I doubt that overtime the amount of highly talented young sporting prospects has changed.
When I was young (which wasn’t all that long ago) they were almost a mystical specimen.
You didn’t know them, but you heard about them, people whispered about them, perhaps you heard that they had ‘developed early’ or ‘there [blank] is associated with an elite sporting club’ – either of these were the reason for their fast-tracked capabilities.
But you never got to see them until it came time to compete with them.
Oh, how that has changed.
Whilst the amount of highly talented young sporting prospects hasn’t changed, our accessibility to them has.
Social media, and certain pages on the platform, have (probably) unknowingly created a vicious cycle in the minds of most young athletes.
Whilst we are aware, relatively speaking, of just how few youth athletes go on to participate at an elite level, it does nothing to cure the comparative mind of an adolescent – to them it seems like everyone around them is doing it better than they are.
The crazy thing is the majority of the time, they don’t even really know these people.
Sure, they know their name and what they look like, but their actual encounters with them consist of likes and a comment or two.
And yet the prevalence with which they are seen, the accessibility, and the assumed similarities (with regards to age, mutual friends, and current level of competition) make them feel so familiar.
The really unfortunate thing though is that when they do come face to face with these individuals the dynamic is already tainted.
The lens through which they have already been exposed to this individual has created a relationship in their mind where they look up to this person – and not in the positive way of a role model, but in the destructive way of I am lesser than.
Not all of these people that adolescents compare themselves to go onto an elite level of competition, however it doesn’t always reverse the damage done.
What is interesting about this dilemma is which of the following comes first:
- Externally I am being compared to others which is now making me internally question myself worth
- Or internally I am struggling with my relationship with self and now I’m searching externally to justify what my mind is thinking
Neither of these are productive – both require a recalibration.
There may be a need to alter your environment or minimize time spent in these comparative spaces.
Alternatively seeking to understand within yourself what you are personally unsatisfied / uncomfortable with may be what is required.
The truth is to some extent this pervasive feeling is never going to become extinct.
It is within all of us to some capacity and within some contexts.
But social media has exacerbated this feeling within the minds of adolescents to an unhealthy level.
And now intrapersonal or environmental strategies (like the ones I’ve mentioned above) are required just to maintain so semblance of balance.
It’s important that we undertake these strategies as they can be of assistance, but we also need to re shape our perspective a little as a society to aid them.
After all;
- Do we really need to be creating highlight packages of 11-year-old children?
- Or ranking players at 13-years-old?
