What Makes Your Sports Story Important? Let Us Count the Ways
You don’t have to be an athlete to love a good sports story. There are so many iconic movies, TV shows and books that tell true or fictional stories about teams and individuals trying to be successful within their sport. Every one of us who has participated in sports has a unique story. Here are a couple of reasons why your sports story is important to being a successful athlete.
Clear Goals
Every sports movie has the big game as the epic climax. For some swimmers, Olympic Trials, the Olympic Games, and NCAA Championships are some of the biggest stages of their careers. But on even smaller levels, we have the big meets of the season. These smaller meets can be just as important. They are the places where you get the cuts to swim in larger meets.
Your big dreams are important, but so are the smaller short term goals. The clearer you are about your goals, the better you will be able to plot the way forward. Thinking about how you want your story to go can also help your mental attitude for the season. Even when thinking small, the end goals are important to your story!
Learning From the Past
Thinking about how you got to your current place in swimming is important. Some of the greatest moments of our sports stories are times we don’t meet our goals. Not swimming a best time at a big meet can be frustrating. Thinking about what to change for next time can help you become successful in the future. Within your swim narrative, times of difficulty or failure are as significant as the high points of your career. However, what is most important is how you respond to the epic highs and lows of your story.
Appreciating Past Work
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. Thinking about times within your athletic narrative that you are proud of can help define what success is to you. Success comes within many forms. Sometimes it is just making the intervals within a set or even showing up to practice. Even appreciating positive changes in your narrative can help you feel more successful. Appreciating what worked or didn’t work within your past can help you appreciate what you are doing in the present.
Inspiration
The danger of using your own sports story as motivation is that it can be too encompassing. Holding yourself to past successes can make you lose focus on the present joy of the sport. Your own narrative can be better served as inspiration instead of motivation. Watching a show about a sports team won’t motivate you to go to practice everyday. Motivation comes from within. Moments where you feel lost within your own narrative is where inspiration can be helpful.
Ownership
What makes your narrative important is that it is yours. You are the one who gets to define what happened in the past and what will happen in the future. The people who have supported you are participants in that narrative as well. Feeling and creating a sense of ownership over your own actions is important within the life of an athlete. You are the one who knows yourself best, and your decisions are what define your career.