Does Effort and Performance Matter in Sports?

  

SOURCE: https://alumni.stanford.edu

Having goals is the key to success in sports.

This evidence is found from an article from the University of Stanford titled, "The Effort Effect". This source gave great information and views on how success and goals affects many athletes. 

Q: How do athletes learn to succeed?

A: They look among other athletes competing in the same sport with the same performance level and sense how their failure can make them work harder. When an athlete is known as a “star”, when they mess up, others who are in the same high performance level of them look up to them and figure out how their mistakes can make them better. “Those children learned to persist in the face of failure-and to succeed.”(Experimenters) Athletes who have faced their failure, bring themselves back up by fixing their mistakes and taking steps toward success.

Q: How do athletes pick themselves back up after they have failed?

A: They look at what they have done and realize that they can fix it and make themselves better by improving. “Failure is information-we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘this didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.” Challenges are what build athletes and make them into hard working, strong athletes.

Q: What does it mean to be an athlete?

A: Being an athlete means knowing what you're good at and knowing how to make yourself better. Athletes are not people who just play the sport to play it. Athletes are people who work hard everyday to achieve the level and talent they want to consume. They want to become great at that sport and cause many people to sit in awe when they watch their games.

Q: How to athletes set goals for themselves?

A: Some athletes like to “show off” their talent by increasing the intensity of their skills. “People with learning goals have a growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed.” The reason for having and setting goals is to have something to work at everyday. Athletes can’t expect to have the same intensity they started with, they have to keep playing and making themselves better so they can always have and use their talent.

Q: How to athletes who know they are good, keep that from taking over their lives and letting it become all they express?

A: Some athletes who know they are talented always want to show it off and make people think they are better than them. Even though there are athletes like that, there are many athletes that know they are good, but express it through the way they play and not through the way they talk to people. It’s not a bad thing to want people knowing you are talented, but it’s not good to overdo it by bragging.

After reading this article,I have learned more about personal aspects that effect your performance and hard work. I still wonder, why do athletes develop the views that winning and being successful is so important?