The Lessons I Learned Playing Sports Growing Up And How It Continues To Impact My Life
Pure the usual, let’s take this conversation back a few years to when sports started to become a big piece of my life.
Let’s just say that sports have always been a big piece of our family life. From weekends out on the field hitting pitch after pitch and then celebrating with some ice cream in elementary school, to my sister being a collegiate athlete and myself traveling around the US for tournaments, it’s been a wild ride.
My Athletic Career
For some background, I mainly played basketball and baseball growing up.
At age 11, I started my traveling sports career in baseball. It started off with just local tournaments and quickly grew to some out-of-state appearances (my favorite being the trip out to Cooperstown for a 114-team tournament, nothing better when you’re a young kid than friends, baseball, and the memories that come with it).
A little later is when I started my travel basketball journey that was pretty short-lived but one that I got to do with a lot of my hometown friends and those weekend hotel trips were always some of my favorites.
Fast forward to high school, I was able to play on varsity for baseball starting in my sophomore year and basketball by my junior season (although coming from a small school, that isn’t the biggest accomplishment, I only average five points my senior year in basketball and got honorable mention in the conference because I played good defense for some reference of where I’m coming from).
Now I was certainly not the best athlete in my school but I was able to contribute a good amount on both teams and a lot of my memories growing up are either on the field or on the court, some that I’ll never forget.
If you grew up playing sports, of course you remember the great games, the tough losses, and the interesting bus trips to games but I know for myself (and a lot of people I know), a lot of the lessons they learned during sports still play a massive part in their adult life.
So let’s dive into a few that have been a bigger piece of who I am today and how you can learn (and apply) these even if you never played second base, let alone threw a ball.
What I’ve Learned From Sports
Failure can be a positive (and advantageous) thing
This first one is a pretty common one you hear, even if you’ve never played sports before, and that is how failing over and over and over again can lead to some pretty dang great things.
To put it lightly, literally, I was a 5’ 3” 120-pound freshman when I entered high school and that normally isn’t a great size for a point guard. After about a year, I was about 5’ 11” and 160lbs but still had very poor skills.
Now knowing that I had some significant growth needed before varsity basketball, I worked my butt off to be able to rebound at a higher level for a guard. This led to many bloody noses in practice and pickup games my sophomore year (something that I don’t miss for sure) but eventually, I was the third-highest rebounder my senior year at 4 inches smaller than the other 2 guys.
Now failure is certainly a part of any start to anything you do but the best part about that is your team can pick up where you lack, and that leads us directly to number two which is that teamwork is knowing you’re not always the best or right all the time and that’s okay, you don’t need to be.
You don’t need to know everything or be the best all the time, teamwork covers that
Hopefully, from hearing a bit of my story, you might get that I wasn’t exactly a power hitter in baseball. My job was to just get on base and let the big bats do the work they were designed to do.
As much as I always wanted to be the big bat in the lineup, I knew if that was the approach I took, I would hurt the team more than help it and that’s where teamwork comes in.
You don’t have to be the best in every area (and likely shouldn’t be because that means there are some balls being dropped, see what I did there).
Anyways, I knew my role and did it the best I could. Now even if I wasn’t the heavy hitter in the lineup, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t in some pretty important positions during big games throughout my career which goes to number three, that the amount of impact pressure has on you depends on how often you face pressure throughout your career and life.
The amount of pressure you feel depends on how often you face it
Let’s just say early on in my sports career, I was that guy praying that I wasn’t counted on to hit free throws to seal a game.
I didn’t want that ball or to be anywhere near it when the time mattered (and my coach likely didn’t want me near it either).
Any in-game pressure was the death of me. I could perform pretty well throughout a game, but when that clock got close to 0, it certainly wasn’t Tommy’s time to shine (shoutout to Brucie from The Longest Yard).
As I got older and improved my game, I knew that meant being in the game at important moments and likely needing to be a guy that my coach, and team, could rely on to clutch up in important moments. This meant I had to learn how to be calm even when pressure was at its greatest level and how did I do this? I forced myself to be in those positions during practice and eventually real games.
