5 | 159 Career, family, and sport participation: a simultaneous exhibition? them to cope with increased physical and mental constraints. Besides having the will to practise sport during the transition to adulthood, people have to find ways to do so that lay within their possibilities as a student, professional, partner and/or parent. We see creative solutions for (re-)starting and sustaining sport participation in these new life situations, dealing with the shifted resource balance and associated opportunities and constraints for and perceived benefits of sport participation after becoming a student, professional, partner and parent. These solutions are characterised by less structured and/ or less frequent sport participation in more flexible, informal and/or individual settings, and sport activities that can easily be combined with or linked to the new event-related activities and responsibilities (see the lower section of Table 5.2 for more detailed conclusions regarding the ways to participate in sport). A great pitfall of practising sport in these more flexible and less structured settings is that the associated “light” sport activities are so noncommittal and unobligated, that every time they are planned and should be carried out, the choice-making process of re-evaluating priorities and deliberating sport participation is invoked. So, actually participating in these activities takes an extra effort, requiring additional cognitive and emotional resources which can bother. As a result, these “light” sport activities are skipped or given up relatively easily, which has a negative effect on sustained sport participation. In particular by people who are not very “sport-minded”, and especially by those who perceive to have a more active living due to major life events and find this a good substitute practising sport. Our findings suggest that the willingness to participate in sport and seeing ways to do so are two decisive conditions for choosing to practise sport during the transition to adulthood, that also interact. The likelihood of practising sport after becoming a student, professional, partner and parent is greatest if there is a clear will (i.e., an intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivation) and perceived way (i.e., a sport opportunity that responds to the new resource balance) to do so. Regarding the interaction between “the will” and “the way”, it often seems that “where there’s a will, there’s a way” to practise sport during the transition to adulthood, meaning that people who are motivated to practise sport will find a way to do so, even if their resources are limited after the occurrence of a major life event. However, some people are motivated to practise sport (i.e., they have the will) , but see no opportunity to do so (i.e., there is no way) - temporarily or structurally, for the long term - after they experienced a major life event. And
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw