Essay Example on the Pressures of Being a Student Athlete
On The Wings of Freedom
As an athlete, pressure is one of the hardest things to manage. There are three major ways pressure can affect an athlete’s performance, parent pressure, peer pressure(friends, spectators, coaches and media) and self pressure, does pressure ever become too much? Being an athlete I have experienced pressure, my father being an Olympic coach and the expectations I put on myself every time I step on the ice or the field can be hard to manage. Parents put too much pressure on their children at young age because they want their children to be a top athlete and sometimes that fine line between good pressure and bad pressure gets blurred. Pressure can sometimes become too much for the child and that is when they start to sub-consciously think negatively about themselves and they question their ability to perform. Their ability to become a successful overall athlete decreases because they need to have a clear optimistic sub-conscious to boost self-confidence. Sometimes parents do not realize they put pressure on their child, which is when you get the one child who cracks, who lashes out unhealthily. I have never had parental pressure on me because my father trained to be a good coach. Having him as my mental coach, I have learned to react to pressure in a different way, but this does not mean that pressure isn’t on me. Not having that pressure from my parents is sometimes a relief, but also having friends, people and a coach trying to bring the best out of you is almost as bad as parental pressure. I have literally had to compete with people to get the attention I wanted from a coach. In school people come to games and competitions, (also meets like a swim meet or track meet) your friends come to cheer you on. People who don’t have the pressure on them everyday don’t perform well. They don’t know how to deal with it. Even when you do have the ability to focus on that task that needs to be done and you can handle the pressure, it does not
As an athlete, pressure is one of the hardest things to manage. There are three major ways pressure can affect an athlete’s performance, parent pressure, peer pressure(friends, spectators, coaches and media) and self pressure, does pressure ever become too much? Being an athlete I have experienced pressure, my father being an Olympic coach and the expectations I put on myself every time I step on the ice or the field can be hard to manage. Parents put too much pressure on their children at young age because they want their children to be a top athlete and sometimes that fine line between good pressure and bad pressure gets blurred. Pressure can sometimes become too much for the child and that is when they start to sub-consciously think negatively about themselves and they question their ability to perform. Their ability to become a successful overall athlete decreases because they need to have a clear optimistic sub-conscious to boost self-confidence. Sometimes parents do not realize they put pressure on their child, which is when you get the one child who cracks, who lashes out unhealthily. I have never had parental pressure on me because my father trained to be a good coach. Having him as my mental coach, I have learned to react to pressure in a different way, but this does not mean that pressure isn’t on me. Not having that pressure from my parents is sometimes a relief, but also having friends, people and a coach trying to bring the best out of you is almost as bad as parental pressure. I have literally had to compete with people to get the attention I wanted from a coach. In school people come to games and competitions, (also meets like a swim meet or track meet) your friends come to cheer you on. People who don’t have the pressure on them everyday don’t perform well. They don’t know how to deal with it. Even when you do have the ability to focus on that task that needs to be done and you can handle the pressure, it does not