When a Talented Athlete Fails to use Their Talent to Pursue Greatness
The truth is that not every talented young athlete wants to use their talent to pursue greatness. This is not only very hard for parents to accept, but it’s also very sad for everyone in a kid’s life to see their talent go to waste.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much a parent can do if their child doesn’t want to be an elite athlete. Most things parents typically try backfire. For example, the first thing parents try is using high expectations to shame their child into performing better. But this backfires when a child feels that it’s too hard to live up to those expectations. At that point they will simply stop trying to meet even minimum standards rather than face the shame of trying and failing.
Another common method that backfires is when parents try to bribe their child to work harder. While this may address motivation problems in the short run, it does nothing in the long run. In the short run you may get a boost in effort, but in the long run the child gets locked in on earning a reward or avoiding a punishment. Then that becomes the only thing that matters to them, not getting better. This may push a child to be good, but bribing a child can never push them to greatness.
What to do when a Talented Athlete Doesn’t Want to use Their Talent
So, what can parents do when they clearly have a talented child who doesn’t want to use their talent? First, parents must take a step back and remove their emotions from the situation. When a child knows you want something for them more than they want it for themselves they tend to be more stubborn. Come to terms with the fact that it’s okay if your child chooses not to use their talent. Subsequently, this first step will allow the use of a bit of informal “reverse” psychology which I like to call “choice” psychology.
From here, I would get an outside mentor or mindset coach such as myself involved. My process leans on using the Strengths Based Parenting approach. This approach puts the athlete’s personality, motivations and strengths ahead of the goals. To put it differently, the process becomes the goal, and the goal of getting the athlete to use their talent becomes the compass. In my experience, talented athletes who don’t want to use their talent are in this predicament because too much focus is put on fixing their weaknesses instead of strengthening their strengths. When you can change the focus to using an athlete’s unique personality, motivations and strengths as the backbone of their process, magic happens.
I won’t claim this magic happens overnight, but the process of an athlete developing self-awareness of what makes them tick nearly always jump starts their motivation. If you are raising a young athlete who is not using their talent to the best of their ability, I suggest you give these ideas a try. Now is as good a time as any to find out how you can give them a jump start. Contact me here to find out how I can help you with this.