7 Reasons Why Avoiding Sport Limits Your Self Development
Many people don't like to play sports but all of these reasons for avoiding it can be turned around to help you as well.
Playing sport gives you the mindful joy of feeling free in your body.
It connects you with your youth and it costs nothing to do.
Yet many people like to watch sports but too many people do not play it.
Here are seven reasons people avoid playing sport and what they can do to change this:
1. Many people never got picked for a team when they were in school and so as a result hate sport.
But this is not a rational reason to avoid trying to play sport in the present.
When I was in school I played sport until I got injured for a prolonged time. And the school I played in was a lot more sporty than the vast majority of schools out there. There were nearly 1,000 boys there and most of the lads played at least one sport so if you weren’t playing you were out of the loop.
That’s when it was tough to fit in.
But luckily for me, I didn’t get injured until I was a couple of years into my school journey. By that time I had been a member of a few winning teams and I had forged good relationships with other sporting boys so I was seen as a sporty guy even though I was injured.
But for many others, it’s not the case.
Years later even though they are adults they still see playing sport as being associated with them being the one who was one of the last picked for a team in a schoolyard or gym class. Yet that’s not their sporting identity. Because, I know plenty of guys from my school who de-bunked that myth.
Instead of hating sport for not getting picked they used it to push themselves into getting fitter when they were older adults.
2. Many people avoid sport as they feel they are not competitive.
Yet this is simply not true.
Because, before anyone was born they won a race to be the one to grow in the womb of their mother.
And that means they bet between 15 million to 200 million other sperms who tried to fertilize their mother’s egg before they did.
So that means whether you like it or not you’re a natural competitor.
But the question has to be asked:
“Why do some people feel they are not competitive?”
In my experience, lots of young people think being competitive goes against being loving and kind. They feel that competitiveness is not a nice way to fit in with a group. And most people like this just want to be part of something and don’t want to rock the boat.
Although many want to be leaders, many others only want a flock to be part of.
For them trying to be the leader or the best in the group will break up the harmony of being part of something.
Yet every group of people is changing and evolving even if one person doesn’t want it too.
3. They are not aggressive people and think that sport involves aggression.
But if you’re to be a great sportsperson you need to control your feelings. Rather than having aggression, you need to have power. And there is a difference between both of them.
Because if you are aggressive as a sportsperson you`ll eventually wear yourself out or get found out by a referee for being too wound up.
Many referees see players who are too mentally aggressive before they ever attempt a tackle and recognize that there’s going to be trouble from them even before they cause it. And once they make a tackle a good referee will have a word with a player to cool themselves down because they are on a tightrope towards being penalized if they don’t.
4. They are so used to feeling as they do and haven’t experienced the lift in energy that adrenaline and endorphins will give from participating in sport.
Adrenaline is produced in the adrenal glands and some neurons in your central nervous system. They prepare the body for the ‘fight or flight’ response when you feel stressed. Whereas endorphins are created by your body when you exercise and they relieve stress and pain.
5. They may have gotten injured when they were young and this scared them away from playing sport later in life.
And that’s understandable because no one goes out there to get hurt.
But it’s irrational to think that although you were injured when you played sport once that it will happen again the next time you play. And I’ve been injured enough times in life to know this to be true. Once your body heals you need to take the next step and incrementally challenge yourself to go back and practice, then train, before stepping put and playing in a competitive game.
6. They are physically lazy and avoid playing sport as a result.
And much of this laziness comes from a growing number of people becoming obese. Take the US as an example. From 1999–2000 to 2017–2018, obesity grew by roughly 12% up to 42% of the population.
And yet the cure to being obese is moving your body and getting out there and playing sport.
And if you do that you won’t be considered lazy anymore!
7. They don’t believe they have any skills to offer a team.
Yet everyone has something to offer a team.
Sure you may not have the skills to play at the top end of the NBA because your technical ability with a ball will never be as sharp or as speedy as those that play at the top of the game. But you can use other things to help players along their way. Even if your physical ability is lacking you can use your mind to encourage others and lead them to be better in their team so that you are giving something fruitful to the cause while gaining the benefits that sports beings to your life as well.
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