Sports are often used as a metaphor for larger life lessons. The athletes we watch on TV or in person are inspirational in what they are able to accomplish and what they sacrifice to perform at the level they do.
I’ve never been much of a sports nut, but I’ve been active most of my life with a variety of outdoor activities and sports. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized the lessons I learned from sports were the lessons of life. As Billie Jean King said, “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.”
The lessons of sport are the lessons of life.
Build a Strong Foundation
The first lesson is the importance of building a strong foundation.
When I was practicing Kendo, the Japanese martial art of sword fighting, I learned that the power comes from the body, not the arm flailing that looks good in the movies. This tends to be true in most sports. The power comes from moving the body, getting into position and setting the feet, not the fancy looking move with the hands.
This can be applied to other areas of life, such as software development. With all the shiny new technologies available, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the new shiny thing, but it’s important to remember the fundamentals - clean code, automated tests at all levels, and reproducible builds and deployments. These are the things that will allow you to move faster.
The lessons of sport are the lessons of life.
Have Vision
The second lesson comes from mountain biking.
One of the first things I was taught when riding a trail is to look at where you want the bike to go, not where you don’t want the bike to go. If you look at the tree, and you fixate on the tree, and you worry about the tree, guess what? You’re going to hit the tree.
It’s easy to identify things that are wrong. Fixating on these things tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy. As Tony Robbins is fond of saying, “Where focus goes, energy flows”. Focus on the path you want to take. Create a vision and set goals to get you there and I think you’ll find that you avoid most of the trees in your way.
The lessons of sport are the lessons of life.
Find a Coach
The third and final lesson comes from my time playing tennis.
I started out, like many do, just hitting the ball around with a partner (my son, in this case). We were having fun, but never really progressed very much. However, as soon as we started taking lessons, we saw immediate improvement in our form and performance.
Whatever you’re trying to do, find a coach. Find someone who’s done it before and learn from them…either directly or indirectly.
Having someone who can see what you’re doing and point out improvements can be invaluable. As John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach said, “A good coach can change a game, a great coach can change a life.”
As a software developer, finding a coach can mean many things:
- Working with a senior engineer
- Submitting your work to code reviews
- Attending a conference
- Watching a tech talk on YouTube
These are all ways to learn from someone who’s been there before and can point the way.
The lessons of sport are the lessons of life.
Overtime
There is certainly much more to be learned about life through sport, but these three lessons have served me well over the years: Build a strong foundation, determine where you want to go and finding a coach.
Whether you participate in sports or not, I hope you can apply these lessons to your own life.
The lessons of sport are the lessons of life.
Question: What lessons have you learned from sports that can be applied to other areas of your life?