Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’ve simply had enough of everything and just want to give up? Have you faced months of bad practices in a row that leave you feeling discouraged? Poor competitions where you failed to show what you are truly capable of? Are you struggling with nagging injuries that you just can’t seem to shake? Does any of this sound familiar?
Reality
Let’s talk reality for a moment – unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, this is all an integral part of an athlete’s life.
We don’t know a single athlete who hasn’t found themselves harboring similar thoughts at least once in their career. Literally everyone occasionally hits a wall where they feel they can no longer, or no longer want to, deal with some of these challenges. At first glance, giving up might seem like the “easier” way out in those moments. Or better yet, stepping away from it all and saying that you can no longer tolerate it, nor do you want to fight and face challenges of that nature.
Let’s return to reality for a second time. Remember all the training sessions you have done even when you didn’t feel like it, when you fought with yourself just to get through that workout, no matter how difficult it all seemed. Remember the moments when you arrived early to training and perhaps stayed longer to improve in various aspects of your sport and get closer to your goals.
Remember that passion inside you that simply drove you forward. Are you wondering what the difference is between these two situations?
The difference lies in your FOCUS
In one scenario, your focus is on all the reasons why you want to quit, how hard it actually is, and why it’s time to stop putting in all that effort. In the other scenario, your focus is on the passion you have for your sport, for personal growth, and for achieving your goals.
It is completely normal to sometimes find yourself in a situation where it feels like you can no longer progress, where the passion fades due to challenges that seem overwhelming. This is all part of your path to success; in fact, this is a highly important moment. The decisive one for you and your sports career. This is the moment that tests you and demands that you look even deeper inside yourself to see what you are truly made of. It is the exact moment where you literally build your mindset. This is the time for you to find a strength within you that you might not have known you possessed, the drive you used to have.
Start thinking about how you will feel 6 months or a year from now, looking back and seeing how mentally strong you were—how you resisted that voice telling you that you weren’t good enough, that it was time to quit, and that you didn’t have what it takes.
Inner voice
There will always be two voices in your head – the voice of belief and the voice of doubt. The two of them are constantly battling over who will be louder and who will win. It is up to you as an athlete to feed the voice of self-belief more – the one where you know how much you love doing what you do, where you enjoy the process, look for the positive in negative situations, and stride powerfully forward regardless of the hurdles in your path. From time to time, that other voice—the voice of doubt—will pop up. It is crucial to become aware of it the MOMENT it appears and learn how to silence it, how to calm it down, and how to keep moving forward with self-belief and the passion to stay committed and give your best day in and day out—during practice, outside of practice, and in competitions.
It is up to you, as an athlete, to learn to view the challenges you encounter as an opportunity for growth, as a chance that will allow you to sharpen your skills even further and become better. Sometimes you will feel like certain challenges are breaking you down, but they are actually just preparing you and building you up to be better and stronger.
Questions to Ask Yourself When You Want to Give Up
Remember, challenges will always be ahead of you, sometimes to a lesser degree, sometimes to a greater one. It is up to you as an athlete to build a mindset that will make it easier to keep fighting hard when those challenges arise. Also, remember the old saying – “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” – or in this case, brings you closer to the goals you want to achieve. Stay brave and keep persisting!
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Mental Training Blog guest: Lucija Cvitanović, mag. psych.
