Life Lessons Learned from Sports

Life Lessons, Sports

Do you think of Sports as only Fun and Games? Well, think again. Life lessons come entirely from living a life. Life is very simple but we tend to make it more complicated. Sport helps shape a person’s personality in meaningful and positive ways. Sport has often been called a metaphor for life. More often than not, the situations one faces in a game or on the field have plenty in common with life’s situations.

Ambition, Competition, Perseverance, Maintaining a ‘Can-do’ attitude . . . Sports teach us these plus many other necessary qualities needed to succeed in the journey of our lives. Overcoming obstacles is not easy—often not fun—but fortunately loaded with life lessons.

Character-Building through Sports

Our personality defines and impacts the course of our lives. Our destiny is in our own hands since we make choices and decisions every minute we live. These choices and decisions may seem to be the only options to us at the time we make them, but there are always options we have rejected due to our thinking patterns.

During our growing-up years, we form habits (both external and internal) and these define our personality for the rest of our lives unless we consciously work on changing them at some stage.

Every sport presents us with a goal and a challenge. When faced with a challenge, a person responds to it in a set manner according to his personality and internal habit. For example, there is a set pattern of responding to victory and defeat. How much one will strive to achieve a goal will also depend upon a person’s personality. One can learn a number of things about a person from the way he plays a sport.

Life Lessons from Sports

So, what are the key lessons we can learn from Sports that will apply to our lives as well? Setting realistic and high goals is one.

Stretching one’s limits enables a person to overcome wrong self-beliefs and achieve new heights in life. Persevering towards the achievement of that goal is another.

Tackling obstacles is an important aspect associated with persevering towards a goal. As we see so commonly all around us, some people give up too easily when faced with an obstacle, some try for some time and then give up, while there are some who try and try until they succeed.

Team work is another important aspect associated with Sports and one learns to work in a cooperative manner in order to succeed. “Teamwork is the ultimate goal.”

None of these qualities and life lessons can be dismissed as fun and play since these are the very foundations on which a successful life can be built.

Abhinav Bindra on Sport

As Abhinav Bindra says, “I believe that in an athlete’s life, winning is important, but the journey is more meaningful! The constant pursuit of overcoming one’s own limitations and always challenging the part of you that says you will not or cannot win! I am convinced that everybody has, at some time in their life, faced an equivalent.

Something that feels insurmountable. My, perhaps unsolicited, advice is to enjoy the ride! Let’s face it, roller coasters are far more thrilling than merry go rounds!”

Conclusion – Life Lessons , Sport

Sports are like life, in a nutshell. We can shape our own as well our children’s personality positively by imbibing the necessary qualities required for succeeding in any sport. Applied to our actual lives (off the sports field), these very qualities can transform a person from an Average Joe to a Superstar!!

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About the Author

Richa is a writer and a life skills coach with seven years of work experience in training corporate professionals. She has trained employees in Soft skills, Sales and Business English.

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