14 Approaches to Overcoming Adversity

While the world around may seem like it is falling to pieces you can always maintain control of yourself and your reactions. Keeping control of yourself will help you stay calm while deciding the best way to handle the adversity.

Stay focused on the present moment. Discipline your mind to focus only on the present play, point, possession, etc. You cannot change the past but you can always do something about the present.

Trust that your quality training and hard work has more than adequately prepared you to be successful. Too many people second-guess themselves rather than choosing to be confident and trust their preparation.

Recreate the thoughts, feelings, and movements of past successes. Reliving past successes reminds your mind and body that you have the ability to be successful as well as what it will take to be successful again.

Many successful people suffered through losses, mistakes, and problems before they ever achieved success. Losers are the people who didn't realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Take a step back and reassess your approach and strategies. Perhaps there is an easier and better way of doing things that is might be tough to see. Sometimes being patient and trying smarter leads to a better approach.

Instead of giving up or changing everything, make some minor adjustments to your technique or attitude and try again.

Remember that just as success is never permanent, so too are failure and hard times. Believe that sooner or later, things will go your way again with the right combination of patience and persistence.

Instead of seeing adversity as a problem or threat, try to see it as an opportunity or a challenge to your abilities. If you were successful all the time, sport would lose the challenge that probably keeps you involved in it.

Use your anger and frustration to your advantage by channeling it to motivate you and focus even more on the task at hand. Too many people turn the anger inwards to destroy themselves rather than taking advantage of it.

Teams have the choice of weathering the adversity together or falling apart and just thinking of themselves. Enduring the adversity together will divide the problem and multiply your resources making you a stronger team.

Rather than bottling up all of your frustration inside, talk it our with coaches, teammates, friends, and family. Often they can provide you with great insights, as well as act as a good sounding board.

Rather than dwelling on mistakes and problems, transform them into future successes by learning lessons from them. Mistakes give you great information on how exactly to improve.

While sport is an important aspect of your life, remember that you have a variety of roles which make up who you are. You are more than just your performance. Remember to appreciate all the aspects of your life.