Involvement in any sport at any age and competitive level will require you to invest more time in practice, training, and preparation compared to competition. It’s the long road with twists, turns, bumps, and bruises.
Yet we rarely put as much focus, emotion, and stock into this critical time of growth compared to winning or losing against others. Let’s be honest, training to compete at high levels (or any level) can be one hell of a grind. Every practice or workout taxes the body and the mind. Just as a body can show signs of overtraining, the mind can certainly show signs of fatigue, and it extreme cases, burnout.
Thus, the topic for today is why it is so important to learn to love the process of improving and mastering your craft. First it is important to understand that we grow most in these hours, minutes, and seconds of work outside competition. I agree with the statement, “we learn from failure.” However, we learn HOW to overcome failure in practice, training, and preparation. So if we want to maximize our ability to compete as an athlete, we need to leverage this time for growth. This includes making it the focus of our athletic endeavors and learning to love it just as much, or even more, than competition. By loving the process of improving in your sport, you will unlock improvement you did not expect, limit wasted time doing things you loath, attach more positive emotions with your sport no matter if your competitions are successes or setbacks, and create an attitude that will allow you to bounce back quicker.
Now, just like with social relationships we all fall in love in different ways. So there is no magic formula for turning annoyance into infatuation. However, here are some basic steps to get you started.
- Challenge yourself. Pushing yourself to achieve more does a couple of things. If you are challenging yourself you are consistently putting yourself in new positions and environments, thwarting stagnation. Doing the same things at the same intensity does not maximize our adaptations. Additionally, you will boost confidence, positive emotions, motivation, and approach thoughts/behaviors as a result of overcoming challenges.
- Compete. This does not always have to be with others although it can be. You can compete with yourself. Take a practice drill and find a way to create a drive, a purpose. This almost forces you to set a goal, which we know improves our focus, motivation, and learning via problem solving.
- Reflect on successes. After every session think about what went right today. This is critical. We often push aside the 97% of the time we were on-point for the 3% we happened to struggle or did not execute. Notice and appreciate the positive performances and explore how they came about. What did you do to make that happen. Then devise strategies to replicate it.
- Reflect on setbacks. Following your successes we have to remind ourselves that failure is the greatest opportunity for growth. If a woman or man never failed he would not reach his true potential. Failure gives us experience (the largest confidence booster), situations to contingency plan for, knowledge of what didn’t work (i.e., trial and error), and gives us a jump start for goal setting.
- Have an overarching purpose for training that day. Approach every session with a big, umbrella goal. I am here today in order to improve at _________. This can help us stay focused. It can also help us power through some of the same things we have to do every day. If we simply change why we are doing it, it seems less monotonous, it can spark our motivation and intensity. Also, we are better focusing on one thing compared to 18. Simplify things and let your brain and body do the rest.
- Log trainings. Keep a log of your sport trainings and competitions. You can make these as complicated or simple as you like. However, make the information you put down high quality. You want to be able to look back on this and see patterns, see what worked, see what didn’t, and be able to visually see growth, progression, and develop appreciation for the process of mastery.
- Include significant others. You don’t have to have a full-time training partner to check this box. However, it is essential that you include someone to share your successes, struggles, thoughts, and emotions with. Creating meaningful social connection with another person and having the ability to freely talk about your process with your sport is needed. This reduces isolation, staves negative emotions, while building confidence, positivity, and shows you that people see your effort, although most others only see your competitions.
At any age, if you can learn to love the process that is your sport development, you will see higher levels of mastery, achievement, positive emotions, confidence, motivation, and an appreciation for the long road that is the life of an athlete.