101. Doing What You Love with LA Rams’ Sport Psychologist Carrie Hastings

101. Doing What You Love with LA Rams’ Sport Psychologist Carrie Hastings

Introducing Carrie Hastings

Today I’m talking to sports psychologist Dr. Carrie Hastings about doing what you love.

Her Career Journey

Carrie earned her BA in communications at Notre Dame where she was a hurdler and team captain of the track team. She went on to complete both her MA in psychology and PsyD in clinical psychology at Pepperdine University and a graduate certificate in sport psychology from John F. Kennedy University. As a former athlete herself, Carrie began working with athletes during her postdoctoral training and opened her own private practice. When a connection through a colleague of a colleague brought her name up, she was introduced to the recently relocated LA Rams and was hired as the team’s sports psychologist. There, she was able to build a mental health protocol from the ground up which became a model throughout the NFL.

Doing What You Love

Despite all of the time and hard work that Carrie puts into her job, she’s found that by doing what she loves, it never feels like work. While many athletes initially come to her looking for help with mental sport performance, Carrie enjoys the process of building rapport to help athletes uncover patterns in their lives beyond sports. She also shares in the joy of watching athletes return from injury to get back to doing what they love, whether that be at the youth level or competing in the Super Bowl.

Inside this episode:

  • While Carrie didn’t always know that she wanted to be a psychologist, she always wanted to work with athletes. When she became interested in helping people on a deeper level, sports psychology became the natural fit.
  • Looking back at her own athletic career, Carrie can reflect on the ways that a sports psychologist could have helped her and seeks to fill that role for current athletes. 
  • Knowing about sports psychology as a college athlete and having that role model could have also helped her find this career path sooner.
  • It’s okay to take detours early in your career to figure out your values and mission. Carrie describes how those skills transfer to each job rather than starting from scratch. 
  • Athletes often need quick solutions to help their mental health and performance in tomorrow’s game. When necessary, Carrie alters her approach from looking at the big picture to provide tools for immediate help.
  • She also seeks to help youth and high school level athletes form good habits, helping to normalize prioritizing mental health for a new generation.
  • Carrie learned that she doesn’t need to be an expert in a particular sport to be an effective clinician. She instead focuses on what the sport means to the athlete and appreciates the opportunity to see how they too do what they love to do.
  • Her current role with the Rams came from having a connected network and she continues to stay connected to other NFL mental health providers through monthly meetings.
  • When asked, often by men, what it’s like to “be a woman in a man’s world” she makes it clear that she worked hard to get to this point just as any man would.
  • Carrie notes how hard it is as a clinician, woman, and mom to prioritize herself and has worked to both carve out time and reframe what it looks like to have it all together.

Resources

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