Part of being responsible means exercising self-control. This includes your actions and your speech in response to your emotions. An example would be controlling yelling in response to anger and frustration as a result of being unable to do something, or because something is more difficult to accomplish than you expect.
To be successful you have to be mindful of your actions and speech and how each affects the people around you. What you say can uplift or motivate, or it can tear down, or ruin someone, an organization, or even you.
“Come on, you got to catch the ball!” I yelled at my teammate. She had missed the ball 3 times already.
We were down 10 points, and no one on the team could seem to score.
We weren’t getting rebounds. So, we weren’t getting second chances at shots.
“D***n!” I screamed. I missed a layup.
Nothing got better. I kept missing easy shots and my teammate still couldn’t catch the ball.
We lost.
This was a familiar scene similar to basketball games that I played in at UAB.
This is the perfect example where anger and frustration ruled my actions and speech. It is an example of lack of self-control. As a result of lack of control of my actions and speech in response to my emotions, my team’s position in the game did not improve. Nor did it make my teammates any more comfortable or confident.
Exercising self-control in your actions and speech when emotional influences are present, helps you concentrate on finding solutions instead of focusing on problems. It supports an environment of order and calmness.
On a team, self-control allows you to make sound decisions with everyone at attention and listening because there are no distracting emotional actions to interfere with effective communication between members. It allows you to consider consequences which will enable you to produce the desired outcome – to win.
Self-control reveals confidence, an attitude that can spread throughout your team.
Being responsible means making sound decisions. To help make those decisions, I encourage you to begin exercising self-control of your actions and speech during competition. Recognize when you begin to feel frustrated or angry. Start to exercise thinking quickly on what words to say to uplift and what not to say. Think about what actions to take, or not to take, to calm your teammates.
What you say and how you act have consequences. Make sure those consequences are positive and for the benefit of your team.
What do you do when you get upset during competition? How do your teammates react?
