The Root of a Young Athlete’s Self-Control and Discipline or Lack Thereof
Self-control and discipline are the summation of hundreds of small decisions. Decisions made as a result of a belief system. Therefore, the root of self-control and discipline is a belief that daily habits and routines are necessary for success. Without this belief system, complaining about your child’s lack of self-control and discipline is pointless.
In order to get a young athlete to believe this, their daily habits and routines must provide results. Results that the athlete can visually see with measurements.
As a result, the ideal way to build a young athlete’s self-control and discipline is with daily goals. These daily goals should focus on improving something that the athlete can easily measure. For example, push-ups, pull-ups, speed, vertical jump, cardiovascular conditioning, or even something like memory.
Once an young athlete sees with their own eyes how showing self-control and discipline helps them achieve their daily goals, and how achieving daily goals funnel into their larger goals, their belief-system will change.