5 Ways To Build Positive Competitive Spirit
Coaching a team of athletes with an obsessive competitive spirit is a dream of many coaches. Imagine each of your athletes striving to be the best they can week after week, year after year. Coaching a competitive-spirited team would be a breeze with results taking care of themselves.
Unfortunately, not many coaches ever get to experience such delights. But is that our athlete’s fault or our own? Maybe it’s the culture that we are creating that is resulting in less competitive athletes. This isn’t to do with how we are coaching, but rather it could be related to the way we view competitive spirit.
In today’s environment, many people view competitiveness as the desire to beat your competition into submission. Dominate them. Humiliate them. Make them fear playing us ever again. When you put it into that context it doesn’t sound all that inviting does it? Which is most likely the reason some athletes do not want to become “competitive beasts”. Therefore, people with that view of competitive spirit may be wrong.
Instead of the dominate/humiliate mindset, what would it look like if we viewed competitive spirit as the desire to perform at your highest possible level? That wouldn’t require bringing anyone down, but instead lifting yourself up. Rising to the challenge and summoning strong opposition to bring the best out of you. Don’t you think that sounds much more incentivising than beating your opposition to a pulp?
The message is different, but the result is the same. By removing the negative notions associated with a competitive spirit, we aren’t unsettling anyone. This then gives us the opportunity to create a positive competitive spirit in all our athletes. Which could result in that dream team that strives to be the best they can week after week, year after year.
“The ultimate victory in competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give.”
Howard Cosell
Below is a button that will take you to an article that discusses 5 ways you can help build this positive competitive spirit in your athletes. Use the tips and stories in this article to redefine your definition of competitive spirit and inspire your team to “competitive greatness”.
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