Can You Teach a Young Athlete the Will to Grind?
On the one hand, some coaches will say you can’t teach a young athlete to work hard. These coaches believe the will to grind hard is something you either have or you don’t. That grinding hard is an innate characteristic embedded in your DNA.
Other coaches will say young athletes who lack talent grind harder than athletes with talent. That “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” So these coaches believe that the lack of talent drives that innate ability to embrace the grind.
Finally there is a third camp. This third group of coaches believe that the unwavering desire to achieve a difficult goal drives the will to grind. That grinding hard is a byproduct of not only how difficult your goals are, but also how bad you want those goals. If you can motivate a young athlete to want a specific goal, then you can teach that athlete to grind hard to achieve that specific goal.
As you probably already know, I’m a believer in the third camp. I call this unwavering desire to achieve a difficult goal PURPOSE.
Young athletes who wake up each day with a purpose, go to school with a purpose, and practice with a purpose have a huge advantage over those who don’t. I have no doubt in my mind that if a kid acts lazy and is not willing to grind, then that kid has yet to find purpose.