Ask any successful athlete what the key to their success is, and you’re likely to hear one word: discipline. And for good reason.
Becoming great at something often requires countless hours of hard work. In sports, while natural talent plays a role, it can only take you so far. Whether you’re on the field, in the ring, competing as part of a team, or going solo, it’s hard work that takes you from being a good player or naturally talented to becoming legendary. That work requires discipline.
What Is Discipline?
A quick Google search will tell you that discipline is “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.” While this definition is accurate in some contexts, for athletes, discipline means something entirely different.
Discipline in sports means cooking at home when all your friends are going out for burgers. It means missing nights out because you need to be up for training at 6 a.m. It’s sometimes experiencing your teenage years in your twenties because, while others were out having fun, you were always training. It’s finding the motivation to get up in the dark, in the cold, wind, rain, or snow, and put on your training gear, ready to start your day right. It’s pushing through when you want to quit.
Discipline is difficult.
Elite athletes go through all of this for most of their lives. Some days are easier than others; some days feel like a grind. But in sports, discipline isn’t about punishment—it’s a tool that leads to great rewards. That could be a gold medal, a world championship title, or a personal best. And those accomplishments can open the door to even greater opportunities in the future.
What Discipline Teaches Us
Not every athlete goes pro. But those who do understand the value of discipline. Even those who don’t make it professionally carry what they’ve learned into other areas of life—whether they continue competing at an amateur level, coach the next generation, or pursue a completely different career. The lessons of discipline extend far beyond sports.
It Teaches Us the Value of Hard Work
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty. I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.” This quote still holds true today.
Everyone knows training is hard. It’s easy to dwell on how difficult it is, but that kind of negative thinking can bring you—and your teammates—down. Over time, negativity becomes a roadblock to progress. Sports teach us this lesson the hard way.
The more we focus on negativity, the harder it is to improve. The goal of training isn’t to beat ourselves up because we’re not already great. It’s to focus on our technique, our breathing, our speed—on getting better. The pain is just a side effect of progress, and in the end, it’s worth it. This applies to everything we do—at work, in school, and in our personal lives. When we learn discipline through sports, we develop the resilience to push through anything life throws our way.
It Teaches Us About Sacrifice
Discipline often means sacrificing short-term pleasure for long-term success. That could mean cutting back on TV, video games, junk food, social time, or other hobbies. Having discipline means keeping your eyes on the prize—becoming the best at the sport you love.
This lesson applies far beyond sports. Take academics, for example. Studies estimate that anywhere from 25% to 75% of college students procrastinate on their work. The result? Sleepless nights, last-minute cramming, and high stress as they try to squeeze a month’s worth of studying into a few hours. A perfect storm of procrastination happens when an unpleasant task meets someone with high impulsivity and low self-discipline.
Athletes who develop discipline in sports remove that barrier of low self-discipline. They know how to stay motivated—even when the work is tough.
Of course, discipline doesn’t mean giving up everything. You can still have fun and allow yourself to indulge from time to time. It’s about knowing when to restrict yourself and when to let loose.
It Teaches Us About Loss
Every athlete will lose at some point. Maybe you were feeling off, or maybe today just wasn’t your day. Sometimes, the other team or competitors were simply better. Learning how to handle loss is part of being an athlete.
When you lose, you have two choices:
- Be a sore loser.
- Accept the loss, congratulate the winners, and go home determined to train harder.
In sports, only one of these choices will help you improve. And carrying that lesson into everyday life is invaluable. It builds a growth mindset—the belief that another person’s success doesn’t define you as a failure. Your opportunity will come, and as long as you keep working, you’ll keep improving. Whether in business, sports, education, or relationships, discipline teaches you that success is always within reach if you’re willing to put in the effort.
We Learn How to Accomplish Our Goals
There are no shortcuts in sports. If you want to be the best, you have to put in the work.
Take Michael Jordan, for example. He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes of all time, but he didn’t even make his high school’s varsity basketball team. Coaches told him he wasn’t good enough or tall enough to play at that level.
Instead, he was placed on the junior varsity team. But rather than giving up, he trained harder than ever. In his book, he details the relentless effort he put in throughout his career to become the player we know today.
In sports, we’re always working toward something. And through that journey, we learn the best way to get there.
There are many lessons we can take from sports, but discipline may be the most important. It gives us an edge in overcoming challenges, staying motivated, and achieving our goals—no matter the obstacles.
And if that isn’t another great reason to play sports, we don’t know what is.
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