What the Olympics can teach all of us

With the spectacle of the Olympics over and the Olympic athletes returning to their home towns and civic receptions we are all having to get used to life without the likes of Usain Bolt on our television screens. Despite some reservations about the cost of the games there is no doubt that Britain made them a success. It made me proud to be British and that the whole world was able to see us as friendly enthusiatstic people with an amazing historical and cultural heritage.Lets hope that the £10 billion cost proves to be a good investment.

But the legacy of the games is far more than encouraging more people to take up sport and be challenging for Oylmpic medals in the future. The legacy is also something that is intangible in that the efforts and sacrifes of our athletes has a lesson for us all. To have a chance of an Olympic medal athletes need to train very hard. It can take 4 years of training and personal sacrifice to reach the pinnacle of your sport. These athletes had a vision and a goal. They knew exacltly what they wanted and they were prepared to put as much effort in as was needed to succeed.

It’s a well known fact that if we don’t have a goal in life we will not get there, so that’s the first lesson. Write down your goals, have a vison of what you want in life and aim high. Once you have you goals you need to work out a way of achieving those goals. They won’t just fall at your feet. This usually involves getting to be good at what you want to do. Whether its football or working in a restaurant. If you are good at it you will progress, and the way you get good at what you do is to be enthusiastic and to train/work hard. It means being the best you can be!

Just like the Olympians we need to raise the bar that we set ourselves and also we need to raise the bar in education. As A level and GCSE results for this year are released we have the annual debate on whether the exams are hard enough. Whether that’s true or not we need to raise standards and one way of doing that is by making the exams harder. If everyone is getting A’s or A * how can we pick out the exeptional ones ?

One thing that I really liked during the Olympics is the way the parents of the athletes were treated. They were interviewed on TV and treated as VIP’s. I think we can learn from the praise that was heaped upon these parents. An athlete or indeed any young person will find it difficult to succceed without support from parents.It’s the same with succeeding in education and gaining qualifications. Parents need to be supportive of their childrens aspirations and teachers need to become very good at inspiring children with the love of learning.

There is no doubt that we have plenty of people who have a vision and a goal and have the support and self determination to achive in sport, education and in life in general. The Olympics showed everyone that we are genuine, friendly and can organise a hell of a party.

The Olympics also showed us how to succeed in whatever we do. There is a lesson for all of us !


Posted

in

,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *