Success Lessons From Soccer

Soccer games are all about scoring goals. The team with the most goals scored are deemed the winners.

Watching my children play soccer for the last eighteen years and still counting has taught me some real-life lessons to achieve goals and become a winner in this grand game of life.

If you’re ever watching a soccer tournament, you can listen to the people on the sidelines and hear description words like belief, excitement, confidence, and effort. They describe the character and attitude of the players. While soccer strategies, game plans, and skills are essential, they mean very little without a winning attitude.

Coaches encourage focus, maximum effort, and unstoppable determination. They promote a winning mindset that says they should expect to win and carry themselves as such. They also teach them how to be gracious winners, while still staring the opponent in the eyes showing no fear.

The great coaches find ways to motivate when their teams are in a state of despair. When the team has seemed to accept defeat, the memorable coach will feed them inspiring life-giving words that turn the situation around, and motivate for a winning attitude. You need to find yourself a fantastic coach.

I’ve also learned that no single player can win the game on their own. It always involves teamwork. A person hogging the ball can never execute Gameplays and strategies. It requires passing, assisting, and communication. Collaboration is crucial to getting things done.

Support. The amount of support it takes for the players and team to achieve positive attitudes is enormous. Parents, grandparents, coaches, and friends make up an entire support system as they shout out encouraging words and motivational talks. Find your support team.

You’ll also hear people criticizing your moves, decisions, and skills, but those are the voices you have to learn to tune out. Those are the voices of the people who have never played the game before. Those people didn’t take the time to learn the game and aren’t giving constructive criticism. They are just talking to sound smart — those people are talking about something that they do not know. Tune them out. Learn to listen to familiar voices. Your parents, coaches, and friends who know the game know your strengths, the ones that can genuinely give you advice and hold you accountable. The ones that help you grow.

I also learned that’s no place to go but up. Gordon Strachan took over as manager of Celtic, one of the top two clubs in Scotland, in 2005. It was not long before he experienced the worst night of his life when Bratislava beat Celtic 5-0 in the Champions League. From that day forward, other failures seemed so small to him by comparison. When we remember our worst nights, we can see how good the situation is.

Organized group sports are never meant to teach athletics alone, but they teach so much more to both the athletes and spectators if you’re open to listening.