Building Consistency in Sports

Introduction

Being the best is not about one-off incredible performances. It’s about consistency.

Consistency in effort, motivation, training, competitiveness, and focus. It matters, because one-off great sporting performances count, but they’re not enough for sustained success.

After all, you don’t lose your fitness, technical skills, or talents overnight – only through a lack of consistency. Ongoing, continuous focus frees our young athletes to perform at their limits more of the time.

And not only that. Researchers in 2021 found that when high school and college athletes are enthusiastically committed to both their sports and school, they experience less burnout.

As Pat Riley, American professional basketball executive, former coach and player, puts it:

"There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either IN or you're OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between."

Consistently handling setbacks

Things go wrong all the time. It’s a fact – in life and sports.

When things don’t work out for our young athletes in training, they might shrug it off, saying, “No big deal, it’s only practice.”

But they’d be wrong. It matters because consistency means striving for personal excellence in everything they do.

Instead, they need to take failures as learning opportunities. To do so, they must consider how they want to respond to tough situations. What skills do they need to overcome the knockbacks going forward?

It helps to set ‘mastery goals’ that require consistent and prolonged effort.

Something like this:

• I’m going to develop a consistent routine that balances my sports practices, study time, rest, and recovery.
• I will improve my physical conditioning by focusing on core strength, endurance, flexibility, and speed.
• I’ll start to regularly practice individual and specific techniques to support precision and efficiency in my sport
• I’ll build the mental toughness to handle pressure, better manage stress, and remain focused throughout my training and competition.
• I can seek out and take onboard feedback from my coach, family, and peers.

There are plenty of other ways of creating mastery goals, but you get the idea.

Consistently handling challenges takes more than simply persistence; it requires learning and growth.

For the tennis player, it might mean pausing before a serve, quickly assessing what went wrong in the last rally before letting it go and focusing on the next move.

When the gymnast misplaces their foot on the mat, they need to give all their focus to the next part of the floor routine. Their attention must be complete, looking forward rather than backward.

Messner began competing young. Aged only ten, she was preparing for the ‘Western Hemisphere’ championships in Mexico. Yet, things were going so badly in practice that she decided she wouldn’t place, so she may as well ease up and enjoy herself.

And that’s what she did. She went through the usual warm-up stretches and listened to music while sitting on the grass. Anyone watching wouldn’t have thought she was about to compete in an international competition.

Yet, not only did she take part – she won. It was her best tournament so far.

Feeling in control can sometimes involve letting go. It seems counterintuitive but control is ultimately where your head is at.

Consistency and managing moods

Humans, particularly athletes, tend to focus on the negatives.

It’s an inbuilt tendency that we can change – but it requires consistency.

Our young athletes can help themselves by starting and ending the day right.

Thinking of positive things before bed and when getting up in the morning helps them become set up for success. So, it’s worth practicing asking themselves a series of questions.

Last thing at night:

What went well today? And why?
Who helped me out? And how did it leave me feeling?
Who did I support, encourage, and make feel good today?
When did I feel joy, hope, even awe?

First thing in the morning:

Who can I connect with today that I always feel good when I’m around?
Who can I support or give to today?
What am I looking forward to today? What makes it special?
How can I foster a positive outlook?

How we feel is defined by where our head is–the mindset we adopt–and our physical state.

So, what can our athletes work on consistently to ensure both are in a good place?

The following are easy to implement yet can have a significant impact.

Encourage the student to reflect on each of the following points:

● Plan more rest. It’s easy for the day to run away from us, but we need to schedule rest to get the relaxation, recovery, and sleep needed.

● Manage stress. We must find ways to prevent stress and feelings of anxiousness overloading us. Seeing stress as something that is inevitable and, at times, helpful is a good place to start. So, too, is finding ways to remain in control. It could be spending time with friends, joining clubs, or playing sports for fun.

● Make time for ourselves. When sporting and academic commitments are stacking up, taking time out can feel foolish or wrong. But as athletes, we need to believe that a slice of the day is totally ours – outside of the performance domain.

● Savor our successes. It’s too easy to focus on the negatives or move on from our ‘wins’ too quickly. Yet, it’s vital to soak up our successes and revisit them later.

● Reflect on where their head is at. Psychologists call it ‘metacognition’ – thinking about our thinking. We must regularly take a beat and assess whether we spend too much time on life’s negatives.

Ultimately, our athletes can help themselves by changing what they focus on (positives, negatives, successes, failures). They can boost their positive feelings while transforming their environment into one of growth and opportunity.

Research confirms why it’s so important.

A 2022 study, including 165 sports men and women, found an athlete’s ability to understand and control their emotional state shaped them as sports leaders and helped them cope better with anxiety.

Wrapping Up

References