The importance of humility in sports education

What is the line between boasting and spontaneously expressed humility?

The education of values in the sports context that we develop in UPAD Psychology and Coaching usually always moves along the same contents: respect, companionship, responsibility, effort, humility... Most of these values have such an intuitive name that even the youngest children we teach about them can give an improvised definition. However, there is one of them that represents the exception that proves the rule, and it is none other than humility.

And the fact is, sometimes even for adults, what humility is, and even more so, why it can beAnd even more: why it can be important in sports or in life, because, as someone said, "Too much humility is not good?

What is humility in sports education?

Humility is defined as knowing the extent of one's own abilities, ie, knowing how good we are and where we can improve.. This means that acknowledging personal merit in public is not a lack of humility (perhaps it is a lack of modesty). In fact, an explicit denial of a great achievement can be interpreted, ironically, as a lack of humility.

But then, is it humility to go around telling everyone I meet what a great dribble I made the other day? Is it humility to celebrate a goal by dancing in front of everyone? Is it humility to compare my record to that of a teammate or rival?

We can all quickly understand that, that belittling the merits of another athlete is not sportsmanlike conduct and, although it may be and, although it may be related to humility, perhaps it is more related to respect.

On the other hand, if we say that to be humble is to be aware of one's successes as well as one's mistakes, it can be deduced that talking about these successes naturally can be related to humility, as long as we do not boast about them. However, the line between bragging and humility is a fine one, the line between boasting and naturalness will always be blurred, so this would be a criterion of humility.Therefore, this would be an ambiguous criterion that might be useful for philosophizing in this small article, but not for educating our young athletes in training in this important value.

The criterion that solves this hole in the definition, would be that this knowledge of achievements and skills to improve, would not depend on the opinion of others. I can make a spectacular play, but if I have the need to validate it through my teammates, rivals or spectators, I will not be being humble. If I need to make an exaggerated celebration to get more attention for my goal, I am not being humble. If I am asked by a teammate, a rival, a friend (or a journalist) about that goal, and I express my honest opinion about it, then I am being humble. If I celebrate the goal with my teammates, like any other goal I have scored, then yes, I am being humble.

Therefore, in order to optimize the value of humility, it is important to generate and strengthen self-esteem, it is important to generate and strengthen self-esteemThis is because, following the logic of our discourse, the former will be a consequence of the latter.

Self-esteem management

It is common for people who boast the most about their achievements, appearance or merits to do so masking a low self-esteem, as if it were an overcompensation as a defense mechanism. It is true that one of the sources of self-efficacy is the feedback we receive from others, so I can manipulate that feedback, or my perception of it, to protect my self-esteem.

However, the healthiest solution is to achieve a strong self-esteem, which does not need protection and therefore does not depend on others. Therefore, it is of vital importance to educate trainees to obtain such self-esteem through objective data that speak for themselves about their merits, as well as to be very conscientious about how to reinforce their self-esteem. be very conscientious with how we reinforce the attainment of these merits..

In this way, if our self-esteem depends exclusively on the objectives we achieve and our margin for improvement, we will have a strong self-esteem that will not depend on the assessment of others and, in turn, we will not need to deploy behaviors contrary to humility to perceive such self-esteem. Therefore, understanding humility in this way, I would say that not only is too much humility good, but it is, above all, healthy.