Bhavi Devchand

I’ve spent most of my sporting career as a cricketer in Perth, representing WA and the Perth Scorchers, before moving to Melbourne where I represented the Melbourne Stars, Victorian Women’s Team, and the mighty Ringwood Rams. I’m also a wannabe musician, spend a lot of time searching for lost golf balls & certainly nerd out on all things performance.

I’ve spent the vast majority of my career in and out of teams, always told I had talent, but could never quite produce results consistently. This led to a constant search, always looking for the next edge that will get me ahead or even just catch me up. I fell deep into the world of high performance as we know it, chasing this perfection I thought was required. If I could just get fitter, hit more areas, bowl more, focus more, be a better fielder, then everything will be OK and I’ll achieve all the things.

As I tried harder, things seemed to get worse & eventually I lost my professional contract in May 2019. It seemed like the end of the world; I’d been going to the WACA for preseason since I was 13 & it had essentially become my life. I definitely had my fair share of sulking & complaining, however losing my contract opened up the opportunity to have a year in the wilderness. No programs, no schedule, no goals I must achieve to solve the world’s problems. Just a love of the game and opportunities to pursue that in some new environments.

I started to rediscover that feeling I had when I was a little girl. Grateful to play, curious about getting better & excited for the challenge. What if everything I had so desperately been searching for was already inside of me?

I also started coaching more and studying a Cert IV in Elite Athlete Wellbeing Management. Through this, I also realised I wasn’t the only one with this need to do more to be more. In fact, the most common issues in performance didn’t have much to do with your head falling over or not having a strong front arm, they originated in fear. Fear of other people’s opinions, of the unknown, of not being enough.

What if high performance is about bringing all of me to each moment. Not who I should be or what the world is telling me is successful. But me. Bhavi Devchand, with all my weird quirks and passions. Fully embrace that and in doing so give permission for others to do the same.

Irrelevant of who you are or what you’ve achieved, we’re all searching for the same things – growth, connection & purpose. The problem seems to arise when we search outside of us for these things. We rely on the world around us to tell us stories about what success should look like. Social media and advertising highlight perfectionism, making it very difficult to embrace who we are.

The Inside Edge Project aims to connect with those that have been in the arena, battling the highs and lows that come with pursuing potential. How can we build our resilience to a point where we thrive from setbacks? How can we manage our emotions in high-pressure environments? How can we have a red-hot crack at our goals without getting attached to outcomes? And most importantly, how do we create environments that help foster this approach?

Answering these questions will hopefully start to create a shift in perspective. A shift from fearing failure, to knowing our greatest growth comes from our darkest times. A shift from thinking connection comes from being perfect, to understanding it’s actually our imperfections that connect us the most. A shift from thinking out purpose is found in making ourselves great, to understanding that true fulfilment comes from impacting others. As philosopher Freidrich Neitzer said, ‘he who has a why to live for, can bear any how.’

The best part? Focusing on growth, connection and purpose are directly linked to accessing flow state – the most optimal state of performance. You won’t find flow from the latest advancements in technology or from training more, it comes from the courage to be who you are and go after what you want. It comes from your Inside Edge.