What Soccer Teaches You About Life

Competing in soccer teaches you more than the rules of play; it provides you with tools that translate into other aspects of your life. Soccer requires quick thinking, fast action and the ability to work as part of a team, and these skills can help you stay focused and productive in your personal and professional life.

Part of a Team

In soccer, you win and lose as a team; no one person carries the team by himself, although one person might score the winning goal or miss a critical shot that leads to a loss. In life, you become part of many teams, from family units to groups of co-workers. These people rely on you, and you on them, to meet certain goals, such as financial savings or finishing a project on time. These relationships require collaboration, just like you work with your soccer teammates by passing the ball or blocking an opponent so he can't steal the ball from a teammate. Soccer helps you understand that win or lose, you do it as a team -- you don't get to take all the credit when a group project surpasses expectations, nor do you take all the blame if the project fails. This requires building other skills such as strong communication, so your teammates -- or co-workers -- know what you're doing and what's expected of them.

Risks and Mistakes

Taking risks, such as shooting for the goal from midfield, can lead to failure, but it also can end in an amazing victory. This is true in life as well. Learning to take risks means you open the door to new ideas and interesting ventures, even though they might fail. Taking risks that don't work out -- on the field and off -- helps you learn to handle mistakes, learning from them and making changes to improve future decisions instead of wallowing in despair when things don't work out they way you want. This also means learning to deal with other people's mistakes, whether that person is a referee who makes an incorrect call or a family member who uses poor judgment in a financial investment.

How to Lose

Even the best soccer teams lose occasionally, which is an important lesson to apply to your life. You might have the best game you've ever played, but the team still loses. This helps you survive job interviews that end up with you getting the dreaded "thank you but no thank you" letter, or being passed over for promotion. A loss in soccer can energize the team, making you and your teammates call for extra practices to work on skills that need improvement such as dribbling, passing or scoring. The same is true in life -- use the loss to help you refocus your energies on how to win that promotion next time, for example.

More Lessons

Soccer helps you build other valuable skills as well. It teaches you the importance of attitude, and how a good attitude can invigorate others as well as yourself. It lets you see you can always be better -- practice is key, and the more you practice, study or work on a project, the better you, or it, can be. Soccer teaches you dignity when you win and after a loss, which helps you live and work with others as social and work roles continually change.