A creative non-fiction story of an athlete’s journey through the life skills application process

To date, the majority of empirical investigations into the life skills transfer process have presented what have often been singular instances of application, thus positioning life skills transfer more as an outcome rather than an ongoing process of learning/refinement. Conceptualising transfer as an outcome overlooks the cognitive and emotional factors that influence athletes in their process of attempting to apply in life the skills they learned in sport. The purpose of the present study was to use the Kendellen and Camiré (2019) substantive grounded theory of life skills application to document one athlete’s journey through the life skills application process. A single instrumental case study was employed to investigate the athlete’s experiences of applying the life skill of leadership at work as he progressed through the four steps described in the grounded theory. Three individual semi-structured interviews were conducted over a 10-month period, supplemented by three months of solicited journaling. In drawing on the analytical practice of creative non-fiction, the athlete’s story of applying the life skill of leadership at work is presented. The present study contributes to the literature by moving beyond documenting instances of life skills transfer and instead demonstrating how the athlete’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviours evolved to influence his experiences of applying at work the leadership skills he believed he learned in sport. The findings are discussed in relation to the substantive grounded theory of life skills application as well as the life skills transfer literature.