6 Lessons from Playing Sports - Part 1

Playing sports has always been a major part of my life. Sports are fun, challenging, and they keep my body in good physical condition. I have learned numerous life lessons from playing sports and I wanted to share a few of them. In this post, I will be presenting three of these lessons. Check back next week for three more lessons.

1. Success Looks Different to Different People

I played my first organized sport, soccer, as a preschooler. All young aspiring soccer players have one dream: to score a goal. Finally, after weeks of practice, I got my chance. The ball came right to me in front of the goal. So what did I do? I did what any normal kid would do; I kicked it into the goal. I was so excited. I threw my hands up in the air and celebrated my first goal. But as I looked around, no one else was celebrating with me. My coach had to break the news to me that I had scored in my own goal. Apparently, success wasn’t measured by merely scoring in a goal; it had to be the other teams’ goal. But I still consider my goal a success, even if no one else does.

Life Lesson: Success looks different to different people. For me, success was simply a matter of kicking the ball into either of the two goals. But success to my team was a matter of kicking the ball in the opposing team’s goal. Regardless of what you’re doing in life, success can and will be measured in many different ways.

2. Winning Isn’t Everything

After my short-lived soccer career, I took up baseball. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the object of baseball was to score more runs than the other team. If we scored more runs, then we won the game. My team didn’t score very many runs that year, so we lost a lot of games. After every game, my dad would ask me, “Did you have fun?” I would respond by saying, “We lost.” He would then repeat the question, “Did you have fun?” Again, I would respond by saying, “No, we lost.” He took these opportunities to teach me that I could still have fun even if we didn’t win the game.

Life Lesson: Winning isn’t everything. Having fun is simply a matter of perspective. Certainly it is nice to win sometimes, but you can have fun doing whatever it is you’re doing regardless of whether you win or lose. No matter where you are or what you’re doing in life, you can find a way to have fun doing it, even if it’s challenging to find a way to have fun.

3. We All Need Me Time

From the time I was big enough to hold a fishing pole, my dad took me fishing with him. For the first couple years, I spent more time playing in the minnow bucket than I did fishing, but I eventually learned how to fish. As I’ve gotten older, I have found that fishing allows me to spend some time alone doing something I enjoy. Fishing allows me to spend time with God, decompress from my day or week, reflect upon the recent events in my life, and strategize how I am going to move forward with the future.

Life Lesson: We all need me time. In the midst of our busy schedules, sometimes it can be extremely difficult to spend even ten minutes alone. However, we all need time to simply decompress, reflect, and strategize a path forward. And for those of you who are disciples of Jesus, you will also enjoy having some alone time to spend with God.

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Do any of these lessons resonate with you? Do you have a similar story you’d be willing to share?