What’s the secret to your child’s youth sports success? What would you say if I told you the answer in one word? The word is FAITHFULNESS.
You may not be impressed by that word, which proves my theory that these days, Faithfulness is under-rated.
Especially in the world of youth sports where flashy performances stand out, skilled athletes get praised, and it’s often more about who you know than what you actually can do.
But the honest truth is that faithfulness is really the secret sauce to success in anything, not just youth sports. Being faithful has nothing to do with being powerful, attractive, talented or charismatic. And being faithful is not something that a lot of coaches emphasize. In fact, it’s hugely overlooked.
Yet I believe that these five steps of faithfulness will help your child achieve success in youth sports, and later in life:
If your child–and YOU, for that matter–can Show up. On time. Every day. With a great attitude. And do the right things consistently, sooner or later, it will pay off. In the end, faithfulness always pays dividends.
But here’s the catch: being faithful is not easy.
- A faithful person understands that he needs endurance.
- A faithful person knows she must run her own race, and not compare it to another’s race.
- A faithful person comprehends that he must be faithful in the little things before he has a chance at the big things.
I think that we often overcomplicate success. We come up with all kinds of coaching strategies and mental tricks to help young athletes succeed. Some of those work and are very necessary, but I have a feeling that a whole bunch of them are just words and that if we were to focus on the basics of faithfulness, our kids would benefit a whole bunch more.
So how about it? Will you encourage faithfulness in your child? Are you modeling faithfulness in your life?
Faithfulness is not sexy. But it will reap rewards if you stay faithful.
Thanks to Craig Altman from Grace Family Church in Tampa for providing the insight I shared in this post.