I truly believe to be cool under pressure you first have to be hot under pressure (or whatever the opposite of it is). You have to suck, be scared, and not want to be there but be there anyways (and how do you do that, you go back to lesson one, and fail over and over again).
Now it’s great to be able to apply these to sports but the bigger piece of this is that I’ve also been able to apply them to my adult life and have also seen many people who don’t have a sports background do the exact same (if not better than myself) so let’s dive into that part.
How To Learn & Apply These Without An Athletic Background
I get that not everyone played sports growing up but as I mentioned, you can 100% learn similar lessons without ever picking up a ball.
1. Failure
Starting with the first one of failure, the simple way to put this is to be okay with doing something many times knowing it won’t be great from the start but that you’ll learn how to improve along the way.
I did this through bloody noses for rebounding but you can do something a lot less bloody every single day.
I’m guessing that there is one thing or project that you want to do but are afraid to look like a fool so you just keep pushing it off. That was podcasting for me for a while.
I could try and convince you to read a crap ton of books or watch all these different YouTube videos but the true way to learn how failure can be a great thing is to just start. Maybe you’re a great artist and want to do portraits of others for fun (or money) but you’re so scared that they won’t like what you make.
Instead of never doing it, go into town and ask a few people if you can paint them quickly. If they like it, give it to them for free, if they don’t, tell them that if they want you can do another one at a different time and connect with them on Instagram. My guess is that a few of your early ones aren’t going to be the best but time after time, you’ll get better.
You have to drop the ego of being perfect and go for it which leads me to how you can take full advantage of teamwork outside of a sports team.
2. Teamwork
I know it’s not always fun to admit when you don’t know something or to ask for input on a project when you’re supposed to be the one leading it but if you keep this thought going, you’ll likely miss out on some great adjustments or insights you would have never thought of before.
So next time you’re struggling to figure out why a spreadsheet isn’t exactly lining up or how the heck we forgot to order the paper for the new posters we’re creating (and that you’re always in charge of), ask someone if they see a way you can do either of those better.
It’s okay to not have the answer all the time (even if you want your boss to think you’re doing the best job ever).
That person who helps with that spreadsheet might find out why those numbers aren’t lining up and might also have a better formula to make that sheet only 100 rows compared to the 1000 you have and that’s okay.
That’s one of the reasons you have coworkers and acquaintances, to help out when you’re struggling. (And I’m serious, drop that ego of having to be perfect at work, I know it’s tough, I’ve been there a ton, but people will understand when you need a helping hand).
3. Pressure
Now when trying to learn how to handle pressure better, there are two ways you can go about this.
First is doubling down on the expertise you’re trying to craft.
Now I’m not one to think that practice makes perfect and the reason is because the pressure in practice isn’t the same as in a game but as they say proper preparation prevents poor performance.
Instead of just going through the motions on the next coding project you have (to just get the job done), see if you can improve the efficiency that machine operates at even if it’s not a big deal.
Put yourself in the position that you have to lower that efficiency rate or it’ll end up costing the company more than they want. That’s pressure that’s created by you and might not be a perfect way to replicate real pressure but it’s better than nothing.
The second is to ask to be in pressure-filled situations. Lead that monthly meeting that you normally just stay on mute for. Take on that project that the CEO is following, not the one that just your boss knows about.
It’s scary and I get that but it’ll never get better the more you stay away from pressure and you’ll likely not see the growth in your career (and yourself) that you want.
Like I said before, people will understand when you mess up and there definitely might be larger consequences when you take on more responsibility (and ultimately put yourself in a high-pressure situation) but it’s worth the stress and the nerves you have and when you absolutely crush it, you’ll understand that it’s not as big of a deal as you thought.
Now to put a bow on this topic, I get that a lot of this is easier said than done. It’s not fun to fail over and over again without knowing if you’ll ever figure it out. It’s not easy to ask for help, especially when you should be the one with the answer and it can definitely be stressful to force yourself into pressure situations.
With all that being said, I can say from my experiences I’m grateful for the times I’ve failed, asked for help, and thrown myself in a tough situation. If you’re looking to push yourself, these are all ways to do that, if not, no worries, keep crushing what you’re doing.
