Monday, December 23, 2019

The Positives of Peer Pressure

"I believe peer pressure can be just as positive as it is negative. The pressure of performing well for the sake of your teammates has always driven me, even more than winning sometimes."
- Chris Taborn

Playing soccer at a high level for the majority of my youth career and college career, there's nothing that drove me more than competition, however, it may not be the type of competition you're thinking of. Most people get their competitive drive to win because they simply just don't want to lose, but my mindset was a bit different.

In college I read a book by Patrick Lecioni, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team"  and the theme behind the book were Lecioni's 5 dysfunctions that can hurt the success of a team: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. It is a business book but I translated every word into my own world as a player who was part of a team, and that is when I gathered the idea of peer pressure being a positive function within a team setting.

The thing that drove me to win more than anything was playing for my teammates, and the (peer) pressure I would feel  was everything to me and it's where my competitive edge came from. I loved winning a match or trophy just as much as the next person, but knowing that my teammates had to trust me in goal to succeed took my game to another level. Some players looked for approval from coaches as a sign of trust, I looked to my players in front of me on the pitch because the feeling of letting them down was the worst!

Of the five dysfunctions from the book I didn't fear conflict because individuals within any team are going to disagree every once in a while. I was always committed, always held myself accountable (as in I was my harshest critic), and results mattered to me because I still was driven to win. However, the absence of trust was something I never wanted my teammates to have in me, so no matter if it was training, regular season match, or a final...I always wanted to show my players that they could trust in me.