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In today’s article 3 ways how playing sports can make us better mentally, we will discuss the positive impacts sports can have on the mind. I will discuss the impact it has had on me but also on others as well. Then you will get my 3 favourites of how playing sports can make us better mentally. ENJOY!

How Sports Can Change Your life

I wouldn’t say I grew up in a sports family. Early on I think through friends I unlocked a passion for sports. I grew up playing and watching all the different sports.

The love of football was huge but also I had a keen interest in Formula 1 and rugby. I couldn’t get enough of the Olympic games.

Now into adulthood, I’m still just as passionate. It’s amazing how sports can bring you so much joy, drama, inspiration from just watching. The sense of community can be felt when watching with others whether that be in your home, down your local pub or in the stands.

Watching is one thing, playing is completely another. The skills you learn both mentally and physically are life-changing. It has helped develop my confidence in myself, respect for others and a drive to be successful.

How Sport Impacts Everyone

Not only me but it has developed millions of people around the world to change their lives. Anthony Joshua said boxing got him away from potentially going down the wrong path in life where now he inspires a new generation of kids with his sports mindset, talent and being a great role model.

Even my sons Sensai in karate inspires him to become not only a good martial artist but also a mentally healthy person too.

There are countless stories all around us of the life-changing aspects that sport can give us whether that be health, finances or sense of purpose. But more importantly, it can help us develop a healthy mind. This is what I want for my children.

For you, the reader I hope this unlocks something within you, where taking up a sport you feel passionate about, can help continue your mental journey. The best thing about sports it doesn’t just have to be team-based sports but it can also be individual too whether that’s doing yoga which I now love or doing weight lifting.

My biggest advice I could give is to pick a sport you like and get to it. The rewards far out way anything that could stop you from doing it.

3 Ways How Playing Sports Can Make Us Better Mentally

5 ways how playing sports can make us better mentally — Photo by Max Winkler on Unsplash

1. Playing Sports Helps With Discipline

Discipline is an important skill to learn. It helps you overcome procrastination, laziness and going back on promises. Self- discipline helps you succeed in life at controlling your emotions and habits.

Sports Is definitely a place where you learn this. You just have to look at Olympic athletes, where you have to be disciplined for 4 years for the chance to go to the Olympic games. They have to be disciplined with their training sessions, food intake and overall lifestyle to attain their pinnacle goal.

That’s why athletes, when their sports life is over, can easily transfer the skill of being disciplined into their family and the business world. You can see that in ex-sports stars like Michael Jordan, David Beckham and you could even say Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson too.

There’s no doubt discipline plays a big part in their success within their sport and outside of it.

2. Playing Sports Helps With Confidence

Sports can change someones whole personality in an instant. A bit of competition can change the quietest mild-mannered person into the loudest and aggressive person. A famous example in football was Paul Scholes who was two completely different personalities on and off the pitch.

I have experienced this myself where another side of my personality comes out. I utilise this personality trait to good use in my own life too. It has allowed me to be confident in places where my introverted self wouldn’t do so well.

What sport can do, is teach you a lot about who you are and what you’re capable of. You just have to look at UFC MMA fighters or any Mixed Martial Arts where you learn to fight. Rational thinking you would expect this to lead to more fighting and becoming unruly but on the whole, it has the opposite effect where you’re so confident in your own abilities it means you don’t have to fight to prove yourself. You can be confident enough in your abilities not to.

Sport can definitely do a lot for peoples confidence in a whole array of outcomes that we don’t have time to discuss here.

If you want to build confidence yourself, your child that’s a bit shy or someone coming back from a horrific injury. Sport is the place you build that confidence back and unlock the winner within you.

3. Playing Sports Helps With Happiness

For your mental health, being happy can have tremendous benefits on your mind. You just have to ask yourself how happy are your children when they’re active and playing sports and how happy was you?

From my experience, I was ultra happy with smiles as wide as the milky way. When getting older into adulthood. Life changes with work and extra responsibilities which can get in the way of participating in sports.

