Inconsistency in sports is an issue that has gone unaddressed for perhaps too long. Most sports fans don’t believe that it’s odd for the strongest teams to underperform these days. It’s like everyone has become used to off-and-on performances even the professionals.
This Futureplay article will provide some simple answers to this common issue of consistency in sports and other latest news within the industry. It’ll open your eyes to the possibility of players or athletes being consistent in their sport and what can make it happen.
What Is Performance Consistency, and Why Is It Desired So Badly?
Performance consistency is the apex of sports performance. A level at which an athlete or a team delivers the same high level of performance every time. This means they can score the same range of points in a match or put in the same level of work consecutively.
Consistency is born of composure while playing, trust in your abilities, and confidence in your skill. When you’re consistent, you can perform great in your sport, even when you’re not playing your “A” game. A player who attains this level of consistency in their performance is recognized as an expert.
This is a dream of many players, but only a select few have been able to realize this dream. These select few have become legends that’ll be remembered for years to come, and that’s why many more players desire consistency.
Enemies of Consistency
There are many reasons why consistency in performance remains nothing but a dream for most players. Some of the enemies of consistency for a player are shown below:
Dependence on Performance Reviews
Performance reviews can perhaps be seen as the number one cause of performance inconsistency. Many teams or players try to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. This thirst for efficiency has led many promising athletes down the dark path of finding reasons for a good performance.
However, it’s hard to quantify what makes a team, a player, or an athlete perform excellently on a particular day. Is it the effect of good weather or playing with a new team or coach? Is it an effect of shooting a ball with the right leg alone or scoring touchdowns through the left side of the pitch?
Many players have unconsciously held themselves back by assigning reasons for a good performance. Instead of practicing and preparing themselves on all bases, they focus on improving their lucky charm. In the end, their performance drops harder than an anchor at sea.
No Routines
Being consistent as an athlete means you have a routine you follow. If you don’t have something like this, it isn’t easy to become consistent. You’ll need training routines, nutrition routines, pregame routines, and so much more.
Players who only live for the moment can’t gain the consistency needed to become experts. At most, they’ll have a few lucky days where they’re a one-hit sensation, and the other times, their presence won’t be felt.
No Trust in Your Training Program
One thing that many players don’t understand is that the results of a training program differ for every individual. People with a higher baseline fitness level are more likely to see quick results from a training program. Most times, the results of training programs are only visible after a long while, usually after four weeks.
Unfortunately, some athletes are too impatient, and they’re unwilling to wait. They believe that if the results are not immediately visible, then the training program isn’t working. At this point, they’ll change to a new program, and the cycle continues.
Such a terrible work ethic makes it almost impossible to develop the consistent training culture needed to become an expert.
No Trust in Your Skill
There are many egotistical players in sports today, like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mario Balotelli, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Ray Lewis, and DeSean Jackson. Their attitude might rub you wrong and make you dislike them, but their skill is undeniable. For many such players, their arrogance comes from their trust in their craft, which makes them experts.
When you don’t trust your skills, you’ll always feel like you’re doing something wrong somewhere. Your focus will shift from training consistently and performing consistently on the field to trying to fix mistakes. With this mentality, you’ll find it difficult to always perform on the field.
Focusing Too Much on the Outcome
Some players make the mistake of being too consumed with the result of their performance. They are so focused on how well and badly they’ll do that they get out of focus on the present.
What happens when your mind is not in the “now” as a player? A horrendous training session or game performance defines inconsistency.
Stress
Do you know many players who fumble on the pitch today perform excellently during practice? Their practice performance is so good that the coach places lots of hope in them and anticipates their in-game performance.
In the end, their performance on the field is terrible. Many players are like this because they can’t handle the stress of playing in front of a crowd.
The practice was just in front of their teammates, so they could give their 100%. When a wider audience comes into the equation, some players forget most of their skills. Their fear of fumbling on the field causes it to occur inevitably.
For other players, the stress can result from personal battles off the field. They could be facing a legal battle with their wives, a lawsuit, or other off-the-field issues that cause them to lose focus.
Some players also get stressed out in games when their team begins to lose horribly. At that point, they play, forgetting their practice and skills and causing the team to lose further.
How Can Players Master Consistency?
While it’s difficult to see consistent performance from a player, even online casino gamers, it’s not impossible. There are many strategies that players and gamblers can employ to see a boost in their training and in-game performance, especially at reputable platforms like Futureplay. Some of the methods that players can use to master consistency include:
Understanding that Improvement Never Ends
The glory of being crowned one of the best has been the undoing of many athletes and sports teams. They get arrogant, they become lazy as they feel like they’ve reached the top, and they stop improving.
When the best has decided to stop improving, the second-best that hungers for that glory will surpass them. This is why the number one position in many sports changes hands every year.
However, there is something that you can do to stop this from occurring, and that is constant improvement. Constant training and constant practice should happen more when you’re at the top.
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most talented football players of the 21st century, and this talent is 100% hard work. His teammates are always astonished by his desire to keep improving, as he arrives early before others to training sessions and leaves late. This has kept him and many others at the top of their game for so long.
Cultivating Patience
Everyone is in a hurry to become a master, but they don’t understand that some of the best things don’t come easily. Patience is needed, as real improvement takes time.
