In my professional experience, I’ve found that youth sports can play a major factor in the career success of individuals early on in their careers. I know this may sound a bit crazy, however I’ve found this principle to be accurate I’m practice.
When children participate in sports as children they gain valuable skills. Each of the skills they learn allow them to have a strong baseline to grow and leverage these skills as they grow into young professionals.
The first of these skills is teamwork. No matter what you do for a living, teamwork is a life skill that will enable you to be successful in a wide landscape on environments. Learning to be a team player as an adult, once you start your career is substantially harder than learning it as a child. When a child plays team sports, and they grow up in that environment of being part of a team to be successful, that though is engrained into them for the rest of their lives. When you believe that your role enables the success of the team, it pushes you to work harder for others, and keeps that fire burning by motivating other members of the team.
The second major skill I notice that translates well is discipline. Children learn through athletics to be disciplined through a variety of activities, practice, and games. All of these activities require a child to do things a certain way, and to stick to a plan as they focus on bettering themselves. This discipline translates well into a career environment. Disciplined people have the ability to make a plan, and stick to it whether or not the road they travel gets tough.
Thirdly, and lastly the other major lesson that survives the leap from youth sports to adult career success is motivation, or competitiveness. When you play sports as a child, you have this drive deep within yourself to be better, this drive to always be better tomorrow than you were today. With this drive to be better, it induces a habit of being reflective and determining what you’ve done to be better today than yesterday.
When you combine these skills learned from sport together, they don’t necessarily help you succeed. What they do however, is ensure you have a solid arsenal of tools in your toolbox to grow and become a successful individual in career and in life.
Until next time!
AM
Climb to Success 