Progress Is Hard to See While It’s Happening

My freshman year at Saint Joseph's University, I went through about a week in practice where I just could not make shots. That really was not normal for me because I had always been a pretty consistent shooter, so after a few days of struggling, one of our assistant coaches pulled me aside after practice and said something that stayed with me.

He said, “You know, when we were recruiting you, I could almost never get ahold of you because you were always in the gym getting up extra shots. I haven’t seen you doing that here.”

And honestly, he was right. I was practicing hard during team practices, but I had stopped doing the extra work outside of practice. Our practices in college were demanding, and I had started convincing myself that team practice alone was enough. Before college though, getting extra shots up had simply been part of my routine. All of those extra shots had built confidence in my shooting long before I ever realized how much I depended on them.

So I started getting back in the gym again and getting extra shots up outside of practice. Nothing magical happened overnight, but slowly my confidence started coming back because I was putting in the same type of consistent work that had helped build confidence in the first place.

That whole experience came back to my mind recently when our family bought some pickleball paddles and went to the park together. One of my sons started getting frustrated because he was not playing as well as he wanted to. He was hitting balls out, missing shots he thought he should make, and getting down on himself a little bit. On the drive home, I asked him, “Buddy, how many times have you played pickleball?”

He said, “One.”

I laughed and told him, “Well, if this is your first or second time doing something, you probably cannot expect mastery yet. Just keep playing and you’ll improve.”

This is one of the harder things for kids, especially kids who are naturally coordinated or athletic. They are used to picking things up quickly, so when something feels awkward or unfamiliar, frustration can come fast. Sometimes they expect confidence before they have spent enough time with something to actually feel comfortable doing it.

Later that same evening, my daughter was outside pitching softball while I caught for her. She is only ten years old and has not been pitching very long, and honestly she does not spend huge amounts of time practicing pitching yet. But over the course of maybe fifteen minutes, while she focused on a few things her coach had been teaching her, you could already start seeing improvement. She threw more strikes, the ball started coming out better, and you could almost see her relaxing as she became more comfortable.

Progress is often hard for kids to see while it is happening. Sometimes improvement happens slowly over time, almost little by little. Other times kids feel stuck for a while and then suddenly something clicks and they take a noticeable step forward. Either way, kids usually become more confident as things start feeling more familiar to them.

As parents, we can find ourselves wanting our kids to feel confident immediately. But sports usually ask kids to stay patient through the uncomfortable part of learning. The more time kids spend doing something, the more comfortable they usually become doing it. Things slow down a little bit for them mentally, and they stop feeling so overwhelmed or frustrated because what once felt unfamiliar slowly starts feeling more natural.

And when that happens, confidence often starts showing up too.