Every student athlete wants to succeed. You don’t choose to go to school and spend 40+ hours a week on your sport ON TOP of being asked to perform academically unless it’s something you care about deeply. You want to excel in what you are doing.

Below are five things every student athlete should master in order to succeed.

1) Live A Balanced Lifestyle

Success is an interesting thing — it’s contagious. Have you ever heard the saying, “surround yourself with others who push you to be greater”? Well, just as success is contagious between you and your peers, it is also contagious within your own lifestyle. If you are focusing too much on sport but not enough on academics, family, social life etc… your mind will suffer with an inexplicable burden. To be a truly great student athlete you must take care of all aspects of your life. The success will carry from the classroom to the field, mat, or court. Use the contagious aspect of success to your advantage and excel in everything you do.

2) Be Willing To Learn

Part of being an exceptional student athlete is being able to absorb knowledge everywhere you can get it. In class, focus on comprehending the information presented to you, not just what the teacher is saying or what the lecture slides are urging you to write careful notes on, but learn from the time and work you put in. Learn how to study hard yet efficiently, know what your teachers are looking for in papers and put time into developing those ideas. In your sport, absorb the knowledge all of the coaches have to offer, although it can be frustrating at times there is usually a reason you are the athlete and they are the coach. Learn from everyday in your training, learn what works and helps you get better and what exercise and drills made you feel ready for competition and which ones to stay away from. Most importantly learn from competing. Learn how to be humble in your victories and how to overcome your losses. These lessons from wins and losses will be the lessons you carry with you for the rest of your life.

3) Focus On The Journey

Setting goals is a very common theme among student athletes; to become an all american, national champion, Dean’s list, win a varsity match etc… All of the goals are great and it is a positive thing to have these goals in the back of your mind but really in order to achieve them a student athlete must focus on the journey. Focusing on the journey means being present in the moment and doing all the little things right. Instead of obsessing about your long term goal think about doing what is in-front of you to the best of your ability — go to practice and work as hard as you can, then go home and get your nutrition in the right way, do your homework well and to the best of your ability, and then make sure you get the right amount of sleep. Doing all of these little things right and focusing on being present in the journey will ensure that your dreams and goals do come true.

4) Enjoy Competing

The chances you get to compete while being a student athlete are invaluable. During my collegiate career often times the nerves before a wrestling match left me wondering “Why am I choosing to do this?” After many years of going through the ups and downs, the victories and losses and the adrenaline rushes that are associated with competing it leaves an emptiness inside you when it is all over. So take advantage of your opportunities to compete, embrace the nerves, relish the adrenaline and know that opportunities like that are sparse.

5) Prepare For What’s Next

This point is closely tied to number 4. Once you run out of opportunities to compete, whether it is through injury or simply the end of your senior season, every student athlete needs to be ready for that void. An empty hole in your being, where before all the hours of training and honing your skills and attributes went to being the best student athlete you can be. After that is over make sure you set yourself up for success rather than post athletic depression. Do something you are passionate about, something where you can compete, and work with people who will value you for the student-athlete in you. The student athlete that needed and enjoyed competing, works hard in everything they do, and strives for success.

-Max Wessell — InXAthlete Co Founder

Hiring an entry level employee is one of the biggest challenges HR departments and recruiters all over the country face. Although one might think that hiring out of college for entry level positions is easy and certainly a lower risk than higher paid mid management and executives, this is not the case. Hiring out of college, an employer has very little to go off of. You merely have access to information such as a resume, their academic accolades (which is becoming more and more controversial on whether that leads to a good business professional), and how they carry themselves in an interview. This is in stark contrast to the wealth of knowledge you find when looking for someone with previous work experience for mid management and executive level jobs. These candidates have years of business and professional world experience for your HR and recruiting departments to lean on when making a decision. This begs the question, what constitutes a great out of college entry level hire?

When most businesses look to hire out of college, they look for the presence of the soft skills that one may possess that would suggest they are top level talent, but what exactly are those soft skills? In a recent NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) study, 160 national employers were surveyed. Of those 160 Employers the top five traits they sought in a college grad were:

1. Leadership
2. Ability to work in a team
3. Communication skills
4. Ability to overcome adversity/ problem solve
5. Hard work ethic

These top five traits mattered more to employers than other standout attributes like computer skills, creativity, being detail oriented, and analytical skills.

Let’s take a look at the top five skills employers look for when searching for graduates out of college. Leadership, ability to work in a team, communication skills, ability to overcome adversity, and hard work ethic. Now if you read that aloud it sounds a lot like you are describing an athlete. All of these skills are soft skills that take years of training to master. They are not technical skills or even skills that are so much associated with academia, like the aforementioned analytical skills or computer skills. It starts to make sense why employers would want to look for collegiate athletes when hiring young men and women with very little previous work experience. The skill set Student Athletes develop when honing their skills, balancing academics and athletics, training with a team, and competing day in and day out are the same traits that make a great employee.

That is why we created InXAthlete. We developed a simple and efficient platform that connects you, the employers, with Student Athletes looking for jobs and internships. We not only want the Student Athletes to succeed — we also want to see business, big and small, to excel in their out of college hiring practices and see a return on next level talent.