Has your athlete daughter ever compared herself with another athlete? What did you tell her in response?
Today, we’ll talk about how to support our daughters when they start comparing themselves with others so that they can still steer towards their goals.
In most most cases, when our daughters compare themselves with another female athlete, it triggers a downward spiral of thoughts that they’re not good enough or that they’re not going to achieve their goals.
What Moms Can Do – or Say
As a mom, your role is very crucial in helping your daughter build the skills needed so she can navigate through these feelings. You can help your daughter take notice when she starts comparing herself with others. Your role is to help her acknowledge that jealousy is actually popping up and that she can do something about it.
Here are three statements you can say to your daughter when she starts comparing herself with another athlete:
1. “I hear you. It feels like Sarah is always getting the recognition. Tell me more about it.”
What you’re actually doing here is that you’re validating and welcoming her emotions. You are acknowledging that these feelings are real and that there’s no getting around it. You could definitely rephrase your statement if you like, but the idea is that you acknowledge the feeling, you give it airtime, and you invite yourself into the narrative. With this recognition, you’re allowing your daughter to move past that feeling in a productive way.
2. “What does this person have that you want?”
In our Elite Competitor Program, the very first question that we want our athletes to identify is what they want. When you ask this question to your daughter, you are in fact asking a very powerful question. You are helping her uncover and explore and dig into what she truly wants. Sometimes your daughter would say she doesn’t want anything, and that’s okay. However, in most cases, she will actually be able to say things like, the other person has the media attention or that they’re getting the division 1 offer. With these answers, you could help frame the goal that your daughter actually wants to achieve.
3. “If she can do it, that’s proof that you can, too.”
Now, this statement is very powerful for so many reasons. We are building in them the abundance mindset as opposed to the scarcity mindset that would essentially pull them down. What we want to achieve is for us to champion each other. We want our daughters to champion other females when they are getting success. We encourage them that their time is coming too, and it’s coming soon. You’ll be amazed that the more you encourage, support, and cheer for other people, the more that this comes back around to you.
Moving forward…
When you have enabled her to utilize her jealousy and comparison to identify her dreams and pursue her goals, her own vision, her own strengths, then you are building her mental game. When she is focused on her own goals, she will also have less tendency to look at other people around. And this is the kind of strong mentality we want to develop because remember, your daughter’s mental game is her biggest competitive advantage.
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