how you got into this line of work. You know, your own dance journey, both the highs and the lows.

Demi Agaiby 02:16

Yeah. So I started my dance journey like any young kid, you know, my parents threw me in dance at the age of, like, five. I think it was. And basically, I didn’t look back since that time. Went on into high school. And that was when I basically experienced my first what I later look back on as my first experience in sports psychology, personally speaking, because I experienced injury from overtraining. So basically I was overtraining for auditions to prepare for college and ended up getting microfractures in both of my tibias, which basically like I couldn’t walk and so I was on crutches. Yeah, it was awful. And it was like, I think the reason why it was so significant for me was the timing of it. So I had worked my way right throughout high school of like, okay, I really am committed to dance. Like, I really want to continue this. And put the effort into auditioning. And then right when audition season ended, I was literally stuck to not dance at all. Right. And so there was this awkward time period where I was like, waiting for acceptances, but then also on crutches. Oh. And so there was a yeah, it was a lot of just time for reflection. And, you know, it it led me to really find a deeper sense of appreciation for dance and solidified the fact that, yes, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. But, you know, again, there’s beautiful moments in in the chaos and the and the unexpected. But it was in that moment that I think, I don’t know if if I wasn’t injured, I don’t know if I would have been so eager to continue dance. I think that was like a pivotal moment for me. And then it didn’t stop there, I actually. So I got into college, I got into Loyola for into their dance program, and basically that injury kept flaring up. And so my freshman year, I basically was still mending that injury, which meant that I was taken out of all of the productions, all of the basically all you can think of, like the community. Right? Like I was taken out of classes, I was taken out of things because I was spending a lot of time at physical therapy. And so I felt so isolated in my freshman year, and I felt basically, by the time I reached my sophomore year, I was so burnt out because I had worked so hard on recovering from this injury that was just so persistent and so chronic and without social support, without feeling like I was progressing as a dancer or as an athlete. So it was a really difficult time period for me. Then reached sophomore year and I was going to quit. I was like, I. Now looking back, I call this sophomore syndrome, right? Because I had reached a point where I was burnt out. And I remember sitting in my midterm meeting with my professor and looking her in the eye and saying, I’m tired. And I think she looked at me and she was like, you’re tired. You know, I’m I’m tired too. And I have, you know, X amount on my plate. But I now looking back, I know that that was burnout. And it’s crazy for me to think that in that moment, I could have called it quits because I was burnt out and that in my mind, I was just like, no, this is just not it. You know, it’s too much. And basically what ended up happening was this professor lent me this book called oh, shoot. Emotional Alchemy. And that unleashed basically my introduction to the world of psychology and dance and how the two intertwine. It’s basically about emotional intelligence, and it helped me basically pull myself out of that burnout in a really, really powerful way. And that led me down a rabbit hole where I just kept reading the books. And then I was entering my psychology classes, and I was like, I’m going to apply every single thing from the lecture to myself and to dance. And so, you know, my peers saw me as, oh, the girl who’s at the bottom of the totem pole is always injured, right? And they saw me catapult into being, like, right at their level. Like I didn’t skip a beat. Wow. And so, yeah, that caused them to kind of, like, turn their heads. And people were like, what is she doing? What is she drinking? Like, I want, I want whatever she’s having, you know. And then, you know, people recognize that. And that’s when I became basically a a source of guidance and leadership. And I would just tell them that the research that I read, or the things that I was learning in my psychology classes and how I applied it to dance. But, yeah, I that was kind of, you know, a very casual way that I entered the the realm of sports psychology and then literally in a Google search stumbled upon it, and I didn’t even know it existed. It’s a fairly new field. 1990s is when it kind of surfaced. And so it’s fairly new. And I, I knew right away I was like, that’s it. That’s exactly what I want. The fact that I can combine these two pursuits.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 08:00

So absolutely fascinating. So how I guess, what would you say, you know, other than kind of just understanding that some of these mental tools, you know, that you used kind of got you out of the, you know, of this place from burnout, you know, from the injury. How would you say, like, what were the specific strategies that you applied for yourself in terms of how to transition, you know, out of that injury, besides physical therapy? Like, what were your mental skills to be able to get back into that world.

