Serena Williams isn't playing any games when it comes to putting herself first.
The tennis champ opened up to Selena Gomez in a personal conversation about setting some "serious boundaries" in her life. The chat between the stars is part of Selena's mental health initiative, Wondermind.
"Mental fitness for me is just really learning to shut down," Serena said in a clip shared to the singer's Instagram account Aug. 15. "And you know I did this years ago, before even mental health was a topic among everyone's mind. It was more just like, alright, I'm shutting myself down today. Just subconsciously, it was something I've always done."
The 40-year-old continued, "And so now that I know that it's so important to just put yourself first, especially mentally, I always have shut down moments. I have serious boundaries and I don't let anyone cross those boundaries." But as Serena noted, sometimes it's easier said than done.
"For me, it's so important to make sure, every day, I have a period of—it's so bad, because I really don't do anything for me, I'm terrible at that," she shared. "And I've said it time and time again—I'm working on it. But more or less, at least prioritizing what I need to do. And then when I'm turned off, I'm turned off."
Serena's interview about her mental health comes on the heels of the award-winning athlete announcing her retirement from tennis. In her first-person essay for Vogue published Aug. 9, Serena—who shares 4-year-old daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr with husband Alexis Ohanian wrote that she was "evolving away" from the sport.
In her deeply personal narrative for the publication, Serena also shared that she and her husband hope to expand their family sometime soon.
"In the last year, Alexis and I have been trying to have another child, and we recently got some information from my doctor that put my mind at ease and made me feel that whenever we're ready, we can add to our family," she wrote. "I definitely don't want to be pregnant again as an athlete. I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out."
The tennis pro—who has 23 Grand Slam singles and 14 Grand Slam doubles titles under her belt—expressed that at this point in her career, she assumed that she would've had "30-plus" instead.
"But I didn't get there," she continued. "Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn't show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that's fine. Actually, it's extraordinary. But these days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter."