Athletic Prodigy Teaches Us A Thing or Two About Success

We’ve always believed that we can achieve anything with hard work. While that may be true in a certain sense, it’s not the only ingredient for success, as this article written by Jim Taylor, Ph.D for Psychology Today is telling us.

Inborn talent, drive and parental support

Taylor frames his entire article around what makes Mikaela Shiffrin, the 18-year-old gold medal hopeful of the US Ski Team in the technical events of slalom and giant slalom in the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics, the best at what she does not only in her country but in the world as well. He says that while hard work or training really matters, so does inborn talent, which Shiffrin definitely has.

Shiffrin’s success also stems from the fact that she is incredibly driven, putting in a prodigious amount of time in her physical conditioning and on-snow training. Most importantly, Shiffrin had the full support of her parents who have likely made a lot of sacrifices along the way.

Even in the field of academics, innate talent, hard work and being naturally driven can only do so much. Although we all know of stories of people making it entirely on their own without any sort of help or pushing from parents, I believe things would even be better if we give our children that kind of support not only in academics, but in most of the things that they do. Let’s just make sure that we support, not drive, them to particular academic success. Driving them hard, after all, does not always produce the best results.

Click here to read the full article.

Tags: education

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