Get Psyched: 26 Life Lessons From Sports
July 31, 2008 by David Zinger
Filed under Business
by David Zinger
Sports is often used as a metaphor for leadership, management, and the workplace. What lessons have you learned from playing sports that helps you as a manager.
My specific interest is the application of sports psychology to management performance. I taught Educational Psychology at the University of Manitoba for over 20 years and firmly believe many of the skills from sports psychology can transfer to the workplace.
Here is a list composed by Bruce Hale and David Collins in a chapter on Psyching Up for Rugby from their book, Rugby Tough. Although they talk about Rugby these lessons can be learned from many different sports.
Read the list of 26 possible life lessons below and determine if you have learned any of these life lessons, or if you have learned other unique lessons from sports:
- Performance under pressure
- Organization
- Meeting challenges
- Handling both success and failure
- Acceptance of others’ values and beliefs
- Flexibility and success
- Patience
- Risk taking
- Commitment and perseverance
- Knowing how to win and how to lose
- Working with people you don’t necessarily like
- Respect for others
- Self-control
- Pushing yourself to the limit
- Recognizing limitations
- Competing without hatred
- Accepting responsibility for behavior
- Dedication
- Accepting feedback and criticism as part of learning
- Self-evaluation
- Wise decision making
- Setting and attaining goals
- Communication with others
- Ability to learn
- Working within the system
- Self-motivation
Please Comment. Let me know what you have learned from playing sports that also helps you as a manager.
Photo Credit: Misty Fall Baseball by http://flickr.com/photos/sis/266718134/
One of the things I had to learn from sports is that there are consequences for not learning where your hard limits are. I was an excellent kick boxer and a yoga fanatic in college and when I tried to add one more exercise session in a day instead of learning to work with an already good existing balance, my jazz dance class caused torn cartilages in one of my knees, taking me out of everything for almost 9 months. I slowly regained my kick boxing and yoga, but I also learned to listen to what my body is telling me and not push myself to exhaustion and injury. It’s something I’m currently trying to transition in to my work habits.
Heather,
Good point and I love the expression “hard limits.” We are often more capable of things then we believe but we can also get into trouble going beyond what we are capable of. I did something similar marathoning and you know now that I think about it I am doing it work related too! Thanks for the wake up.
David