Demi Agaiby 08:34

Not going down the rabbit hole. So there was a lot of asking why, a lot of getting deeper and deeper, of overthinking and rumination as to why things were happening to me or why. Things were not the way that I wanted them to. Whether it was physically or mentally or just in my life. So being able to recognize that thought pattern of, okay, I feel myself spiraling. I feel myself going down that rabbit hole. Let me stop. Acknowledge the emotion for what it is. Not trying to suppress it, but acknowledging it. Right. So a lot of emotional intelligence work. And then embracing that emotion for what it is rather.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 09:24

Than sucked in.

Demi Agaiby 09:26

Right, exactly. And one of my, I think one of my strengths, and also one of my weaknesses is that I like to intellectualize. And so there was a lot of that happening. And so it was basically like, it is what it is, you know, an emotion. I can experience it, and I don’t need to take it to the utmost Agree that it like completely takes over my mindset. And it was prominent, you know, and even when I was training, it was like I wasn’t there. Like my mind was just going, but I wasn’t present. And so that kind of led me to then practice mindfulness in a really authentic way and appreciate the present moment. And so grounding myself in the joys of the everyday life and finding things that sparked my authenticity and what made me feel a sense of joy and happiness. Right. And latching on to those things.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 10:26

So into that, into being a dancer. Right. Because of, I’m assuming, because of the joy that you intrinsically felt as you were dancing. And so when you experience burnout, it’s like you’re so far from that. You have to kind of find your way back somehow.

Demi Agaiby 10:40

Yeah. And I think, I mean, I speak about this when I’m speaking to athletes or even to parents. I say, you know your why is the lighthouse right? And so when athletes are burned out, right, you think? Think about it. The lighthouse. Its job is to to shed light on the water. If your boat is so far from the lighthouse that it can’t see the light, how are you going to get to the shore? How are you going to get to your why? Right? And so that was that’s what happened to me. And that’s what happens to so many athletes is in the rough of a storm. They’ll get pushed away from their why. They’ll get pushed away from their lighthouse. And so a lot of the work that I do when I have athletes who are, you know, burnt out or are experiencing injury, I’ll say, let’s bring us back to this lighthouse. Let’s bring us back to these whys, because otherwise you’re going to get lost out there and you’re never going to reconnect with it. And I think that was another thing that really brought me to it, brought me back to that fulfilling experience of dance. And then, honestly, I cannot go without saying like social support. Huge, right?I basically took it into my own hands because I didn’t feel a sense of community or connection with the dancers because I wasn’t in the production.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 12:03

You said you felt really isolated at that time.

Demi Agaiby 12:05

I felt extremely isolated. It was very, very difficult. You know, they’re all talking about, you know, this show and that show and costumes and this and I’m I’m in the theater, you know, I’m watching everything. I’m not there and, you know, I all of the complaining of, oh, we have this long night and, you know, here I am like, I’m, I would die. All you want is to have a long night ahead. So you want it so bad because you can’t have it exactly. And that’s the deeper sense of appreciation. But I basically took it into my own hands to create social support for myself. And, you know, I just poured into those relationships, even if they were a little bit more outside of dance. And that was instrumental, which we know research shows, right. That social support as it relates to any transition, whether it’s injury or retirement or whatever it is, is, is really integral. So.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 13:06

Right. Oh, I love hearing how you applied all these things, you know, for yourself. It’s it’s amazing. Before you had read, before you had really known.

Demi Agaiby 13:14

Yeah. I didn’t even know.

Dr. Leigh Weisz 13:17

So I know you and I were speaking earlier and you said you have a really fulfilling client you’ve been working with who was injured but is doing really well now. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit about Stephanie, which is not her real name.

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