Teaching humility in sports provides young athletes with a powerful tool. Humble athletes earn respect from their teammates, coaches and competitors. Most importantly, they can help create an environment where everyone is treated with respect. In an environment like this, every athlete has the opportunity to thrive.
For many youth, sports create the highest form of competition they’ll ever experience. This competition can be fertile ground to either develop an athlete’s ego, or their humility. The difference in what develops depends on how an athlete is taught to view their competition.
Before we look at teaching humility in sports and the benefits of being humble, let’s establish a definition.
The definition of being humble is to downplay the importance of one’s self and one’s accomplishments.
But how do you become humble by playing sports if sports are about pursuing goals and accomplishments?
That’s exactly what we’ll try to answer below.
Teaching humility to youth
Teaching youth how to become humble and accept praise with humility takes a lot of practice. Naturally, when coaching kids, you’ll want to keep it simple. That’s why we’ve broken things down to two simple steps, below.
1) Teach gratitude: there is a growing field of research that suggests one of the best ways to improve a person’s mental health is to practice gratitude. It appears that when someone takes the time to think about all they have to be thankful for, they actually train their mind to recognize the good in situations.
The simplest way to teach gratitude is to ask your athletes to share three new things they’re thankful for at the end of each training session.
For competitive young athletes, this practice can help brighten the mood after a tough competition or training session. In the long term, this practice can ultimately help athletes cultivate their ability to identify all the helpful forces and people around them, which is key to step number two.
2) Pass the praise: when a child receives praise, teach them to accept the praise and then pass praise onto someone else. This could be their teammates, parents, coaches or even their competitors.
When athletes learn to accept and pass the praise, they learn to share their rewards with others. Furthermore, the benefactors of their shared praise are able to see how much they’re valued.
When coaches and teammates are able to share in the praise, they’ll be sure to reciprocate the next time they receive a compliment. As a result, when one person passes the praise, it can create a cycle of positivity impacting everyone involved.
7 Benefits of being a humble athlete
Some children may ask, is humility in sports a good thing? Maybe they’ve seen a successful athlete make headlines for their egotistical style or talk.
We all know of star athletes like Muhammad Ali or Zlatan Ibrahimovic that have entertained audiences with self-promoting rhetoric. Of course, athletes can succeed with a larger-than-life presence, but there are many more benefits to being a humble athlete.
We’ve listed our top seven benefits to being a humble athlete below, but we’re sure there are plenty more:
1) Humble athletes share with their community
In the big picture, all athletes play for a team. Even if an athlete competes in an individual sport such as singles figures skating, gymnastics, or martial arts, that athlete still represents their family, friends, and greater community. These “team members” often feel proud of an athlete and their accomplishments.
For this reason, it’s important for all athletes to think about how they’re representing the team that supports them. When an athlete acts humbly, they allow their “team” to share in the joy of their accomplishments. This shared joy can have a big, positive impact on an athlete’s community.
2) Teaching humility to youth creates young role models
All athletes can be role models for the next generation. Even the tiniest soccer player in her backyard may have a younger sibling watching wide-eyed from the sidelines. It’s good for young athletes to understand this, and understand that the way they behave affects others. When young athletes practice humility in sports, they teach the next generation to be humble too.
Teaching Tip: Look to the professionals and find an example of humble athletes (there are many to choose from). Once you find a good example that will resonate with your athletes, go ahead and share it with them. Having a real-life example of a humble athlete can be help athletes model their behavior.
3) Humble athletes attract supporters
A humble athlete is more likely to befriend teammates, supporters and even competitors. That’s because when there’s no ego in the way, it’s much easier for two people to bond over their love of the game.
Over time, this means that a humble athlete can build a community of supporters around their sport. This community can then be leaned on by an athlete during difficult times. In this way, practicing humility in sports can create a safety net for athletes.
4) Showing humility in sports creates a support system for athletes
We’ve already discussed how important it is for coaches, administrators and parents to be on the lookout for bullying in sports. However, athletes may be the most likely group to spot bullying. Because of this, athletes who show humility can create a great support system for one another.
We’ve touched on this system of support in our sportsmanship blog, but it’s worth repeating. When an athlete carries themselves with humility, they will be more approachable to their peers.
This means that if another athlete feels like they’re being bullied there’s a greater chance that they’ll be able to turn to their approachable, humble peer for support.
5) It’s easier to take advice and grow when you’re a humble person
When star athletes cultivate an ego, it can make for a tough and lonely road. When they go through performance struggles, they may feel like they have to recover all by themselves because they’ve shown a ‘know-it-all’ attitude in the past. This can make tough patches even tougher.
On the other hand, when an athlete practices humility in sport, they’ll find it easier to ask for help. As a result, humble athletes can have an easier time growing and recovering from struggles.
6) Humble people can decrease competitive pressure
As we discussed in our article about life lessons you can learn from Simone Biles, being humble takes the pressure off of an athlete.
Instead of heaping expectations on themselves by claiming to be the best, humble athletes decrease expectations and pressure by acknowledging their team of supporters and their fortunate circumstances.
There will always be some form of pressure on an athlete. Most elite competitors readily admit, their biggest source of pressure comes from themselves. So, extinguishing all pressure is never going to happen – and that’s a good thing. Expectations and pressure can help fuel an athlete’s performance.
However, when athletes show humility and carry themselves in a humble way, they can help avoid the pressures from outside their realm of control. That’s the type of pressure that can overwhelm, distract and prevent an athlete from reaching their pinnacle.
7) Teaching humility to youth includes learning from losses
Winning is the easy part; losing is the tough part. It may seem counter-intuitive but teaching an athlete how to lose is one of the most important things parents and coaches can do.
Let’s be clear, we’re not saying you should teach your child that they should lose. Putting forth their best effort and achieving their goals should always be the aim, of course. However, athletes must eventually lose in order to learn important life lessons.
As the saying goes, it’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up that counts.
With this in mind, children need to learn that it’s okay to get knocked down. Losing with humility is a learned skill. When children learn to lose, they open themselves up to important life lessons.
Teaching Tip: When your athletes lose, it’s not just because of their actions. After a tough loss in competition, teach your athletes to identify what the other competitors did well. Teaching children to acknowledge how other athletes succeeded will help them grow.
Teaching humility in sports creates richer sporting experiences
In summary, it’s easy to see that humble athletes can have richer sporting experiences. By attracting a community of supporters that can share in their success, these athletes create meaningful connections through their love of the game.
Their approachable demeanor allows their peers to come to them in times of struggle. Additionally, this same demeanor empowers them to seek out the advice of others during their own tough times, and use that advice to help them grow. Humble athletes can also stay focused on the game by sharing their praise with others, and keeping the competitive pressure off themselves.
Humility in sports can be taught through two simple steps. First, teach young athletes to identify things they’re grateful for. Second, teach athletes to accept praise and pass it on to other teammates. When your athletes practice these steps, they not only cultivate humility in themselves, but also create a cycle of positivity among their teammates. Over time the impact of your humble athletes may just be felt across your entire sport.
