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Many of us student-athletes, who are committed to doing well in both our sport and our education, are often overwhelmed by the constant struggle of trying to balance our studies and our individual/team training.
Sometimes we are overloaded with schoolwork and can't make it to the field to train individually, or sometimes we value our football development more than our homework and grades and just skip our assignments.
When we value one over the other, the other thing tends to suffer. Whether it's our development as footballers or our grades and performance as students.
Many players choose to focus more on football than their schoolwork, and their reasoning is that they're fully focused on playing professionally and don't want to waste time doing work they don't think will benefit them to reaching that goal.
And although that is a respectable point of view, it's not productive, and will definitely not help you and your plans in the future. Why?
Because despite your full commitment to playing professional football, you are one tackle away from being sidelined for the rest of your career.
And remember that once you make it to your first professional contract, you're not guaranteed to stay pro for the rest of your career. The reality of the pro football world is that many players, especially in the lower leagues, are only given 6-month to 1-year contracts, and very rarely 2-year contracts.
This means that once that contract runs out, you're on your own, and if you're not able to get into a team before the deadlines, you are left without a job.
Even if you are able to find a variety of contracts with professional teams throughout the course of your career, many of them will not provide enough in order to guarantee your financial stability once you retire from it.
According to the 2016 FIFPro Global Management Report, less than 2% of players make more than 720,000 USD a year and even less make it to seven figures. So if you thought playing professionally guaranteed your financial future, you are very mistaken.
In total, 45% of professional players make less than 1,000 USD a month, with 21% earning less than 300 USD a month.
Even if you are lucky enough to land yourself outside of this percentage, it's always helpful to have a backup plan in case you get an unfortunate, career-ending injury, or a backup for once you retire from football.
This is why you shouldn't neglect your education, no matter how dedicated you are to your sport.
But balancing your education, which includes hours upon hours of cramming for tests, homework, and projects, with your training for football, be it individual or with a team, is a common problem that sees many students burn out and end up suffering losses on either side.
So how can you, a student-athlete who is looking to succeed not only on the pitch but also in your classes, better be able to manage your day?
In this blog post, you will get 5 quick tips on how to balance your education and football.
1) Identify Your Priorities For The Day
An easy way to be able to better balance your schoolwork and your individual training is by making sure you have your priorities figured out, and dedicate more time to whatever it is that is most important for that moment in time.
For example, if I have a big exam coming up in a few weeks that is extremely vital for my future in education, then maybe prioritizing an extra hour of studying instead of an extra hour on the pitch will help me better prepared for this exam and help me avoid stress, or possibly failing the exam.
On the contrary, if school isn't too strenuous at the moment, and you have a big tournament coming up for your high school or club team, then maybe you can spend the extra time you have in your day preparing with some more individual training at the pitch or at the gym to prepare for that tournament.
By setting your priorities straight and focusing more on what you feel is most important at that point in time, you will better be able to manage your time around your education and your football and see improvements in both areas.
2) Create a Daily Schedule
Having control over your day is a great way to avoid stress and feeling overwhelmed with work and training.
By planning your days ahead of time and setting aside designated times to dedicate to a certain thing, whether it be your homework, your training, your workout, etc, will help you feel more in control and better be able to manage the many different things on your plate.
For example, if you go to school from 8 AM to 2 PM every single day, plan out what you will work on in your free time out of school. From 3 PM to 4:30 PM, you will spend that time training individually and working on your football. From 5 PM to 6 PM, maybe you'll dedicate yourself to improving your physique and strength in the gym. Then maybe from 7 PM to 8 or 9 PM, you can work on any homework or assignments you need to get done for school.
By planning out your day and having an idea of what you want to do and when you want to do it, you will be able to stay more focused on the different things you have to get done, without feeling too overwhelmed.
3) Wake Up Early and Do Something Productive
Something else you can try out to find more time in your day to get stuff done is waking up an hour or earlier in order to get stuff done before you have to get to class.
For example, back in my freshman/sophomore year of high school (before the pandemic), I would go to the gym or train individually before class would start, so that I would have more time after school to work on school, prepare for team training, or possibly train even more.
I would utilize the earlier hours of the day to be more productive and get extra work in.
You could do something similar, where you wake up extra early so you can hit the gym and get an early morning workout before you head to class.
Or maybe you can spend some extra time before class getting some extra homework or assignments done so that you can focus more on football and your training after school.
The most successful people in the world were able to get to where they are because they utilized the early hours of the morning to get extra work in.
So if you're feeling very overwhelmed with time management and feel like you don't have enough time to balance your schoolwork and training, then I highly recommend sacrificing a little bit of sleep and waking up early to give yourself more time.
However, I do want to warn you about the risks of waking up too early.
As an athlete who is constantly training and putting their body under heavy stress, you need to make sure you're sleeping enough to allow your body to recover and stay strong.
So if you're planning to wake up early, make sure you're sleeping at a time where you are getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep to allow for muscle growth and recovery.
4) Find Time For Yourself
Part of the reason why many people feel overwhelmed is that they have a lack of free time and feel choked by the amount of work they have to get done before a certain deadline.
I've been there. I would spend the entire day working and training, and not giving myself any time to enjoy myself or the day at all. Everything was work, work, work, or train, train, and more training.
Because of this, I would burn myself out both mentally and physically, which led to many mental struggles as well as niggling injuries that would further worsen my mental state.
Stress is the key driving force for injuries, mental issues, and that feeling of everything piling up and choking you.
That is why I am heavily recommending that you find at least an hour of the day where you enjoy yourself.
Find time in the day to watch some Netflix, chat with your friends, play some video games, etc. Just find some time away from school and from football for a bit of time every single day in order to avoid that feeling of constraint that comes with responsibility.
Many people romanticize and applaud people who work hard, and for good reason. People who work hard are destined to succeed if they put the hours of deliberate work in. However, there is a difference between working hard and overworking yourself.
If you overwork yourself, you're your own worst enemy, not your teachers for giving you lots of homework, not your coach for making practice every day, it's you!
You are forcing yourself to believe that NO time in the day must be wasted and that every minute of every day must be you working on school and training, and although you are getting stuff done, I can almost guarantee that work isn't 100% quality.
So in order to avoid strain and stress, find times in the day where you give yourself a break from responsibility and enjoy yourself!
Those were 4 tips I personally use to balance school and football. I hope you can try these tips out for yourself take off some of the load on yourself in the process!
Thanks for reading! Alex from GoGrind Soccer Signing off...
Get Up. Go GRIND.
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