The Value and Virtue of Hard Work

By John Leonard

    At SwimFast, our coaches all believe the value of Hard Work. In any field of endeavor, we believe a young person with a strong understanding of effort, consistent hard work and productivity, has a tremendous advantage. This is true from school, to pool, to college and to later working life.

    We value Hard Work for its own sake. The sheer fact of learning to work hard with great effort is a Life Skill of monumental importance in our society.

     In every level of our program from Stroke School to Senior Group, we emphasize that improvement comes from effort and hard, consistent work.

Whether it is the labor of learning to swim the strokes correctly, to consistently “exercising” to later real, planned, consistent “Training”….the young person must learn to apply their full powers, intellectual, physical and emotional, to the task at hand.

In today’s world, this may seem “counter-culture”. Far too many young people are taught that they should be comfortable. Nothing is more destructive in the development of children into young adults and eventually mature adults. The only way to improve is to become “comfortable with being uncomfortable”.  This is true from swimming 10 x 100 on the whatever, to learning a new computer program.  The discomfort phase is necessary and cannot be “shortcut”.

    To develop, children need challenges of all sorts….we give our young people the trait of “confidence” by allowing them to stretch, take reasonable risks, be uncomfortable and GROW. As former SwimFast parent Lynn Offerdahl once said to me…”I get it Coach John, everything we do for our children that they can do for themselves makes them weaker!”

     SwimFast coaches will challenge your children to work hard every day. Please join us in building that life skill.

All the Best,

John Leonard