How Sports Shaped My Personal Development

One of my most enjoyable moments in primary school was going to the field for physical education, famously known as PE. My yellow t-shirt was always with me. Little did I know that this would shape me into being an enthusiastic sportsperson. 

Follow my journey in the sport that I love the most, basketball, as I highlight some of the greatest lessons I have learnt.

How it Started

In 2022, I finally gathered the courage to explore a sport I had been thinking about for many years, but I was afraid to try it. I had many reasons, including the fact that the players were too good. In September 2022, I was on the basketball court of my then institution. 

I tried to throw the ball to the ring, but it never reached the target. Several attempts later, I was getting frustrated. “Why does it look so simple to do, but I can’t just get it right?” I asked myself. Soon, some of the players offered to help me out with the foundational skills of the game. 

With time and practice, my shots improved, and my accuracy increased. It took time and effort on my part for this to come to fruition.

Lessons Beyond the Court

My first few months on the court made me realise that the same principle could be applied beyond sports. I saw the need for practice in my academics and in the extracurricular activities I participated in. Practice may look different in different situations. In a mathematics or calculus class, it would be the extra hours I spent solving questions with a friend. 

This was after realising I needed help, as I spent more time on one question when doing it alone. In different courses in the university, things don’t come as easily as they did in high school. A lot more effort is required. This is a lesson that I learnt from the court. 

On a personal level, I have always desired to have some sort of structure. A consistent routine of things that I wanted to do daily. Time and again, it was clear that desire and motivation weren't enough. Effort also required discipline to stick to the schedule. I applied the lessons that I learnt in the court to maintain this schedule. 

The Reality of Consistency

It isn’t easy, not at all. Imagine wanting to have a morning workout, but you live in a country with different seasons. During the summer, it is easy to wake up and go for a morning run. But what about winter, when it is very chilly in the morning? How easy is it to wake up? I won’t lie, it was very difficult. In the days that I managed to wake up, I felt really good doing the run. But most days, I just couldn’t get out of bed.

Does this mean that the effort wasn’t enough? Does that mean that I was no longer applying the lesson that I learnt in the court? Absolutely not. It is in the same lessons that I learnt adaptability. And that would look different in various situations. For this specific one, it looked at identifying obstacles to maintaining my structure and how well I could achieve the same result with a different activity, like indoor workouts, and by shifting my schedule to evenings. 

It wasn’t instantaneous.

More Than a Game

Lessons learnt from sports aren’t tied to sports places only, but also shape other aspects of life. I am a living example of how that has happened through lessons such as the need for time and effort, both of which require adaptability. 

Beyond improving my shots on the court, basketball showed me how I could show up even when it got difficult.

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Author: Christine Kabiru