Do You Want to Know the Importance of Athletics Today?

Do you want to know how sports can benefit you or your child?

If so, then read on to know the importance of athletics in your life and how it can help you get the most out of your career and/or your schoolwork.

Now you might have read reports like this one which say athletics hurt your grades and they do not provide for a great future at all, simply saying you can earn all of the benefits without needing to play sports.

A lot of people do experience this and there is research that says students might be better off not playing sports, particularly at the college level. However, in all of these cases, there is always an element of sports involved.

You’ll see why later in this post.

I will jump right into the number 1 benefit of playing sports.

1. You Become Healthier

This is the number 1 benefit of participating in sports by far.

This doesn’t come as a surprise because unlike most physical activities, you are moving the most in any sports, regardless of which one it is.

Additionally, with team sports, you develop your social skills more since you have to interact with other people to achieve a goal, so mentally, you experience less loneliness as a result.

Now here’s the interesting statistic.

A survey of Southeast Michigan parents revealed that a whopping 82% of them felt that participating in sports was extremely important for the health.

82% is quite a bit to raise your eyebrow, isn’t it?

The fact that 82% of parents in a region believe that sports is important for their child’s health should legitimately raise interest in at least learning about how sports can improve your life somehow.

Another health benefit of sports is you or your kids will less likely use drugs in their lifetime. This is a big deal because just one puff of a cigarette can attach you or your child (or future children) for life because of their addictive nature.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, those who are physically active have dopamine injected throughout their brains while they are playing or moving around.

This is the same neurotransmitter that’s injected when you take, say, cocaine.

As a result, because the dopamine comes out when you exercise, your brain doesn’t feel the need to do drugs to feel good.

Now with drugs, the dopamine comes out at such high levels that it cannot go without it to be happy, just like you wouldn’t want to go without your coffee.

As a result, the brain doesn’t feel the need to exercise and instead, it’s retreated to the drug.

This is a recipe for a super disaster.

So if anything, if you learn something from this blog post, it’s to just say no to drugs, including your smartphone when you get carried away.

You’ll thank yourself later.

Now for the second benefit of participating in sports:

2. You Develop a Real Work Ethic

Do you know what NFL players really call the NFL?

“Not for long.”

Do you know why?

Because it’s grueling and it’s extremely difficult to stay in it.

What’s even more difficult is winning the Super Bowl because of all of the things that have to go in it to make the goal successful.

You have to train, you have to play, you have to withstand pressure, you have to know the playbook in and out, you have to communicate effectively, you can’t get hurt, you need great coaches, etc.

All of these things that contribute to the overall goal of winning a Super Bowl requires a lot of work.

In sports, you cannot leave things to chance because you will expose your weaknesses fast. As a result, the opposing team will take advantage of this and they will eat you for lunch.

Additionally, goal setting is extremely important in sports because without it, there is no direction and you don’t have anything to work towards. This is why teams must get the team to commit to the mission of winning the Super Bowl because without it, they don’t put their heart into it to work at achieving this goal.

And naturally, you do what you need to do to accomplish the goal and naturally, you develop the work ethic required to succeed that applies to every aspect of your life, whether it’s in a classroom or a work setting.

Typically, in a classroom or a work setting, this concept of goal setting is not fully understood because employees just want to go there and get a paycheck and go home. There isn’t really an incentive for them to perform most of the time.

In sports, it’s understood better since everyone’s ability to remain on the team depends on this activity and naturally, they work harder to achieve this goal as a result.

And this is one of the reasons why companies love to hire athletes because sports taught them this concept better than anything else, so they come in prepared and they don’t need to have the hand held in this regard.

If you don’t believe me, go into a classroom of 100 students and ask them if goal setting is important and it contributes to their work ethic.

Maybe a few will tell that it is important and chances are, they are the top students in the class.

Now go into a room of 100 athletes and ask them if goal setting is important and if it contributes to their work ethic.

The vast majority of them will say yes because their success depends on it.

Believe me when I say this: Whether you play a sport or not, there’s no way around sports. You are always dealing with it in some capacity. Even your job is a sport.

Now here’s one you’ve probably heard thrown around a lot if you’ve seen a press conference before.

3. You Understand the Importance of Organization

Hence, the organization.

In every sport (at least team sports), everyone has a part to play in accomplishing the goal of winning a championship, from the players to the coaching staff to management, health trainers, etc.

If one person does not do their part, then the whole team will suffer.

In work, it’s the same thing. From your boss or supervisor all the way down to the last employee, everyone has to work together and play their part or the goal will not be accomplished or someone has to do more than expected.

In fact, if the effort is not balanced like this and there is one guy doing all of the work and one guy is just sitting there or doing nothing, then not only will everything feel rushed, but team chemistry and culture will be interfered, which will run through the whole organization and people will progressively not buy into the mission and would want out.

This is something you never want for anyone you are working with.

Drama in this sense is toxic and if one domino falls, the others will fall.

With great teams, this almost never happens and if it does, it gets resolved quickly.

