{"id":13347,"date":"2019-01-11T08:48:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T16:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=13347"},"modified":"2025-06-26T08:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T08:43:06","slug":"six-attitudes-parents-should-instill-in-their-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/six-attitudes-parents-should-instill-in-their-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Attitudes Parents Should Instill in Their Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

When most people in the sports world think of sport psychology, they think of mental training, that is, helping athletes prepare mentally to perform their best when it matters most. Mental muscles that help athletes strengthen include motivation, confidence, intensity, and focus. And mental tools I help athletes to put in their mental toolboxes include self-talk, routines, and imagery. This mental training is certainly important for athletes on the day of a competition. And it is certainly a key part of my work with athletes with the emphasis on ensuring that their minds are as prepared as their bodies to perform their best.<\/p>\n

At the same time, an often-neglected area of sport psychology begins well before athletes\u2019 arrival at competitive venue. I\u2019m talking about the attitudes that they hold about themselves, competition, and results. Attitudes are so important to sports success because they are the filters that guide what athletes think, the emotions they feel, how they respond to their sport, and, ultimately, how they perform on game day.<\/p>\n

The problem is that attitudes can be healthy and helpful or unhealthy and interfering to athletes\u2019 aspirations and efforts. The primary reason parents send their young athletes to me is because their attitudes toward competing are acting as anchors that weigh them down rather than wings that lift them up. The focus of much of this work involves helping athletes develop attitudes that propel them forward to performing their best.<\/p>\n

Having the \u201cright\u201d attitude or a \u201cpositive\u201d attitude has become almost clich\u00e9 in their sports culture. The real question is what specific attitudes must athletes have to perform their best and accomplish their competitive goals. This post will share with you six attitude \u201cforks in the road\u201d that can either set athletes up for inspiring success or disheartening failure.<\/p>\n

Life or Death<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me share a metaphor that, though a bit politically sensitive, is nonetheless very descriptive of this distinction between life or death. Imagine that, just before your young athletes enter a competition, a man with a gun approaches them and says, \u201cIf you don\u2019t win, I\u2019m going to here after and I\u2019m going to shoot you dead.\u201d What kind of emotions do you think your athletes will experience? Terror! And how will they likely perform? Well, like they were scared to death, that is, poorly. Now, of course there will be no one at the end of a competition who will shoot them physically dead. I\u2019m talking about a different kind of death, namely, a sort of psychological and emotional death that includes athletes\u2019 self-identities (who they see themselves as), self-esteem (whether they feel valued), and goals, hopes, and dreams (all they aspire to be). With a life-or-death attitude, every time athletes enter a competition, they are putting their psychic lives on the line. In this situation, there is someone at the end who they think will shoot their \u201csoul\u201d dead. Who might that person be? Sadly, it is often their parents, though it can also be coaches or, just as painfully, the athletes themselves.<\/p>\n

You want your athletes to see sports as about life, not death, in which their sport is inspiring, exciting, fulfilling, joyful, and fun. These feelings are fuel for their passion for their sport (while fear, frustration, anger, sadness, and despair drain their fuel tank). You also want your children\u2019s sports to be an important part of their lives, but not life itself. With this \u201clife\u201d attitude, when your kids experience success, they will feel the energizing power of their efforts. And when they fail (which they will inevitably will; that\u2019s just a part of sports and life), they will feel disappointment, but they will survive. No matter what happens, they will know that they will be okay. If athletes can accept this \u201clife\u201d attitude deep down, they will be free to perform with confidence, commitment, and courage rather than with worry, doubt, anxiety.<\/p>\n

Challenge or Threat<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have found that a simple distinction appears to lie at the heart of whether athletes are able to rise to the occasion and perform their best when it really counts or crumble under the weight of expectations and tough conditions on the day of a competition: Do they view the competition as a threat or a challenge.<\/p>\n

What happens when athletes approach a competition as a threat. Physiologically, their muscles tighten up, they breathing gets shallow, their balance goes back, and their center of gravity rises. Psychologically, their motivation is to flee from the threat. Their confidence plummets. Emotionally, they feel fear, helplessness, and despair. In sum, everything both physically and mentally goes against athletes, making it virtually impossible for them to overcome the threat and find success in their sport. Where does threat come from? Most powerfully, from a\u00a0fear of failure (more on that shortly).<\/p>\n

A challenge reaction produces an entirely different set of responses. Physiologically, they are fired up, but also relaxed, with just the right amount of adrenaline to make them feel strong, quick, and fast. Muscles are loose, breathing is steady, and balance is centered. Psychologically, athletes\u2019 singular motivation is to overcome the challenge. They are confident that they can surmount the challenges of the competition. Their focus is like a laser beam on the challenge before them. As for emotions, they feel excitement, inspiration, pride, and courage. In sum, their entire physical and psychological being is directed toward triumphing over the challenge and their chances of finding success are high. The important thing for athletes to understand is that threat vs. challenge is all in their minds, about how they perceive it.<\/p>\n

Success or Failure<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fear of failure is epidemic among young people in our achievement-obsessed culture. Interestingly though, athletes aren\u2019t afraid of failure so much as the consequences they attach to failure, most often, that their parents won\u2019t love them, their friends won\u2019t like them, it will have been a waste of time and money, it will mean an end to their sports dreams. Fear of failure preoccupies their minds so much that they actually don\u2019t focus on success, and what it takes to achieve it, at all. Their singular goal is to avoid failure (read my four-part series<\/a> for more on fear of failure). The irony is that fear of failure causes athletes to experience the very thing that is most scary for them, namely, failure.<\/p>\n

In contrast, athletes without a fear of failure are solely driven to perform their best to pursue the successful achievement of their goals. To experience success, these athletes are focused on:<\/p>\n