To Develop a Resilient Athlete, Celebrate When They’re Inconsistent
The American Psychological Association states that resilience is the “vital psychological factor that contributes to the ability to overcome and adapt positively to challenging situations.” Unquestionably, as a mental skill coach who works with athletes, resilience is a top priority. In fact, I recognized this importance even before I became a mental skills coach.
When my oldest son started on his youth wrestling journey back in 2012, I immediately knew that if he was going to develop as a wrestler, he was going to have to be resilient. In youth wrestling, as with most things in life, you must start from the bottom. At this beginner stage, there is virtually no chance of success against an advanced wrestler.
Therefore, the only way a beginner can experience any success is to compete with other beginners. However, success against other beginners doesn’t necessarily mean the wrestler is actually getting better. The only way to know for sure one is getting better is to test oneself against advanced wrestlers. But when a beginner wrestler competes against someone more advanced, they fail nearly 100% of the time.
Resilience is Developed in Athletes by Turning Consistent Failure into Inconsistent Success
If my son quit after realizing he couldn’t beat a more advanced wrestler, he would have missed out on a valuable life lesson in resilience. Thankfully, this didn’t happen. After two years of persistence, he eventually learned how to score a few points here and there inconsistently. Eventually with more persistence, consistent success followed. But that consistent success took time.
There were more bad days than good days for many years. It was during this time of inconsistency where he built his resilience muscle.
My son would have a couple great practices back-to-back, and my immediate thought was that he turned the corner. I would privately celebrate that he figured out the sport and he was ready for prime time! Later I would realize I jumped the gun.
A few practices later it was the total opposite. The success I saw just a few days ago was gone. It seemed that maybe it was only a flash. Then low and behold a few days later it was back again, then gone again the next practice, then back again. And so on and so forth.
This back and forth between success and failure was molding his mind as well as his body. He was learning that success is not final, and failure is not fatal. Embracing this message is a major step in developing resilience.
Change Your Mindset: Inconsistency is Not a Bad Thing – It’s a Clue
Most people view inconsistency like it’s a bad thing. Correspondingly, they give up too soon when success is not a straight line. However, it’s a fact of life that success is not a straight line. Moreover, this is why resilience is such a vital mental muscle to develop on the road to success in anything.
Youth wrestling taught my son he must stick with the process, as well as learn to evolve the process that transforms consistent failure to inconsistent success to consistent success. Indeed, the process that gets you from consistent failure to inconsistent success must evolve as you go from inconsistent success to consistent success. Fortunately, all the clues you need to evolve that process are right at your fingertips when you are developing a resilient mindset.
To that end, you must celebrate when you discover these clues. Then you must use these clues to evolve from failure, to inconsistency, to consistency. This process is what ultimately develops a resilient athlete’s mindset.