It's a Game: Have Fun!
I enjoy watching young athletes compete. I frequently see both outstanding and impressively poor performances. There are so many young players pressing to try to make things happen that it seems like an epidemic. The first message I want to get to them is this: HAVE FUN! These games are what all the hard work and anticipation were for. These times are your opportunity to shine. It's okay to struggle; in fact, adversity is both inevitable and good. If you're honestly pursuing best effort performances, you're already a winner. All you can do is all you can do, so go out there and do your best and see what happens. Your best effort is always good enough.
Remember, fun is an attitude, and attitudes are a choice. How do you choose?... By the thoughts you're focused on. You can change your thoughts, and therefore your attitude, in an instant. Most athletes have fun after good outcomes. But good outcomes are more likely to occur when you're having fun, so the greatest athletes in the world decide to have fun first! And this shouldn't be too hard since you are, after all, playing a game you love. It's better than work. (If you don't choose to compete the vast majority of the time you're out there, you should either learn to do so or find another pursuit.)
Enjoyment, practice, success, pain, “failure,” winning, losing, progress, and achievement are all part of the athlete’s process of finding out how good he can be. The process can simultaneously be tiring and fun, exciting and fun, nerve-wracking and fun, even painful and fun. It would be difficult, however, to have fun while being frustrated, impatient, lethargic, annoyed, angry, stubborn, or resentful. Sports (and life) should be fun, so leaders in athletics work on their skill at avoiding these negative emotions. If they find this difficult, the current goal is to avoid them more, perhaps by 10% in a week. Strive for perfection, but never expect it, and remember that if you are able to turn a personality flaw into a strength, that is an impressive accomplishment that happened one disciplined decision at a time.LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW: Have you had any teammates who always seemed to be having fun? Who was it and was this person a leader on the team?
COACHING POINT- Coaches should have fun, too! Try to enjoy the process of identifying what doesn't work (often = losing) almost as much as identifying what does work (often = winning). I know...easy to say, but hard to do! When you succeed, you'll be making it easier for your players to relax and have fun, and therefore, you'll actually win more often.
What is the biggest challenge to maintaining enthusiasm you face?