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Trying to be a leader in the company that you work for is not always an easy thing to do. You have to stand up and be the guiding force for a number of employees; stress, much? Millennials want to have it all and then some, and rightly so, as long as they are willing to work for it, the world is their oyster. The thing is, not everyone necessarily knows how to be a good leader, and that’s where you need to look back into the past to work it out.

Almost every single child between the ages of five and fifteen participates in some kind of organized sport. Participating in sport can offer many different lessons to those involved. There are just certain values that sport teaches you that you carry into your adulthood without even realizing it most of the time. Millennials who want to be great leaders should look back on their past and draw some inspiration from their time on the field. Below, we have some of the life lessons that participating in sport can get for you, so that you can be a far more effective leader in the office today.

Discipline. One of the things that you would have learned on those weekends at the baseball diamond is what is a fungo bat used for. You’d remember how it was used to practice, practice, practice and your coach would always use it to help you to learn how to hit a fly ball. The discipline that you would teach yourself by being determined to hit every one of those poppers can carry over to your current role. You need to remember to push yourself toward success, and that’s exactly what baseball teaches.

Respect. Playing in a team includes respecting those around you and your leaders. You may be the person in charge of your team, but you’ll have a whole management board above you that you need to listen to. Their inspirational effect on you will teach you how to have respect for their leadership and help you to learn how to be a better leader yourself.

Overcoming Adversity. Sports are hard. Not many people could get up and do what an athlete could do on a daily basis. Everyone goes through hard times with their career, athletes included, and you can really bring your skills of overcoming adversity to the office to help you get out of your own rut.

Resilience. As with the sports field, you cannot always win at work. There will be times that you will fail, but a failure is nothing but a first attempt in learning. You can overcome whatever you need to with the right level of resilience.

We’re not suggesting you hunker down with the latest video game in the hope of learning sporty life lessons, but there is so much that sports could teach you. Drawing on old inspiration can reignite the fire that you feel in your job – don’t be afraid to grab it with both hands.