I love pickleball. I love sports. I love advocating for women. ⚽️🎾🏀
Last week I had pickleball on the TV and it hit me that half of what I was watching was women. Not a “women’s edition” special or one match buried at 11pm. Just women playing, in primetime, same channel, same production, treated like the most normal thing in the world.
And I sat there and thought: I have never seen this before in my life.
Not once.
Sports were a massive part of my childhood. My family watched everything (well, everything except women 😂). Not a dig to the fam, just facts that women’s sports weren’t as accessible to watch. We watched men’s basketball, football, golf, baseball- you name it. Sports on the TV were the norm, the background noise of my childhood if you will.
I played soccer and I loved it. But the first time I can recall watching women’s sports was the World Cup, in college, after I had moved out. And I had to really dig deep to find the games.
I didn’t notice at the time that women’s sports weren’t commonly shown on TV. I didn’t even think about it. And guess what- it quietly decided what I thought was possible for my life.
Let me expand
I knew I could play college soccer, but pro never even crossed my mind. College was the furthest thing I could picture, because it was the furthest thing I had ever seen. Older teammates went and played in college but none of the girls talked about playing pro.
College ball existed in my mind, pro ball did not.
It never entered my head as something a girl could do. And I never heard a single teammate say they wanted it either. Knowing the option is there and choosing not to take it is one thing. But not even thinking of it as an option takes away the choice entirely.
It wasn’t a talent problem. It was a belief problem. I didn’t think professional women’s sports was an actual career path. In my mind, I never saw it, so it didn’t exist.
And I wonder, if I had seen women playing the sport they loved on TV on a Saturday night, consistently, would it have ever crossed my mind?
Then layer on the script every girl gets handed: Go to college, get a job, get married, have kids. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that path, but it’s not the only path. And I believe you should choose intentionally, not just play follow the leader because that’s the “next thing to do”.
I’m not one to dwell on the past, but reflecting on this opens up the idea of possibilities for myself in a lot of other areas of life.
You cannot chase something you have never once considered.
And this goes wayyyyy beyond sports
Watching women play pickleball on the TV made me realize- anything is possible, but you have to dream. Ok stay with me, I’m not trying to get all woo woo on you but this is actually true.
For example: I went to grad school, became a physician assistant, and got a job. I figured my salary cap was around $130,000 if I was lucky. I never considered making more than that, because I assumed that was just the job market. That is what a physician assistant makes.
And then I got introduced to a life coach who opened my mind. What if you could dream big? What if you could have whatever it is you want?
Uhhhh, mic drop. 🎤
Making more money was something I had never even thought about, because I figured there was a cap. And so I dreamed big and set a goal... and I more than doubled my salary within a year. I would have never done that if I kept my belief that $130,000 was my cap.
There’s a lot more on this, and I’m going all the way into it in the paid section, because I watch it happen all the time. When you start considering the possibilities, your life becomes so grand.
So what’s different now
I turn on PickleballTV... and it’s women playing. Then men, then women, repeat. There’s even a thing called mixed doubles, where men and women compete on the same court together. It’s wild and so much fun. 🤩
Nobody frames the women’s matches as a special occasion. They aren’t the appetizer before the real thing, they’re just the thing.
A ten-year-old girl who turns on pickleball right now is going to grow up with a completely different set of assumptions than I did. Nobody’s going to have to tell her women can do this. She’ll know because she sees it.
And there’s one nineteen-year-old who has made that impossible to ignore. Her name is Anna Leigh Waters, and there’s a number attached to her that I think might be the most important statistic in women’s sports right now.
But the number isn’t really why I’m writing this. What I actually want to talk about is what it costs you, in your own life, to never once have seen the thing you were capable of and how to imagine a life bigger than you ever thought possible.
Ok, so if you don’t know pickleball superstar Anna Leigh Waters, she’s nineteen years old. She turned pro at twelve, and she’s ranked number one in singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles, all at the same time.
So here’s the number that blows my mind.
As of August 2026, her career prize money is around $7.26 million. The highest-earning man in the sport, Ben Johns, is at roughly $6.45 million.
She is not just the highest-paid woman in pickleball.
She is the highest-paid player in pickleball. Male or female.
And in January, Nike signed her as its first pickleball athlete in the entire history of the company.
The top earner in a professional sport is a teenage girl, and she is out-earning every man in it.
Now, that’s fucking badass. 👏
Okay. Here’s why I’m actually telling you this, and it isn’t because I’m a fan. (Although I am, of course. I’ve watched her play multiple times, I’ve met her, and she is locked in, fierce, and completely unapologetic about wanting to win, which is its own kind of radical for a woman. I am here for it.)
The point is what she does to a ten-year-old girl’s imagination.
As a life coach, one of the biggest things I see holding people back isn’t a lack of talent, skill, discipline, or work ethic.
It’s that they never even considered something as an option. They don’t dream big.
You cannot pursue something that hasn’t entered your head as available to you. You won’t fail at it and you won’t quit it. You’ll never get far enough to even be scared of it.
You aren’t dreaming big enough.
And to the people who say “I’m just being realistic and practical.” I’m talking to you. 👀
If that sounds familiar, that’s okay. That’s how most people think. It’s how I used to think every day. But if you feel a desire for something more, something bigger, if it feels like your life has more purpose in it than what you’re living right now, maybe you need to start dreaming bigger.
Listen. The world is open to you. I 100% know you can have what you want in life, but you have to be willing to sit in your imagination, think of all the things you truly want, and make them a goal first.
So here’s what I’d ask you, and I want you to actually answer it instead of skimming past it:
What have you already decided is not for people like you?
Not the things you tried and failed at. You know about those. I mean the things you have never once let yourself seriously consider.
The career you’d call “not realistic.”
The version of your body you want but don’t think you can attain.
The move across the country.
The business you’ve wanted to start for months.
The standard you think is too high to ask for.
The amount of money you want to make.
The version of your life you’d be a little embarrassed to say out loud because it seems too far-fetched.
Now, where did that ceiling come from?
Because I’d bet almost anything you didn’t choose it. Somebody handed it to you, or the absence of a single example did.
A ceiling you didn’t choose isn’t a fact about you. It’s just information you never got, and you can change that.
That’s what I’m actually excited about when I turn my TV on and half of it is women. Not the medals. Not the money. A young girl sees a nineteen-year-old Anna Leigh Waters at the top of an entire sport, and she is allowed to dream bigger.
Just knowing something is possible opens up the whole world.
And guess what, anything is possible.
When I was a young girl watching men’s sports on TV every day, I could have dreamt of women on that screen. But I didn’t have the emotional skills to do that as a child. Luckily, as an adult, I do. I imagine a life for myself that’s so magnificent, and I work toward it daily.
So I’m here to tell you: dream big. You’ll know you’re dreaming big enough when it starts to feel scary. When it feels far-fetched and unattainable, you’re expanding your mind. Sit in that.
Dream even bigger than the evidence you were given.
So here are five questions to sit with this week 🖊️
Grab a notebook. Don’t answer these fast, and don’t edit yourself while you write. Allow yourself to get lost in your imagination.
If money, time, and other people’s opinions were not a factor, what would you be doing one year from now?
What is something you want that you have never said out loud to anyone? Why haven’t you?
Where in your life have you called something “realistic” when what you actually meant was “safe”?
Who taught you what was possible for someone like you? Did they actually know?
What would you go after tomorrow if you knew you would achieve it?
Now go back and find the answer that scared you the most.
That’s the one. 💛
Comment on this post and share your biggest dream- who knows, you may even open up the possibilities for someone else!