What’s The Problem With Perfectionism?
Perfectionist sports kids show up to practice on time and work hard to improve their skills. Coaches like them because they follow directions. Sounds perfect, right?
But there’s a problem with perfectionist sports kids—often, both in sports and life.
Perfectionists set high expectations for themselves. They tell themselves they need to be perfect on the court or field or course; they must be the highest scorers and they should lead their team to the win.
It may sound like they’re ambitious hard workers, but the problem is these kids get frustrated when they don’t meet their high expectations. For example, a point guard may commit a turnover and start lambasting himself. Then, suddenly, he starts playing it safe, to avoid mistakes, and his game suffers.
The good news is you can help these kids!
You need to help them lower their expectations and focus on mini-goals instead of on difficult-to-attain ambitions. Instead of “I’m going to be the top scorer today,” they should tell themselves, “I’m going to make quality shots on the goal,” or, “I’m going to be a good team player,” or, “I’m going to block three shots on goal.”
Often, these perfectionist sports kids also harbor high expectations in other areas of their lives. If they can learn to beat perfectionism in sports, it’s likely these lessons will help them in school and other activities.
Want to learn more about how to help perfectionist sports kids?
Check out our popular program, “Helping Young Athletes Kick Perfectionism and Fear of Failure,” which makes your job as sports parents much easier. It helps sports kids let go of mistakes more easily, stop criticizing themselves, improve their confidence and have more fun. Check it out here:
Helping Young Kids Kick Perfectionism
Related Articles on Youth Sports:
- Helping Perfectionists Overcome Fragile Confidence
- How One Coach Helped a Perfectionist Athlete
- The Expectations Trap for Perfectionists
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The Composed Sports Kid
“The Composed Sports Kid” audio and workbook digital download program for young athletes and their parents or coach helps kids cope with frustration and anger in sports. Help your sports kids learn how to manage expectations and let go of mistakes so they can keep their head in the game.
The Composed Sports Kid system is really two programs in one–one program to train parents and coaches how to help their kids practice composure, and one program that teaches young athletes–ages 6 to 13–how to improve composure, let go of mistakes quickly, have more self-acceptance, and thus enjoy sports more!