 |
| Image Source |
You don't! Done. Have a nice day...
Okay... That probably doesn't satisfy
you very much. I get it. You want to know how you can manage playing
the sport you love while not sucking your way through class. It is
possible. Any student can have amazing grades while competing in
sports. (Or any student can be amazing at sports and still have good
grades.) The problem is not with students not having enough time
(usually.) I'll tell you how you can do it but there is an important
point I have to hint at first. The problem is the attempt to balance
them at all. Trying to balance sports and school leads most students
down the wrong path.
Give Up The Balance
This is going to sound completely
unrelated but I think it will help make my point.
In the last few decades mothers (and
fathers to some extent) have been bombarded with bull about being
perfect at everything. A hundred years ago, most woman aimed to be a
good wife and mother. Today, it's wildly different. Most women are
expected to be great mothers, amazing wives, absolutely gorgeous,
fantastic employees, and make it look easy the whole time. Naturally
though, that's completely impossible.
Mothers often work to try and balance
all these aspects of their life to meet that cliche. The sad fact
that they're humans and only have so much time in the day means they
usually fail. Instead of being great at everything they end up being
okay and barely passable at everything. Instead of kicking ass they
spend their time trying to keep their head barely above acceptable.
Do you get how this relates to you yet?
You can't be an amazing student in
every subject, a great athlete, a good friend, the slightest bit
happy, and do everything else in the world too. Most students drag
themselves into the ground trying to perfect everything. Instead of
actually succeeding they just lead themselves into being completely
depressed about their life. That, of course, just makes everything
worse.
Stop trying to be perfect.
You will fail.
You can be damn good at everything but
don't lose sight of reality. You only have so much time in a day.
Once you accept that you can learn to use that time right.
Balancing is not your goal. Your goal
needs to be prioritizing.
Priorities Beat Balance
 |
| Image Source |
So, what are you looking to do with
your schooling and sports experience?
You need to understand your goals with
school and sports. If you're looking to become a professional athlete
then unless you're naturally gifted, you'll never be good enough to
compete while maintaining perfect grades. If you want to play sports
professionally, you need to prioritize sports over school.
Of course, most students have the
opposite problem. If you're not planning on making a career out of
sports then make school a priority over sports. Lets face it. This is
what most students should be doing. Unless you're in the tiny
minority of amazing athletes, you shouldn't be planning a
professional sports career. Don't fight against genetics. It's no
fun. (Then again, it's your life.)
Well... If you're like most students
you're thinking, “well... I'd like to keep my options open. I
shouldn't set one priority over the other....” NOOOOOOOOOOO!! STOP!
I'm serious. Give up that balance thought.
Priorities are way more effective than
attempts balance. Balance is like making up a pretend equation to
solve your problems. There is no effective way to measure whether
you're putting enough time into anything. Your decisions will usually
come down to your emotional state.
Priorities are tiebreakers. Lets say
you're doing good in school and in sports but tomorrow you have a big
game and a big test. You have one night to prepare for them both. The
average student will prepare for each one of them about half the
time. There are major problems with that strategy.
First of all, it takes time to “get
in the zone” with your studying or practice. You need to grab your
sports equipment. Go to the field. Practice. Go home. Take a shower.
You need to pull out your textbook. You need to try and focus. You
need to study. Then you go to bed. Notice how only two of those
things listed are productive (studying and practicing.) Prep is
unproductive. Picking both tasks in the same night makes you double
the prep and reduce the productive time.
Second, most of your improvements won't
come from study and practice time. It will come from the time you
spend thinking about it afterwards. If after practicing, you study,
your brain won't get to think about practice. Most of this is not
conscious. (Ever lay in bed at night mindlessly thinking about the
sport you were playing. That's productive, even if you're not trying
to make it productive.)
If you give up balance and use
priorities it all simplifies. The priority will win every time. That
will allow you to excel at the priority.
But I'll Fail At The Non-Priority!
 |
| Image Source |
Setting a priority doesn't mean you
have to completely give up your non-priority. If you choose to try
and become a professional athlete, you don't have to put grades too
far below your sport. If you spend 10 hours a week practicing your
sport, you can spend 9 hours a week studying (theoretically that is.
In reality, that much studying is usually idiotic. Be sure to read my
blog for a while if you doubt that.)
Priorities aren't about ignoring your
non-priorities. They're about simplifying your decisions when your
decisions become difficult. Most decisions don't have to be
difficult.
Even if you put full effort into
becoming an athlete, you'd still have plenty of time that you
couldn't spend working at that goal. During those times, you can
study. You'll injure yourself if you play your sport too often.
You'll just hinder you studying if you study too long. (Studies show
students learn less effectively as they study more.)
Notice how both activities have their
own limiting factors. You don't need to balance them. You just need
to let them balance themselves after setting your priorities.
There may be times you need to change
your priority. That's alright. Change it regularly if you emotionally
need to (or if you need to make the grade for sports qualifications.)
Just remember to let one relax every time you feel the need to
tighten up with the other. Without this mentality you'll constantly
be trying to drive yourself into the ground with balance.
Don't try to balance school and sports.
You'll usually get much farther in both areas of your life if you
make one of them a priority over the other. You only have so much
time in the day. You need to make sure you're using it on what's
important to you as much as practically possible.
Do you want to know how you can cut
your studying down to 15 minutes or less a day? Then be sure to
follow this blog, our twitter, and check out the archives of this
blog.
Posts
