How Playing Football (Soccer) Helped Me Become a Better Professional
It's all about parallel skills.
Sports help you understand your true personality.
If you have ever been involved in any form of sports activity, you are definitely going to resonate with this article here.
The rush of blood, the adrenaline, the sweat running across the tip of your skin, nothing else in mind, where it’s just you, the moment, the challenge ahead, and the only thing that lies ahead is a challenge.
Yeah, that’s what games are about.
Anyone that plays or has ever played sports knows how fun it is, having the luxury to let go; release all your worries while playing without a care in the world.
There is a beauty, the pleasure, the dopamine created through every successful action you do. The pleasure is all yours. You become the source of your own happiness.
Yes, that’s what sports are all about and that is exactly what football is for me.
My Journey
I have been playing football since a very young age.
My passion for football begun when I watched my first anime Captain Tsubasa back when I was in my second grade. Watching the main character play football gave me chills.
Racing back home from my bus stop after school just so I wouldn’t miss the opening theme song of the anime is one of the best memories of my childhood.
Right after watching an episode, I would head straight to the soccer ground wearing a jersey and cleats trying to repeat the actions that I had watched in the anime. Scoring goals, making killer passes, tackles, dribbling, every action made me excited.
Tirelessly running all over the ground until the sun was out sitting and having discussions over the endless amount of topics with friends right after the football match was what I enjoyed a lot looking back.
It was around that time I started playing football competitively first playing for my class team, then gradually moving to higher levels.
In school, there were times when I used to bunk classes and tirelessly play football for hours which continued to my undergraduate days. Through football, I made a lot of friends, played with a different set of teammates with diverse skills and expertise in their respective areas of the game.
Different people with their unique natures combined work against similar opponents for one common goal is what I think is the beauty of football.
All those victories, which range from winning a little take-on to a large scale tournament, those losses, the frustrating times when nothing you do seems to work, those intense training days where your lungs seem to burst out but you continue, playing together with different players each with their own uniqueness, those minor bruises to serious injuries all add colors to my canvas.
Little did I know how a game would contribute so much to my life.
How Playing Football Is Helping Me in My Professional Career as a Software Engineer
Below is the list of observations and experiences that I have received which became a part of my personality. I use these values in every area of my life.
1. The magic of little moments.
There is a beauty in little moments that we fail to notice. A big moment is a sum of these small moments created over time. Every time we spend on something delivers a certain value.
When working on large projects, it can often be frustrating to find that you are putting in so much of your time, effort, and energy, yet the results are mostly not what you expect.
Realizing that making an impact takes time helps you understand the value you are delivering no matter how little they may be. There are times when you may be working hard yet remain invisible.
That is a phase you go through a lot in a football match. The major moments are rare, e.g. goal-scoring moments but every pass you make, each sprint you dash, every little decision or microdecision you take brings you and your team closer and closer towards what actually is a game-changing moment.
This is a phenomenon that takes place across all walks of life not just in a game or project.
Understanding this fact can make you patient and have an optimistic outlook towards everything in life.
2. The role of each individual moving toward a common goal.
Football is a team game. Unless you play a solo game, you realize the importance teamwork has on the outcomes of a match.
In football, there’s only so much a single person can do no matter how great he may be. This is true for everything else as well. As they say:
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Similarly, when working on a team I realized that everything needs to be balanced.
Each individual has his purpose to serve and each individual contributes towards a common goal. Looking at things from the perspectives of someone with a different role from mine helped me communicate better with team members.
There are times when you are the weak one, seek help if that is that is the case. Similarly, there are times when you are better than others, help them rise, give them time and trust them to succeed in their role which will help the team better towards the common goal.
The goal is to grow together. To successfully carry this out, you need to understand each individual’s role and communicate everything well.
3. Living in the present.
Have you ever noticed yourself worrying about the deadline, your future, your past actions while playing a sport?
Me neither.
When you are truly invested in something, you are in a meditative state. No care in the world, nothing stands between you and what is actually happening in your surroundings.
You become thoughtless.
I have never worried about my grades when I am running with the ball, trying to dribble past an opponent to make a pass or shoot the ball towards a goal.
When you know what your goal is, you automatically focus on trying to achieve it.
That’s what I do during my work. I make sure I know what I am going to accomplish in a certain period of time and I make sure I do.
To fully be immersed in something you need to clearly define what your future is going to look like and work towards it. This was as little as getting a pass across the field or moving into vacant spaces so I could receive the pass better, even something as a minute.
4. Building relationships and forming bonds.
Building relationships and bonds is a key aspect of being involved in any activity. You get to meet people with similar interests as you. Having a friend with similar interests makes something more exciting and motivates you to become better in your craft.
While playing football there are times when you have to play with random people, ones you may never have seen before. It is up to you to quickly vibe with them and play together as a single unit.
This is both a challenge and an amazing opportunity to make friends. You have no idea what the other person is going to be like. And not everyone you meet is going to be as you expect.
This is where you learn to adjust yourself to someone. If someone likes receiving passes on their foot, you give it to them according to their needs.
When you are open to meeting new people and sharing moments with them, you create opportunities.
There was a time in my life I will never forget. We, me and my classmates were on a tour in Mustang. We played football with the locals there. Playing football right below the mountain in front of a monastery with the residents is one of the most breathtaking experiences of my life.
I never knew the locals there, but we played as a team, we had a chat before parting ways. I may never know them or see them ever again but this is an experience I will cherish every day.
In life, there will be moments where you will have to work with people you never knew, people you may not be comfortable with. Playing football prepared me for this aspect.
You cannot and will never vibe with everyone, and you don’t have to. Accept people for what they are and adjust accordingly.
5. Being a better problem solver.
Do you know why being a football player has made me a better problem solver?
It is because I improvise.
Planning is an assumption. It is where you are assuming a course or a path but life isn’t as easy as planning something. There is an infinite number of possibilities how your next day, your next moment is going to be.
Planning gives you a framework for the future but one should be open to accepting changes and adapting to them accordingly.
Be open to the infinite possibilities of every moment.
In football, you never know what the opponent is going to be, what the next situation is going to be. No matter how many strategies you might make, you still need to go out there and address each scene that takes place.
Everything else then depends on your ability to handle uncertainties.
To be able to effectively do this, you need to be aware of the infinite possibilities that could take place each moment.
Geniuses are those who can make the best decisions in such times.
Major Takeaway
Everything in life is interconnected. You may be involved in one thing but the skills, the mindsets you learn are carried with you across everything.
As Iyanla Vanzant quotes,
The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.
Life is all about reframing your own skills you achieve from one place, then parallelly using them in different areas.
All one needs is to be aware of their own self.
Bonus:
You develop a mindset that any skill you want to develop in yourself can be learned and mastered. All it takes is practice and patience.
It is an amazing feeling applying what you had been practicing on the pitch and in life.
