Advancedsp.co.za Training harder, smarter is key

The lack of time seems to be the biggest problem facing parents and children across the world. Even the most diligent “planner mom” will sometimes find it difficult to get through everything and that is why holidays can be a blessing.

There are two real ways to spend holidays: one can be in the pursuit of improving yourself or your situation and the other is to become a professional loafer.

In the context of a young developing human, both personal and in sport, loafing around the lounge spread across the couch playing games or binge-watching series’ is going to do nothing for you other than set you back a few months. With loafing comes the over-eating of sweets, chips, take-aways and cool drinks, all of which have huge amounts of sugar and excess wasted calories. Even if it has been a long year for you, this is no way to spend a holiday.

It has been reported by a couple of researchers that successful businessmen read on average about 100 books a year and most of their reading is done in their off time. Why would they read so many books? They are in pursuit of learning more and using those tools in their current environment to problem-solve and come to solutions faster than the average man that doesn’t spend time developing themselves.

You see, knowledge is power and application of that knowledge allows these businessmen to try, fail and learn from their mistakes. Their mistakes become experiences and those experiences give them wisdom to solve future problems with ease. Because most of these successful businessmen are older in age, they are fighting time and this is probably why they are very aggressive in wanting to learn and grow as much and as soon as possible.

What lessons can you learn from successful businessmen as a young bean sprout that has time? Quite simple really, get off the couch, put down that mayo salsa dip and enrol in something that is going to add value to your life, yourself and sport. It could be piano lessons, it could be a self-help confidence book or it could be a sporting clinic that can give you additional tools and techniques to be better at your sport. Leaders don’t sit around, they take charge of their lives and go for what they want.

We have had quite a few amateur and semi-professionals come to us and say: “I really want to give it a go to try and become a professional athlete.” Never mind that the odds are very slim and you need to be exceptional and specialised in your position, the fact of the matter is they want to do something about it. They want to learn and grow and see what opportunities will come about by getting their bodies to where they need to be in order to be ready for when opportunities come about.

You as a young athlete have time and if you see each holiday you have as an opportunity to grow, imagine if you do this for 15 years. What opportunities and successes will come knocking?

As the famous saying goes, “the harder I train, the luckier I get!” My twist to that motivational is, “the harder and smarter I train, the luckier I get”. It’s all about being smarter and that is why you need to look for experts and leaders who have “been there, done that” and who you can learn from.