Are you starting to notice your daughter’s love for the game decrease? What used to be so fun is starting to feel like a burden.
A lot of athletes struggle to overcome mistakes. Some female athletes over-critique themselves and get drowned by the stress and pressure of things outside their control. And sometimes, moms/parents contribute to their pressure, overwhelm, and waning love for their sport.
As moms, how can we reignite the spark and joy that our daughter once had with her love of her sport?
Our guests today are Mia, a 15 year old competitive swimmer, and her mom Shenique and they will talk to us about their experience and how they cope with all the struggles we've mentioned. Mia and her mom joined The Elite Competitor Program. And both of them have some wonderful insights from their sports journey before and during ECP.
Here's how both of them rediscovered fun and joy in their sports journey.
What was your experience in swimming before ECP?
When Mia started ECP, she had just gotten out of her main competition season.
She was competing for her country, the Bahamas, and there was a lot of stress. It was her time for a break and she was trying to relax her body and mind from all the stress during those 6 months of competition.
Mia was in the resting phase before joining ECP, but her mom was admittedly at a point of frustration before joining ECP.
Shenique always wanted to make sure everything was done right, and after joining ECP, she realized all her wrong ways of supporting. Although Mia didn't notice it coming from her mom, she was more stressed out and she blamed herself a lot when she made mistakes.
It came to a point where swimming doesn't equate to fun or passion but instead equates to stress.
What are the changes after joining ECP?
Competitions are hard, but after joining ECP Mia learned not to beat herself up too much. She learned to take a second to breathe, take a break and refocus. She rediscovered the joy in doing her sports and did not dwell on the pressure and stress of it all.
The ability to take a break and breathe is a skill. Most athletes just kind of go with their brain's natural way of keeping themselves safe, which is beating themselves up and criticizing.
Shenique started to notice Mia not being so hard on herself when she started ECP. Mia would ask for feedback but she is good at taking constructive critique now and isn’t holding on to the mistakes like she did before.
"ECP is eye-opening" - Shenique
Having the right mental skills will help her realize that her self-worth is not attached to her outcome in sports. And it will help female athletes learn to focus on things in control rather than other things that are outside one's control.
It was exactly what Shenique needed at the moment. Especially because nobody coaches the parents in this sports journey. ECP was a way for Shenique to notice where she had opportunities to better support her daughter. She learned a better way to help Mia improve versus criticizing and complaining about mistakes or underperformance.
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