The Importance Of Perseverance In Sports
Perseverance is a really important skill in all sports. Athletes have to deal with competitive stress, and the pressure that they have to be the best of their kind. We must also add to this concerns about their bodies. This is something that is often hidden behind athletes ’medals. Elite sports punish the body, it pushes the body to extremes and is far from healthy. Fear of the risk of injury again brings its own card into the pile.
How does perseverance work outside of sports? The truth is that athletes are not the only ones who have to get over obstacles. We all have to suffer from loneliness and sometimes hit the bottom. It’s often really hard to lift ourselves up. We all experience these challenges in our daily lives, with greater or lesser intensity.
Pressure from an athlete or trainee, accidents, death of a loved one… They can be experiences we are often not prepared for. During these situations, perseverance makes the difference between whether or not we successfully overcome them.
Athletes are role models for survival
If there is something that sets athletes apart from us, it is the pressure they place on themselves. At the same time, many have no choice but to control themselves. This pressure provides them with maturity that allows them to develop and strengthen their perseverance in the sport. In this way, they become committed people, have a great deal of determination, and, above all, have faith that comes from experiencing many poisons and witnessing how, over time, gloomy clouds have given way to the sun.
Let us consider this: athletes experience injuries, performance problems, and illnesses that can cause them to be unable to perform their work. Despite this fact, they recover easily from these setbacks, just as a 2008 study by Gall and Vealy shows. The mental strength of athletes allows them to stay afloat when others sink. This is the product of their experience, but it is also an exercise of faith and hope.
Perseverance in challenges, and not just in sports
In this sense, we cannot forget all those athletes with limited bodies who, despite their limitations, are able to give their best and face the challenges of development with hope every day. Instead of being victims of misfortune or tragedy, they are winners and role models in life, for all of us. They don’t stop. They are strong and tenacious.
The psychological pressures that every athlete is under are not barriers to continuing to strive and develop every day. Why doesn’t this happen to people who are not athletes? According to the study we mentioned above, the answer can be found in the fact that, due to their ongoing psychologically active state, athletes are able to create and maintain a fair level of optimism. But this does not seem to be the case for individuals living a life that remains stationary.
Perseverance applied to other areas of life
We don’t have to be professional athletes or play on a football team to enjoy the benefits that sport offers. Introducing children to exercise at an early age, regardless of species, is a positive step in their health. It also teaches them to manage stress and other emotions that can lead to a losing mood.
The benefits of sport help to spread all the positive skills acquired in different areas of life. This means that perseverance has great effects on social relationships, school, and job performance.
Applying perseverance to everyday problems
Perseverance in sport can become a great tool to successfully overcome life’s difficulties and problems. This can always be applied from everyday problems to rare problems, and those that produce a large amount of emotional impact. By learning to manage these conditions properly, we allow ourselves to recover faster. Sport, as we said earlier, can be a good training platform to develop this attitude.
Sport is a great opportunity to generalize everything we learn about it into our daily routines. We may think that sports only support the health of our bodies. The truth is that sport can provide us with many other important skills. Skills that allow us to get over problems that no one has prepared for us. Are we going to give this opportunity a ticket past us?
