Mental Coaching: talent or commitment?

In Sports Mental Coaching the main objective is to help the athlete achieve a high level of well-being and gratification related to a satisfactory sports performance.

I often feel like asking: how important is talent in our performance? How important is the commitment we put on?

This is a recurring theme, not only in the sports field, even in the professional and personal one. In fact, we can say that this topic touches practically all aspects of our life.

Without technique, talent is nothing more than a dirty dress.

Georges Brassens

First of all I believe it is useful to make a minimum of clarity by giving the definitions of the two terms in question.

Talent is a natural predisposition we have toward something; it's an innate gift, which therefore doesn't depend on us. Perhaps it could be the ease with which we can perform a particular athletic feat, or an innate ability to endure fatigue.

Commitment is the conscious effort we put into something; unlike talent, it's something that depends on us. An athlete translates their level of commitment into their daily lives by, for example, adhering to training, nutrition, and rest.

Mental Coaching: talent or commitment?

The best things are obtained only with the maximum commitment.

Goethe

If talent can actually be considered an inclination, it seems fairly easy to understand that, on its own, it's of little use. In fact, we can think of talent as a sort of accelerator of our learning abilities.

In practice, talent allows us to quickly improve at something, but only under one very important condition: if we commit to practicing the behaviors necessary to train the skill we're developing. The fruit of this commitment is our acquisition of that specific skill.

At this point we have exploited our talent, who, thanks to our commitment, allowed us to become good. But this is not enough. Being good at something, being skilled in a certain context is needed very little if this ability is not put into practice.

So, once again, commitment comes into play: to put into practice the skill we've learned, we need to put in the effort. To make the ability we've acquired through hard work and talent productive, we need to put in even more effort. This is when our skills bring us results.

In conclusion

Whatever the context we refer to we can say the following:

• With talent and commitment we get to our destination quickly.
• With talent and without the commitment we do not go anywhere.
• Without talent and with the commitment we arrive in the destination a little more slowly.
• Without talent and without the commitment we do not go anywhere.

In sports mental coaching, and not only, it is therefore clear that having talent and not making an effort to exploit it is like not having it at all.

If you truly care about something, if you truly want to see results, you need to put in the effort. Regardless of whether you're talented in your field of interest or not.

Do you also want to improve your sports performance and your general well -being? Discover Mental Coaching programs and go to the next level!