500 Words a Week - Reflections & mistakes from my first few years’ full time coaching

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt

My first reflection is holding true to yourself and your values. It took me a while to learn that just being yourself in your coaching is the best route forward. I went through a phase of trying to be someone I’m not, but very quickly realized athletes see right through you when you try to act differently. Eventually, I figured that my style of coaching is getting to know the athletes and trying to make them understand that I have their best interest at heart and what I ask them to do I fully believe will aid them in their sporting careers. Then when there are moments when you have to be strict with your athletes, this will come across as more warranted and genuine if you are confident your athletes have the correct measure of you as person, and your intents as a coach.

“Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” – John Wooden

People have an admiration for being the first in and the last one out. Especially when you are young coach you place an importance on this, I know I did. However, I think as you progress from a career longevity standpoint this is flawed thinking. You have to evaluate whether you are truly doing meaningful work that will benefit you/ your athletes/ your team or are you just desk guarding. Of course there will be times when work is busy and you are required to work long hours, but as soon as the work isn’t meaningful/ beneficial and you’re still staying in late, you may need to re-evaluate where your priorities lie.

“You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.” – Ed Catmull

Strength and conditioning is an always on profession, we frequently take our work home with us, work on our days off, invest significant amounts of time into developing our knowledge and practice to better ourselves and the service we provide which leads to a personal identity crisis. If someone asks who you are, and your first response is “I’m a strength and conditioning coach”, it is likely you are having issues separating yourself from your job title. I know I struggle with this.

From putting all this time into our work, if it gets criticized or someone thinks what we are doing could be better, we immediately take that as an attack on our own person. I know I felt that in the past, but by furthering my sense of identity beyond being an S&C coach I see it less as an attack on my person and more as something that will help my work. However, know there is a difference between constructive criticism and criticism for the sake of criticism.

“Think how comforting it is to be surrounded by people who think in the same way, who mirror our perspectives, who confirm our prejudices. It makes us feel smarter. It validates our world view… these dangers are as ancient as mankind itself.” – Matthew Syed

If you are working in an environment where everyone thinks the same as you, and delivers a similar programme to you, it’s up to you to seek as many different ideas as possible from other resources/ people. Read the work of people/ ideas that you know are different to your work/ ideas, better again read the work of people who completely disagree with your thoughts and views to further expand your knowledge base. Reach out to people from different sports and places, and see what they are doing/ having success with to add more strings to your bow.