Naomi Osaka felt stuck after achieving financial success as a tennis player because it was one of her motivations growing up.
While many players grow up wanting success and trophies, the motivation behind playing professional sports can be different. Some just want to be the best in history, and some just want to achieve financial success so they can live a life they couldn't live before.
Osaka grew up wanting to do well in tennis, and as she revealed recently when talking to The Guardian, her primary motivator was her family's financial situation.
That was a huge motivation for her because she wanted to provide a comfortable lifestyle for her parents after watching them work hard to give her a chance to play tennis.
Once she finally reached a high enough level to start winning trophies and earning a lot of money, Osaka 'felt stuck.' After all, she had achieved that goal that pushed her forward in moments of doubt, and she had a proper 'now what?' moment.
"It was a lot. It shaped my personality in a way, too, or my character. It also made it so that once I felt like I achieved that goal, I didn’t know what else to do. So I kind of felt stuck. As humans, I think we all have goals and once we accomplish them, we don’t really know what to do."
Stepping away from the sport gave her time to think. She didn't have much time once the whirlwind started, and once she got that, things started to crystalize.
"But it was quite tough on me to just think about my family. I always felt like I wasn’t good at anything except tennis. So if that was taken away from me, I didn’t know what I was good at."
She even found motivation again, this time around wanting to do well and wanting her daughter to see her do well.