The Biggest Life Lessons I Learned from Tearing My ACL
By: Rashida Beal
Tags: Personal Growth, Personal Development, Mental Toughness, Injury, Athletes

The Biggest Life Lessons I Learned from Tearing My ACL

How I grew not only as an athlete but as a human

Photo courtesy of the author

Anterior Cruciate Ligament. It’s known to most athletes as the ACL, and it is the one thing absolutely nobody wants to hurt.

As an athlete in any sport at any level, you think you understand what it means to hear the heartwrenching “it’s your ACL.”

But you don’t.

I watched countless teammates battle with ACL recoveries and I really felt bad for them, but I had no idea.

I had no idea what a visceral experience it was until it happened to me.

Tearing my ACL

To understand all that I learned from my ACL recovery, you must first understand the situation.

I never had any major injuries. I made it all the way through Division 1 college soccer with only a few ankle sprains, bone bruises, and some tendonitis.

While I won’t dive into my entire journey as a professional athlete here, the end of college marked the beginning of a long line of injuries and missed contracts.

After battling with not making the first professional team I was drafted to in 2017, a serious family emergency, and excruciating patellar tendonitis that turned into a partial tear, I headed home to reset.

I was finally ready to take on the rocky road of professional soccer again and headed back to my former college to train in March 2018. I was now a year out of school and still struggling to gain my footing in professional soccer. In the last few minutes of that first practice, it happened.

I won the ball and was facing my own goal. My right foot was hovering, about to make contact with the ball to spin the girl behind me. All of my weight was on my left leg. Crack! I felt the leg of the opposing player smash through the side of my knee and watched the entire thing shift and twist beneath me.

I felt an unbelievable pain surge through my leg, and I folded. I could not walk. I could not straighten my leg. My knee was a balloon.

The next day I found out the extent of my injury. A torn ACL, torn medial meniscus, and severely torn lateral meniscus.

My first surgery on April 6, 2018, marked my long journey of recovery and the beginning of a life I never imagined. This injury led me to discover many life lessons in the most realistic way possible.

Life’s not fair. Anyone could tell you that, and I re-learned that 10 times over during my recovery. Here are some of the other life lessons I learned from having two knee surgeries in two years:

How to redefine my identity

Photo courtesy of the author

My injuries threatened my identity and my understanding of myself as a person. I was as much an athlete as I was biracial or female. I didn’t just “play soccer” I saw myself as a soccer player. For so long, this was a central part of my identity.

Throughout my injuries, I could not play soccer. Was I still a soccer player? I was forced to grapple with difficult questions. If I do not have soccer, who am I? When I stop playing, who will I be?

Even though I planned to return to soccer at a high-level, I had to confront heavy emotions and my overall feeling of a lack of purpose. I still identify myself as a soccer player but I have realized that I am not just a soccer player. Even when I can no longer play, I will have been a soccer player and that will be part of my identity. But there is more than I can do and have to offer than athletics.

How to explore other interests

Photo courtesy of the author

As I had to redefine myself through my injury, I was forced to explore other avenues. I could not play for nearly a year, and then again for several months after my second surgery in May 2019. Even after I fully returned from both my surgeries, I did not earn my first professional contract until February of 2020.

This forced time off led to me try other things. I was still focusing on my recovery and dead set on returning to soccer, but I needed to earn money and progress my life in the meantime.

During my recovery, I started coaching and I began a part-time remote job as a social media manager/ marketing assistant. Throughout my first year of recovery, I coached a local club boys' youth team, girls’ youth team, Division III women’s college team (Carroll), and then a JV2 high school team. I learned about my strengths in coaching and marketing.

Eventually, I also began writing part-time after my second surgery. Over the last couple of years, I slowly got more and more responsibility in my writing role. I now write full-time as a professional soccer player.

What I truly value

Photo courtesy of the author and Gopher Soccer

My two knee surgeries were a big test. They happened after college, it would be hard to come back, I had not yet earned a professional contract. I didn’t have the same resources as I would have in college or while signed to a team, recovery would be no easy feat.

It would have been easy to quit, so easy to take the injuries as a sign that “things just aren’t meant to be” and “maybe it’s time to move on.”When you push so hard for something and only meet more resistance, it can seem that way.

Instead, tearing my ACL taught me what I value. It showed me what I really care about and the lengths I will go to achieve my goals. I can never take soccer for granted again. I hate running, but it’s all I wanted to do when I couldn't. This surgery reminded me why I absolutely love the game and made me chase the championship feeling day in and day out even harder.

You can always help others

Photo courtesy of the author

We all know the importance of helping others, but in your darkest times, this can seem impossible. I learned how to help others despite my devastating experience.