This has to change as there’s a lot of adults struggling with mental health problems like anxiety, the negative side of stress and depression.

What can really transform our mood is partaking in sports activities where we build relationships with others and show ourselves we are capable of so much more than we realise.

Happiness is an important part of our life and we need more of it than ever before in today’s crazy world.

Sport is definitely one part of the answer to our happiness problem.

What Do You Think?

Thank you for dropping by to read 3 ways how playing sports can make us better mentally

I’ve only listed 3 positive impacts sport can have on the mind but the list is far greater than what I’ve written. Sport can bring out wonderful aspects in all of us. It unites people and gives people a purpose.

Hopefully, this has inspired you to keep going with sports or take it back up again.

Build that mental strength and stay mentally happy!

IF YOU LOVED THE ARTICLE PLEASE SHARE BELOW!

Hi, I’m Adam

I’ve spent over 10 years coaching and mentoring people within sport and business. I have many life skills that I have developed and I want to pass these skills on so people can find their best self. I believe it all starts in the mind and I write about valuable tools and strategies to help people grow in this area.

https://thefuturemindset.com/about-2/

By Adam Smith

The Jurgen Klopp Way

How to lead like the amazing Jurgen Klopp came about after spending the past 5 years watching him take Liverpool from an average side living off the past to arguably the worlds best team. I hope you enjoy this post and anyone wanting to develop their leadership skills this is a must-read.

Background On His Coaching Style

I first came across Jurgen Klopp when he signed for Liverpool F.C in 2015. He had an amazing reputation back in his homeland of Germany as being a forward-thinking coach and famous for his all-out attack approach which they called the gegenpress. As a Liverpool fan, I was excited about what I’ve heard and what I saw in his first press conference. He came across as very charismatic but I never knew how outstanding of a leader he is until further into the future.

Liverpool was a team who was hugely successful in the 70s and 80s with the odd success along the way. When Klopp came to Liverpool the team was closer to a mid-table team than a title contender. Just under 5 years, he has taken an ordinary Liverpool team to become one of the most feared teams in the world of football. He has changed the mentality of Liverpool into a champion’s mindset not by fear but by inspiration. He knows how to get the very best out of players in a way where they still love him at the same time. After every game, if they have given everything they’ve got they even get the famous Klopp hug at the end of the game ( who doesn’t want a Klopp hug)

How To Lead Like The Amazing Jurgen Klopp

If you want to become a leader of people learning from Jurgen Klopp should be on top of your list. He turns ordinary into extraordinary. He turns excellent into world-class. Jurgen is someone you would follow into battle. He is the leader we all wish we had to guide us through life. I’ve reassessed a lot of my own leadership techniques based on his approach and it has helped me become a better person and leader and has helped people I teach to become better too.

Below are some of my favourite leadership qualities that he uses that you can use to lead your team to success.

What Makes Him A Great Leader?

Great Communicator

Communication in life is essential for getting you ahead but also getting the best out of people you lead. This is the difference between someone respecting you or thinking you’re full of shit. It’s the understanding and implementation of your words into action or just going through one ear and out the other. Words are powerful and how you broadcast your message defines you as a leader.

Jurgen Klopp is a master at this and he not only clearly does this with his team but also with journalist, pundits and even his fellow peers.

Learning and evolving your communication skills to get the best out of your team is crucial. You have to study amazing leaders like Klopp who communicate their message and read books like How To Win Friends And Influence people to really understand the importance of this skill which with practice we can all learn. Once learned you can then broadcast your message in your own unique way.

Demands The Best

When leading people it’s your job to find the best in them and then bring their best out through your leadership. As a team, you need to set your standards high where you believe your team can reach through their potential. You as a leader need to think big and demand excellence from your team. The mentality of your team comes from you and thats why Klopp is in the same leauge of all the great managers becasue he expects the best.

