The Power Of Story

The following is from a lecture by Doctor Jim Loehr about coaching and competitive sport and how it should impact the athlete. He is an advocate of journaling and revisiting your journal on a monthly basis. Doctor Jim believes that more often you do it, the more it becomes part of who you are.
I am a supporter and believe in his philosophies.
The truth is that the obsession to achieve extrinsic success in sports by coaches, parents and kids, the obsession to win at all costs is undermining the basic fabric of sport and threatens the legions of developing athletes. Burnout. Overuse injuries that may impact them for a lifetime. The truth is that the real value of competitive sports is in helping athletes become stronger human beings for life. More important than the chase to the top is who the person is becoming as a consequence of that chase. And most of the youth in competitive sports will never make professional athletes, but we are professionalizing the chase. It is a tragic miscalculation. And the truth is that sport provides an in creditable platform to accelerate their personal development, respect for others, focus, engagement, determination, teamwork, persistence, gratitude, emotional control, resiliency, positivity, all of which will be strengths that will carry them for the entirety of their life. They will always look back on sport and you as a special gift. A gift that will help them for what they will face in life.