Some of the best players in the world today didn’t become legendary at once. They honed their craft slowly over the years, enduring the early years of hard work needed to become the best.
So, don’t look for a 2-week boot camp that promises to be a shortcut to your goals. What matters most is honing your skill set to the level required to become one of the best. History always forgets the overnight success, but the real experts will be revered for all time.
Confidence
Earlier in this write-up, we mentioned some of the most egotistical players to play on the field. Most players are so good because of their self-confidence; you need this to be consistent. Confidence allows you to overcome your fear of better players and allows your training to shine through.
The path to building confidence differs for every player. Some players, like basketball legend Michael Jordan, made their confidence by thinking of their past successes. When they think about how they surmounted all odds to show outstanding results in the past, it becomes easier to do so again.
Some players focus on the things within their control to build confidence. Such individuals do not bother about things that could go wrong but rather about things they can make right. There is also the option of not comparing yourself to others, as it’s a major confidence killer.
Hold Yourself Accountable
It’s easy to make excuses for missing training and push the blame on the unfavorable weather. It’s also easy to create numerous reasons for why you’ll be cutting down your training sessions on days that you don’t feel happy.
However, doing this doesn’t make you consistent at your task. Rather, it makes you easily satisfied by mediocrity and eager to avoid things that require hard work.
You might argue that the coaches do this job, holding players accountable while training. However, coaches and fellow teammates can only do so much.
Most of the work lies with you (the player), as the coach can’t monitor your work ethic forever. If you can’t do the work needed to improve, you’ll never be a consistent winner.
Progress Is the Goal
The journey to consistency in your performance as a player doesn’t end in one day. It’s steady progress, one in which the results might not be visible at the beginning. However, each step you take towards attaining consistency is a step forward.
Hence, your thoughts should only be focused on the fact that your progress hasn’t stopped. Remember, each step you take to a consistent performance or training lifestyle is better than taking no action.
Take Measurable Steps
It’s not bad to set some ambitious goals as a player. However, being overly ambitious can hinder your desire to get better.
It’s always exciting to get started on your new journey to greatness, but this buzz wanes with time. This is usually when the tediousness of beginning with a giant target starts to set in. It becomes harder each day to visit the practice field, and you start reducing the reps you had planned to perform.
As such, you’ll make things easier for yourself when you break your enormous goals into manageable chunks. Doing this makes your goals easier to achieve.
After all, looking at the enormousness of the main goal can make you lose motivation. So, just focus on accomplishing each mini-goal instead. Each mini-goal is a step toward your end goal of consistency.
Remember That Time and Resources Are Limited
It’s good to know that you need to improve, but you also need to understand that you don’t have forever. Hence, all players must learn how to manage their time for the best results judiciously. They also need to ensure they spend quality time on improvement, not just wasting time pointlessly.
Improvements also require resources, and most resources don’t come cheap. Players have to face this ugly truth if they want to improve their performance. That’s why all players are advised to manage their limited time and resources effectively to see results.
Celebrate Every Milestone
While trying to master consistency to become masters in their craft, some players make mistakes. They underestimate the time needed to accomplish a task and beat themselves up for failing to achieve that task. Sometimes, the player can struggle to finish a task they believed they would breeze through and feel like they aren’t progressing.
This is a bad thought process that only focuses on the goals and not on the accomplishments. It can kill the player’s motivation and prevent them from trying harder.
As such, everyone trying to get better at their sport is advised to celebrate every win. Celebrate the fact that you were able to finish 70% of the drills that you planned for the week. Even if your to-do list isn’t completed, pat yourself on the accomplished ones.
Start a Core Routine
Consistency is born from performing a few activities over and over again. These repeated actions are key to becoming consistent in your output at a game.
Let’s take martial artists as an example. They train by performing katas and punching or kicking bags with the same moves repeatedly. This makes their movements muscle memory so they can perform them unconsciously.
Many athletes also use this concept in their training. It could be jumping drills, running drills, scoring drills, shooting drills, or other drill practices. Find the core skills and procedures in your sport and discipline yourself to turn them into a routine.
This way, you can turn core player movements and techniques into muscle memory. With this consistency, it’ll be easier to become a master at your sport.
Keep Things Simple
Lastly, we advise that you keep things simple. A lot goes on in our minds normally, but when you’re in a game, put your mind in the game. Don’t heed external thoughts that could make you lose focus in the game.
You can also keep things simple with a simple game plan. In the heat of the moment, complex game plans can be difficult to recall and implement. So, just divide your game plan into very simple tasks you can employ at any time without much thought.
Some of the most consistent players today have had trying times. Most of them come to the field stressed out from personal life issues. However, when it’s time to play, they push all these things out of mind and focus 100% on the game.
Final Thoughts
Attaining the same good performances all the time is the image of consistency. Consistency in sports is not a fantasy, as many athletes and sports teams have achieved this. You can play casino games for free at Futureplay.
Rocky Marciano, a former world heavyweight boxer, won 49 straight titles from 1952 to 1956. Tennis legend Rafael Nadal won 81 consecutive matches from 2005 to 2007, and Roger Federer made 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearances. In football, Lionel Messi scored 92 goals in 2012, with a 21-match scoring streak.
This article exposed some obvious reasons behind inconsistency, so you must avoid them. Avoid these reasons and practice the secrets behind consistency, and you can also become a prolific player and a master at your sport.
