Going to the Mat: A Lesson in Discipline

Key Takeaways:

• The discipline required to excel in sports is the same needed to excel in business and life.

Life is like wrestling. We all go to the mat on occasion, in one way or another. And to win that match, whether you’re trying to pin down a crisis at the office, a personal issue or the challenge of finding a new professional opportunity, it takes discipline to emerge victorious.

Without it, you will lose in the end. That’s a promise.

I’d like to take you through some of my own experiences — even as a high school athlete. And while you read, I want you to relate them to your own life. You may not be a wrestler, but these lessons, taken to heart, can make an immediate and tremendous impact in whatever it is you’re currently facing. Ask yourself: What do you see on your own personal “mat”?

When you first start out wrestling, you need the discipline to listen to your coaches, even when you want to run around and play.  You must pay attention so you can learn and eventually get better.  As you gain experience in the sport, the need for discipline grows tremendously.

When you are younger, your parents and/or coaches can lead the way for you, and all you have to do is listen and do what they say.  As you get into your high school years, though, discipline becomes more of a personal thing as you become the conductor of your life. In high school you start to become more social with your life, and your schooling gets harder. This is when you can tell who has strong discipline.

It is easy to slack off in one of the areas in the life when things get busy and tough. It takes discipline to study hard all day and then go through a grueling two-hour practice right after school.  Then once you get home and eat, you have homework to do! Along with keeping up with all of your friends, it becomes a very busy life quickly.  This is when prioritizing your schedule comes in handy.

I used to write down my weekly to-do lists and goals every Sunday to help me see what I had to do for the week. Seeing it all on paper helped me get everything done.

One of the biggest areas of discipline (or lack thereof) that you see in wrestling is watching your weight or cutting weight.  Most wrestlers across the country have very poor weight-cutting discipline.  Most people do more of a crash cut every week, which badly hurts their body and eventually hurts their performance. I was very bad at watching my weight during my high school and early college years.

You see, wrestlers get comfortable with doing what has worked for them all their life  — even if they know it’s not good for them. They think that it will always work because it always has.  But trust me, it always comes back to bite them. The sooner you can maintain your weight and be closer to your competition weight, the easier life is. A disciplined wrestler maintains their body at a weight that is close to the weight class they compete in. My goal in college was to always be 1.5 workouts away from my competition weight.  Basically, if my weight class was 141 and I could lose around 4lbs per practice, I wanted to walk around at 147/148lbs.

It wasn’t always easy to be within that 1.5 workouts of my weight class though.  It takes discipline to bring your body weight down by drinking more water than wrestlers want to and eating less.  One of the other things that I had to do is extra workouts.  This act really can separate the elite performers.  It helps build of the resilience in your mind while also building up your discipline. Knowing you are watching your weight and then doing extra workouts will make you want to continue to make the right decisions so that you don’t mess up all of your progress.

We end our practices by saying “1,2,3 TOUGH.” We do this because it takes toughness to be out there on the mat.  But there is also a huge amount of toughness needed to make the right decisions off the mat and to control your mind when it starts to wonder.  To be disciplined you must be tough, in sport and mind!

So again, I as you: What are you facing on your own personal “mat”? And do you have the discipline to emerge victorious?

More articles by Logan:

https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/blog/taking-teamwork-to-the-…

References

This article is supported by research concerning the impact of self-control and discipline on athletic performance:

Boat, R. (2016). The Role of Self-Control in Athletic Performance. Loughborough University, London, UK.