There’s a famous saying by Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield where he changes the famous saying Skys the limit to Sky is not the limit. This subtle change in words makes all the difference when demanding the best from your team or organisation.

This is what Jurgen Klopp does well. Thinking big. He expects his team to win trophies and he expects his team to give their all every game. His training is especially intense and new signings who were the best players in their respected teams, when they come to Liverpool it can take time to adapt but when they get it. They become even better players than they were before. This is what you have to do for your teams. When you get new people joining. Ask yourself can I make them better than when you found them?

Has Amazing Energy

People follow the energy. Leaders energy is the vibration that keeps everything together. How many times have we seen new coaches come into a team that was failing and then all of sudden the players are trying harder than they did before? I see this a lot. Now the difference between coaches that are successful and ones that quickly tail off is down to how consistent they can manage their own mindsets to produces consistent positive energy. The same is true when someone starts a new job or goes on a date.

The difference for you doing well at your job or having a long-lasting relationship is the energy levels you showed when you first started. That’s what got you your early success. The question is can you keep it up. For the likes of Klopp and Pep Guardiola, (another exceptional leader) their consistant energy level are their for the world to see and can be felt all over the clubs they manage.

Master Tactician

Being a leader you have to be a master tactician. Having a plan and knowing how to execute it is great but knowing when to adapt it is just as important if not more. Jurgen saw this within his first two seasons of English football. His side put in the most effort during every game than any other team around in Europe.

Then when it came to halfway through the season the player’s legs were tired that results started to not go in their favour. From this, he made an adjustment to the teams’ style and rotation and now the team fire on all cylinders for a whole season fighting for all major trophies. When leading people you have to stay adaptive to change.

Change will come, it always comes whether you like it or not. Don’t be the leader who gets left behind as you will be doing a disservice to the people you lead.

Has A Vision

Every successful leader has to have a vision of where they see the team or organisation headed. In Jurgen first press conference is stated that we will win the title within 4 years. It took them 5 in the end but the vision was there to be able to do it. John F Kennedy had a vision for Americans to be first humans to step onto the moon. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see it but his vision was in place.

There are countless amounts of leaders who have a vision that’s so clearly defined that people believe it can be attained no matter the cost. How you paint that vision depends on your skill with the brush. How you communicate it and believe it to be true will define whether people will follow it. You have to show them the benefits of the vision but also make them feel it because when humans feel something strongly enough they take action. This is what the best leaders do. To unlock that feeling in others. What’s your vision going to be to better mankind?

Picks Character Over Talent

Being a successful leader is picking the right people to work with. Not everyone will be compatible with your personality, your vision or way of working. That’s OK. You have to choose people with the right characteristics not a talent for your team. It’s a lot easier to teach someone new tactics, strategies and skills than it is there character. Jurgen and his team have found players that were considered nobodies or failures. When they identified them and brought them to Liverpool, they have become world-class players in their positions.

Finding the right characters matter to a teams harmony level because one rotten egg can affect the whole batch if left long enough. He also had this experience when he first joined Liverpool from a player that went to far with his practical jokes. He left the club within a month. That’s how much Jurgen values the team of the right characters all going in the same direction. Look with your team now or in your hiring process. Is it set up to win or are there rotten eggs ruining all your hard work. In this area, you have to be ruthless or it will ruin you in the end.

Final thoughts

Jurgen Klopp is a true leader. Everyone should look to learn from him if you want to be a successful leader. He has mastered the art of dealing with people that whatever he touches will soon turn to gold. Leadership is an important part of life whether that be at work, coaching a sports team or being a parent at home.

The same skills all apply and your success and the people you lead success is entwined together with your leadership. It’s a hell of a responsibility but one of the most worthwhile things you can do as a human. Remember leader in Latin is to serve. So make sure you’re serving others with the best version of you or learn first from a leader you admire to gain those valuable skills.

If you like this post how to lead like the amazing Jurgen Klopp. Please share it to anyone you know who is working on leadership.

Thank you for reading, see you on the next post.