When I was first injured, I went straight to the internet in search of advice, information, anything. I found a lot about ACL journeys, but none like mine, none with the exact same circumstances. I saw my pain as a way to help others. I created a YouTube channel and now a blog to record my journey and share my experience. I still get several questions and comments to this day, and I am able to share things about what happened to me or even pieces of encouragement to help others.

I also learned how to help people through coaching. I was able to bring my expertise as a former college soccer player to teach and inspire kids and young adults of all ages. I did my best to incorporate the things I felt were missing from my youth soccer development and to share my experience throughout different levels of soccer. This opportunity showed me that soccer can always be part of my life and how I can use my experience as a soccer player to make a lasting difference.

Time is relative

During my recovery, time seemed endless. Those years felt like the longest ever, and it seemed like I would really never make it out the other side.

Looking back, it really was not that long. Going into the recovery knowing 9–12+ months, it sounds daunting and unapproachable. Facing another surgery after a year of recovery is another eternity.

But time really is relative, and everything ends. I made it through even with delays, and when I look back it is a much smaller portion of my life than I realized.

While you are going through something challenging, time seems to warp into an endless game that you cannot beat, but it’s not true. You will look back and it will seem gone in the blink of an eye.

Hard work does not guarantee anything

Photo courtesy of the author

It’s easy to believe that if you just work hard enough, things will work out. I hear so many kids complain about grades saying “but I worked so hard on it” or “ I spend X hours on this project” to justify why they should get the outcome that they want.

Hard work is the bare minimum, it is a requirement for success but it does not guarantee you anything. Working hard is not enough, there are simply so many other factors that play into an outcome.

This is a tough lesson I was forced to confront. I tried so hard throughout my recovery, and I did not get what I wanted time and time again. I spent endless hours on rehab and recovery, I followed all of the protocol, I took every opportunity to train. Yet, I was met with constant obstacles, a failed meniscus repair, and most recently a season I got signed for but did not get to play due to the pandemic.

This has not made me give up on hard work, but to be more adaptable, patient, and realistic.

Failure is part of growth

Like most of these lessons, I’ve heard this before. I heard how important it is to fail. Until I failed over and over again, I did not understand or believe this.

I always thought that failure was essentially a choice. To fail, you had to do something wrong or to not prepare enough. My knee surgeries taught me that failure is not always in your control.

Failures can be big or small, they can be inconvenient or they can be catastrophic. No matter what kind of failure it is, it provides a moment where you can choose to grow.

During my recovery, I tried my absolute hardest to grow in spite of the many failures. I recognize now that I am a different player and a different person because of the challenges I faced from my surgeries. I refused to let failure define me or to decide my career.

It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you respond

Why me? Why now? What did I do to deserve this?

Those questions cycled through my mind, along with anger at the person involved in my injury, many times during my recovery. Maybe even more so when my meniscus repair failed and I had to start all over a week before I was set to leave for a semi-pro team.

I already mentioned this, but life is not fair. Things that don’t make sense happen to us. Right before my ACL journey, I also watched my 19-year old brother die. The injuries were just an added devastation during a time that was already difficult and unfair.

What happened was not fair, and I had to accept that. I could either sulk about it and be upset forever, or I could figure out how to respond in a way that moved me forward. Of course, I was upset when I was told a hard “no” to jog for months, or when the course of my career was thrown off again by a second surgery. It’s okay to be upset, but I did everything in my power to adjust and find a way to move forward.

From body to mind, we are resilient

Photo courtesy of the author

There were so many times during my recovery that I really thought I would never play again. As I struggled to fully bend and straighten my knee for 4 months while others jog at 3, I thought my knee could not take this. I believed I would never again have the confidence to step on the field and be the player I was.

And then again, when I was finally feeling like I beat this ACL injury, I felt I could never get back from a second surgery.

I did.

My knee is not the exact same, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but when I see old photos and videos from early in my recovery I do not believe they are me. As a person, I am not the same as I was and I cannot be.

I thought I was resilient before when I made it through a tough freshman year and then became an All-American despite asthma and vocal cord dysfunction. I thought I was resilient when I helped by team rebound from my crushing junior season to win two Big Ten Championships my senior year.

I never really understood just how resilient our bodies and minds are until I had mine tested over and over again in ways I never expected. It was not until I dealt with my ACL tear and second surgery amongst other personal obstacles that I knew resilience. It was through these experiences that I realized we are much stronger, more resilient, and more flexible than I imagined possible.

My ACL recovery and subsequent meniscectomy recovery were grueling. They were challenging in ways I could not imagine, and they tested me time and time again.

These are only some of the biggest lessons I learned from my ACL injury, but there is so much more. I also learned how short life is and how quickly things can be taken from you, I learned how to follow my passions, I learned how loyal my dog is.

I would never wish this injury upon any athlete, but it changed the course of my life and taught me some of the most valuable, raw life lessons.