Coaching. It's a word that can mean quite a few different things to different people. It can be a hobby, a passion or a job. For the very lucky, it can be a combination of of two of those three.
it is rare today to find a coach who’s really loves coaching. Yes, I know, there are coaches who SAY they love coaching, but in reality rare is the coach who truly loves every aspect of coaching. I spent 27 years in coaching, if I didn't love it on some level, I would think I would have given up at some point. I wrote two prior posts on the frustrations we sometimes experience as coaches. You can read them via these links i-give-up-i-quit-ok-so-see-you-all-tomorrow.html i-give-up-i-quit-ok-so-see-you-all-tomorrow-part-2.html But back to today's subject. Many coaches will tell they love truly love coaching, but often most coaches love the fun ( maybe non administrative parts) of coaching. You know, like the winning, or teaching, or fine-tuning a technique. Those are chunks of coaching. But it’s rare to find a person who loves it ALL. Yet, there are THOSE coaches. They are easy to recognize. They’re smiling, enjoying themselves, and are happy regardless how things are playing out on the competitive field. Okay, they might be focused, showing a frown, or using an emphatic manner to get a point across, but inside they’re loving it, EVERY moment. And other coaches just want to smash them right in the face. Why? Jealousy perhaps. The “in-love” coach has found something those other coaches just can’t get their hands on. And they want it. So how do YOU find the pure love of coach, if you don’t already have it? Far be it for me to go into deep philosophical discussion about love. I can’t and you’d be gone in a second, but I will tell you this, if you are going to love coaching in it’s entirety, you have to WORK at it. It’s worth it and can take your coaching to a new level — but it is not easy to do. With that in mind let’s focus on three areas that are known love-killers for coaches. Practices Practice is where you spend the most amount of time. In my sport of soccer, I probably spent around 20 hours of practice and preparation time for every game. That puts the ratio around 13 minutes of practice to 1 minute of competition time. I learned long ago if I didn’t love practice coaching wasn’t going to be the right place for me. So how did I find ways to love my practices? First, there has to be control so I feel that I can teach — teaching is the part I love most about coaching. Second, I try to surround myself with athletes and coaches who truly want to be there — who are motivated. Third, I let the little stuff stay small, and focus on the big stuff. Failures So often in coaching what we think WILL happen, or what we believe SHOULD happen, doesn’t. A big part of coaching is preparing for when outcomes aren't as expected. The most important thing to retain about coaching is that in the end there is one winner, of the game, of the league, of the championship. So using soccer, at best, 50% of all team lose games ( ok there are ties but that is just disappointing for both teams), at worst, every team but 1 DOESN'T win the championship. Loving and embracing failure isn’t easy, but it’s critical to loving your coaching. How do you do that? Try:
Building on small victories Big victories are great. Yup, and so is winning the lotto. But neither of those happen as often as the small victories. Small victories get ignored or taken for granted. Too bad, since small victories just might be the only victories a coach has in a season. What would be a small victory? A “C” student getting a “B+” on exam. An athlete grasping a technical aspect that has eluded her. A great demonstration of sportsmanship by your competition. Celebrating those will help you find the love in your coaching. If you are going to coach only for year, forget everything I’ve said. Thinking of staying in coaching longer? Then find the love, and the more you find the longer your coaching tenure will be and the more you will enjoy it. Ok, so you decide that you agree with those points. They make sense to you, then what can you do next? Grab paper and write down the parts of coaching you hate. Maybe hate is too strong a word (maybe not). Regardless, what do you struggle with? Recruiting? Fundraising? Budgeting? Write it down. Now, pick one, and devise a plan to either:
For my personally, I have look back and say " I loved every aspect of coaching" . I don't have to qualify the statement because I am not actually coaching anymore. It was never my full time job, but my hobby and my passion ( and for a significant part of the time I was compensated for it). However, being honest, with every team, every different level, with different athletes, like with anything else in life, there were parts I really liked and parts I really disliked ( but doesn't mean I didn't do them or apply myself as best as possible to get them done). Throughout most of my coaching career, I was often told how well organized I was for all the administrative tasks. How well I planned things out. Great. loved the feedback, but let me share a secret, I hated the admin tasks. I might have been good at it, but that is because those tasks closely resembled my full time work. Admin tasks where not my passion, I wasn't good at them because I loved them, I was applied myself to do them because 1) they were a necessary evil of my coaching duties 2) if things were well planned out and organized, more often than not, it allowed me to focus more time and energy to the "fun" parts of the coaching. So if you want to really get involved in coaching, be one of those that truly loves coaching, embrace everything about it, give off that aura that makes other coaches jealous and want to punch you in the face.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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