Every single effort with great teams is a balance of everybody contributing to what was agreed to and executing the plan close with excellence.

Of course, there might be a standout performer (MVP), but everyone plays a part and they at least do what they need to do to win. And everyone understands what they have to do and they are on the same page with no misunderstandings on game day regarding the game plan.

When there are misunderstandings in the game plan, confusion arises and most people will become lost and the team will not have any direction during the game.

This is a recipe for disaster.

And all of this is applicable to the real world since you can’t have any misunderstandings or you will miss that deadline and the quality of your work will drop.

And you know what happens then:

You get in trouble somehow.

So in short, everyone should know their role in the organization and at the very minimum, do that while doing more in whatever capacity possible and know the plan with everyone on the same page about it before going forward with it.

Remember, if you don’t plan, you plan to fail.

Now this point can help you with the next point I’ll talk about.

4. You Can Help Your Current / Future Career

I bet you figured this one out already, but there are more profound facts that will make this even more mind-blowing to you, so read on to know.

There was a survey done amongst 400 female executives from different industries and the study found out that 94% of these executives played sports when they were young, with 61% saying that it helped them in their careers.

That’s pretty significant considering it’s the majority.

You can read the full study here if you wish.

Additionally, you will know how to manage people effectively and you will know how to work in a team effectively (if you do team sports).

I guarantee you that.

In sports, people management is what makes or breaks the team. You have different egos, you have different personalities and you have to deal with the press and your higher-ups constantly getting into your face.

How you get through it all will have an impact as to how you get your teammates (or coworkers) to buy into what you are saying. If you don’t get them to buy in, you’ll feel like you are left out and drama will commence.

If you get them to buy in, there will be cohesion and when you work progressively together, you will eventually succeed.

In the workplace, it’s all about this people management and if you mismanage people, you will not get anything done and you will be the first person out of the door if this happens.

Sports is truly the best teacher of this concept since you are forced to manage people correctly for something you truly want in an exciting environment that allows you to be healthy, physically active and build friendships at the same time.

You really can’t be that on top of the opportunity to build something really great like a championship winning team.

It allows you to take ownership and pride in something you actually helped build and got gratification out of.

And this lends itself to my next point:

5. You Become More Confident In Yourself

When you build something great like winning a championship, you know deep down that you can accomplish anything you want.

Why?

Because the process for winning a championship is the same for accomplishing any type of endeavor you can imagine.

You know the process of setting goals and taking action on them daily, you know the process of getting people to work together to achieve one common goal and you know the work ethic required in order to get to where you or your organization needs to be.

So now what do you do?

You take this knowledge and, combined with learning some successful strategies specific to your new industry or venture, you simply repeat the process.

If you’ve done it once, you can do it again.

This is what makes truly great leaders who they are. They get put in the scenario once, accomplish it and repeat it all across the board in what they do.

And that’s the thing with sports.

The game could evolve, but the fundamental processes for success still remain the same.

And the same thing occurs in life.

There will always be the dysfunctional and the undisciplined. Because of this, you can already take them out of the running for getting what you are looking to get. Provided you don’t underestimate them, you will beat them without question.

And there will always be teams and people who do follow the process you will follow and then some, so you need to be on you’re a-game.

But if you stick to the process that got you that championship(s), you will win it all in whatever you are doing without question.

And when you do this, it helps you develop this:

6. It Develops Your Ambition

When you achieve a small goal, you want to achieve an even bigger goal because you know the process that got you to your smaller goal generally applies to your bigger goal.

So when you win something like a high school state basketball championship, you would want to “move up” a level and win a college basketball championship.

And when you win a college basketball championship, you’d want to win a professional basketball championship.

And when you win the professional basketball championship, you just want to build a dynasty.

And it all moves up from there.

Why does this work? Because you developed positive habits that can get you further. Why would you not want to go far after you’ve done it once? That doesn’t make any sense.

Now do you see why business organizations want to hire athletes over anyone else?

It’s because they know how to get the job done (and more) and they know the process for making the organization do bigger and greater things.

And that’s what sports do to you or your child if you decide to participate in some capacity.

You will become a better person, a better citizen and quite honestly, a winner.

And hey, sports might even improve your grades and salary; just saying.

If you happen to be a parent or administrator reading this, I hope this post gave you at the very least an insight into the benefit of athletics for student and your children.

If you are someone interested in playing, I hope this post gave you the information you need to make the best decision for you.

If you got a lot out of this post, definitely subscribe with your email below to Join the Island, the world’s greatest blog, where you’ll receive the world’s best posts on productivity and reaching your full potential in every aspect of your life, including school and your job!

Until next time,

This is Evan signing off.

PS: Comment below with what you got out of the post. I’d be great to hear. Please ask questions if you have them; I’ll be more than happy to help!

PPS: If you are a student, here’s a secret trick to boost your grades fast. Treat academics like it’s a sport. Your grades are points and you are competing against the test (and your teacher/professor). You’ll thank me later 🙂