The Fundamental Reason Why Faith is More Important than Belief in Sports
In sports, coaches often use the terms faith and belief interchangeably. However, there is also a case when coaches use these terms to oppose one another. What’s important as I write today is the latter.
It’s in this opposing use case when coaches are doing their best to get into the minds of their athletes.
In sports as in science, seeing is believing. Whether it’s something you see in yourself, something you see in others, or something you have seen happen historically. For example, an athlete will believe in a coach because they have seen that coach be successful. Or an athlete will believe in their preparation because they have seen success through preparing in the way they did. In other words, belief and confidence go hand in hand. Just like success is a prerequisite for confidence, it’s also a prerequisite for belief.
On the other hand, faith does not require success. The only requirement for faith is commitment. Commitment to a process, a coach, or a team. Failure, disappointment, adversity, lacking confidence, ambiguity are all things that happen to those who have faith. Yet, these things don’t deter athletes who have faith. Faith provides the fuel to keep going when the athlete doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Athletes who have faith do not fold under pressure because they have no fear of the outcome. Win or lose they remain committed. Belief on the other hand waivers under pressure, as belief does nothing to remove the fear of failure. What’s more, it’s failure that causes an athlete to change what they believe.
This is the fundamental reason why faith is more important than belief in sports. An athlete will question their belief in the face of adversity, but under the same adverse circumstances an athlete will not question their faith.
No athlete goes from good to great without facing adversity. If an athlete only has belief and keeps changing what they believe after every other adverse experience that athlete won’t ever make it from good to great. Therefore, athletes who want to go to the next level must not only believe in their process, coach, and team they must also have the faith to commit.