News headlines scream it all the time. The youth of today are in the midst of a mental health crisis. Suicide rates are at all-time highs. Young people are grappling with ever-worsening cases of anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders, not to mention completely lost and unprepared to navigate this increasingly complex and broken world. Indeed, the circumstances in which young people have to grow up in today are quite challenging. This is why it is even more crucial for them to be mentally prepared and strong enough to handle the challenges of this world. Without mental toughness and resilience, it would be difficult to succeed and be happy in our modern times.
For many, this mental resilience could start at home or in school. The combination of the demands of a challenging home life and a demanding academic schedule might be too much. For some students, a challenging academic programme such as the IB programme or an Advanced Placement Course helps them create the resilience they need to pursue their education and their dreams.
But for some teens, it is pursuing an athlete’s life. The life of an athlete is a difficult and challenging one, filled with many failures and roadblocks on the path to success and achievement. Before they could even win their first competition, there is so much that they have to go through to achieve the kind of physical resilience and mental strength to overcome not only the competition but their own self-doubt. Hence, nobody is more knowledgeable about what it means to overcome difficulty than they do.
Here are some of the best lessons young people could learn from former athletes.
Learn to have clear goals in mind.
The best athletes have clear and set goals in mind that they then frame their entire training and preparation. Without these goals, an athlete would find it difficult to remain motivated or would end up lost in the midst of the competition and training process.
This also applies to life outside sports, as without any personal or professional goals, we, too, would find it difficult to keep going. Any young person who needs to focus on academics or sports knows the value of setting clear goals and sticking with them. They find that having these specific goals help them to achieve more than they envisioned.
Be determined and courageous.
A life in sports is one of the best ways to develop a person’s character and resilience. Nobody makes it to the top without hard work, determination, and the belief that at the end of it all, they will succeed. Moreover, it takes an incredible amount of toughness to retain these characteristics through many trials and challenges. One way or another, people all go through difficult periods where they feel like giving up. But athletes can show us how they were able to persevere despite the many obstacles that came their way.
Learn from your mistakes.
Behind one success story of every athlete is an equally significant story of failure. In fact, without these failures, it is unlikely that the best athletes would be able to attain their greatest achievements. This is because failure brings with it valuable lessons to be learned, which is something that athletes know how to take, process, and apply.
Similarly, if a young person wants to succeed, they must also know how to deal with failure. Once they are able to learn from their mistakes, they can avoid committing the same ones in the future, and only grow and develop as individuals.
There is much to be learned from the life of an athlete, especially when it comes to mental resilience. No matter what your struggles or difficulties are, there will always be a nugget of inspiration that you can draw from such stories of success after all the blood, sweat, and tears along the way.
