Parents of competitive or high-performance athletes often wonder: “How do I really know what motivates my child – what makes them tick?”

You see them train, compete, and push themselves to perform, but that doesn’t always reveal who they are beneath the performance.

The truth is, most athletes are so focused on outcomes such as winning, improving, getting noticed that they rarely pause to reflect. They forget to check in with how they’re feeling, what they are thinking, what they’re learning, or why they’re doing it in the first place. Over time, that lack of self-awareness can lead to frustration, burnout, and lack of clarity about what drives them.

As a parent, your greatest opportunity isn’t in solving their problems or managing their schedule, it’s in helping them slow down, reflect, and become aware of themselves. Because when athletes start to understand themselves, you start to understand them.

In our experience at Fortitude 365, the most elite athletes we work with are the most self-aware athletes and self-aware athletes lead themselves first!

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Why Reflection and Self-Awareness Matter

Self-awareness is the foundation of mental performance and emotional health. It helps athletes recognize patterns. When they’re confident or anxious, focused or distracted, motivated or drained.

But self-awareness doesn’t appear automatically. It’s built through reflection, and reflection is often sparked through meaningful conversation.

When you create the space for reflection, you give your athlete a chance to name what’s happening on the inside. And in doing so, you gain powerful clues about what makes your athlete tick. Their values, motivations, stress triggers, and sources of joy. The more clues you learn here, the more you’ll be able to support your athlete.

Research by Wuerth, Lee, & Alfermann (2004) found that open parent–athlete communication fosters motivation, satisfaction, and wellbeing. In other words, when you help them talk and reflect, you help them grow.

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How Parents Can Help Their Athlete Talk and Listen

1️⃣ Get Them Talking with Curiosity

Your tone matters more than your question. Replace interrogation with genuine curiosity.
Try:

• “What part of today’s practice made you feel most alive?”
• “What challenged you in a good way today?”
• “If you could replay one moment, what would you do differently?”

These questions invite your athlete to think, not defend. They open the door to deeper self-understanding.

2️⃣ Model Listening – So They Learn to Listen Too

If you want them to talk, you need to model listening.

• Give your full attention. No phones, no multitasking.
• Reflect back what you hear: “It sounds like you felt frustrated when that drill didn’t go right.”
• Avoid jumping to fix it. Let silence do the work.

When you listen without judgment, you teach them to listen – both to you and to themselves.

3️⃣ Encourage Reflection and Self-Awareness

Reflection helps athletes connect dots between effort, emotion, and performance.

• Ask: “What did you notice about yourself out there today – mentally, emotionally, or physically?”
• Encourage them to write or voice-note short reflections: What went well? What did I learn? What do I need next?
• Share your own reflections too – model that self-awareness is a skill for life, not just sport.

Over time, these moments of reflection reveal what truly makes your athlete tick — what fuels them, what frustrates them, what they care about most.

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What It All Leads To – The Real Win

The goal of understanding what makes your athlete tick isn’t simply to decode their personality, it’s to help them know themselves deeply enough to lead themselves.

When athletes reflect regularly and become self-aware, three powerful things happen:

1️⃣ Clarity – They start to understand who they are, not just what they do. They recognize their patterns, triggers, and motivations. That clarity gives them direction and ownership. It will also help you support them.

2️⃣ Connection – They communicate more openly and honestly, building trust with you and with their coaches. This creates psychological safety, a space where they can be real, not just “on.”

3️⃣ Confidence – They learn to self-regulate under pressure, recover faster from mistakes, and draw motivation from within rather than from outside approval.

Ultimately, when your athlete becomes more self-aware, you gain insight into what makes them tick, and they gain the inner tools to manage themselves, both in sport and in life.

That’s the real win, not just better performance, but a more grounded, self-aware, and resilient person who knows who they are, why they compete, and how to keep developing as an athlete and a person.

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Final Thought

At the heart of every athlete is a story waiting to be understood, and self-awareness is the key that unlocks it.
When you take the time to help your athletes reflect, listen, and express what’s happening inside, not only will you learn what makes them tick, but they will take action and regulate their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and more importantly take action.

That awareness builds clarity, connection, and confidence, not just in sport, but in life. Because the goal isn’t to raise a perfect performer.

It’s to raise a self-aware, resilient, and grounded human being who knows who they are, why they compete, and how to keep growing long after the final whistle.

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Action for Parents

This week, take five minutes after a game or practice to ask your athlete one reflective question.

Then simply listen.

No advice. No lecture.

Just curiosity and care.

The goal isn’t to fix it’s to understand. The more they learn to reflect, the clearer their motivations become for both of you.

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Resource of the Week

Book:The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary​

A brilliant guide to seeing and understanding your child beyond behavior and performance through awareness, presence, and connection.

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