Life as a Student-athlete

Living life as a student-athlete is no easy feat by any definition of the world. You’re constantly trying to balance your social life, your athletics, and your grades. The training sessions are a killer and trying to do any academic work after that feels like a herculean task. You typically practice every day and if you’re into athletics like say swimming, then it’s not something you can escape from with an iPod. Your lungs scream, your tissues burn, not to mention the trainers on the side yelling. Your stress levels are multiplied because you want to excel in both sports and school. If you’re very competitive by nature, then you won’t want to settle for just a passing grade just as you won’t be satisfied with coming 3rd or even 2nd place. Swimmers also have it harder than most as a lot of people don’t consider them student-athletes, they think swimming is a leisure activity.

Some parent may wonder and want to ask how swimming endless laps regularly will help their child, or how putting in countless hours shooting hoops would do any good. The answer is everything. It is easy to figure out competencies required in employment. In a case where a student does not comprehend classroom lessons immediately, tutors, the internet, and extra effort hitting the textbooks could remedy it. Self-coincidence, on the other hand, isn’t something you can learn from a textbook. You acquire it through painful struggles and victories. Here, the teacher is your own undaunted spirit that tells you never be ready to accept defeat easily and life comes with many failures that’ll need to be conquered.

In a contest between two players or two teams with equal talent, what is the deciding factor that determines who wins? What separates the victors from the losers, chumps from champions? The main difference between winner and loser is the amount of personal motivation, your drive, your spirit. How badly do you want to succeed as a student-athlete? Success in any sports endeavor isn’t the consequence of random chance or good luck. You don’t become a champion because you’re lucky. As an athlete, you make your own fortune. Long lasting successes and victories come from deep and powerful motivation. Winners are those who hold the motivation that pushes them to greatness and keeps them focused on entering the winner’s circle.

Your level of motivation can determine your level of greatness. How much you desire success can determine the limit of your potential. If you have a high drive, your potential will be equally as high. However, if you don’t have enough determination or level of drive, you won’t be able to achieve much. Motivation is what stokes the fire that pushes athletes to aim for glory, that drives them to train longer, and that gives them the will and strength to move from behind in the clutch situations.

Desire will push you in the direction of the best and keep you there. It is the secret behind every winner in sports. There is not a single sports champion – whether swimmer, footballer, or basketballer – who was not badly motivated to succeed and become a winner.

Works Cited

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