The year that was 2018 was fairly significant for me in terms of life changes, personal growth and a few moments of realization. Of course as anyone who might regularly read my blog and see my tweets would know, I retired from coaching after 27 years. In conjunction with this, I was inducted into the Lac St Louis Soccer region Hall of Fame ( this is the region in which the club where I started coaching belongs to and with which I am considered affiliated). These events made my quite reflective on my coaching career, my contributions to the sport, to women's soccer, to women in sport, but also on how my involvement in coaching impacted my life and personal growth.
This past year also saw me reconnect with some high school friends, attend a small reunion and in conjunction with my retirement from coaching, it added to the nostalgia and self reflection about the path my life has taken up until now. I have shared different thoughts about my life both in coaching but some general and very personal thoughts via this blog as it has become a way for me to express myself but also as a way for me process emotions, feelings, perceptions and thoughts somewhat openly, something I guess I am not really known for in person. Following getting together with some former high classmates, I had a run of blog posts where I reflected back on high school, talking about high school memories, friendships and how I perceived myself to be back then and who I think I am today. I am not generally one to open up very easily about my personal feelings and emotions, at least not with many people but someone blogging has given me a venue with which to do so. However, and now the crux of today's topic, the most important factor in sharing opinions and perceptions is being open to having a well balanced and sometimes diverse vision. Just because seems true to me doesn't me it is. So what if I got it all wrong? What if how I perceive who I was, who I have become and what I have given back to my athletes through coaching is completely wrong ? Sometimes we imagine ourselves as different than what we really are. We think we are one way, at least we picture ourselves as this, and yet in reality we do not fit this picture. We may think we are kind and gentle, when in truth we have very little patience for things. We may see ourselves as open minded and respectful of diverse opinions, but we hate to be wrong. However we picture ourselves, it is good to see ourselves for who we really are. Perception can be altered, whether it is how we see the world or how we see ourselves. All it takes is a little honesty, without trying to make ourselves feel better, which is what we usually do when we see what we call faults in ourselves. We try to feel better about it, and this often means we find ways to alter our behavior. We try to change how we are to supplement our perceived faults. We are far better off just seeing ourselves for who we are, and leaving it at that. In our everyday lives, we build about perceptions about ourselves through interactions with others. We try and gauge how they might see us, what they might think about us and once we have created the perception, we seek out signs that will either validate or contradict what we perceive as being reality. For me, one example is how my involvement in coaching might have affected the lives of my athletes or how I might have done my part to help further then women's game and the equitable treatment of female soccer players. However, have I ? I don't have any true measurable evidence that my involvement actually impacted anyone or anything. Some might argue that being inducted into a Hall of Fame was a sign of recognition but it is really? Someone nominated me ( I actually don't really know who), some others looked at my documented coaching path and made a decision that I was worthy. However, did they ask my athletes if I made any difference in their lives? Is there some empirical data that can unequivocally state that women's soccer is somehow a little better because of my efforts? Knowledge about perception vs reality is an ongoing eternal process. We never really go from “wrong” to “right” or "true" to"false" once we with the discovery of additional information about ourselves or about other's opinions of us. Rather, we go from partially wrong to slightly less wrong, to slightly less wrong than that, to even less wrong than that, and so on. As we discover new information, we might adapt our behavior or actions in such a manner that might render serve to show that what others might think of us is not accurate. Therefore, from a perspective of self-awareness, we should not seek to find the ultimate “right” answer for ourselves, but rather seek to chip away at the ways which we’re wrong today so that we’re a little less wrong tomorrow. We need to have an open-mind and be ready to discover that who we thought we were, or at least how we thought we might be seen by others is wrong. When looked at from this perspective, personal development can actually be quite scientific and not tied into emotions. The hypotheses we want to test are the perceptions we have of our ourselves. Our actions and behaviors are the experiments. The resulting internal emotions and thought patterns are our data. We can then take those and compare them to our original beliefs and then integrate them into our overall understanding of our needs and emotional make-up for the future. It is quite possible, we really are the person we imagine ourselves to be deep down, but our the actions, body language and verbal cues with give off publicly can distort who others see. The reason behind this inconsistency between who we thing we are, who we want to be and how others see ourselves can occur for many different reasons, anything from fear of being judged, the need or desire to conform to convention or because we might have had negative experiences in the past acting a certain way. For example, let’s say that I have started blogging on a more regular basis because deep down since I have always enjoyed reading, I might harbor some aspirations to be a professional writer. It starts with some assumptions, that I have something to share, that I am creative, that I am both comfortable sharing my thoughts and opinion, that people will enjoy my writing, and that I would be happy writing every day, and so on. Then what ? The answer is easy. I write. A lot. I try and find topics I think I am qualified to write about ( soccer, coaching, maybe my personal path in life), I might try and throw in some short stories to test out my creativity. Then I share them and hope to be able to gauge people's interest. Sharing via my blog is a way to test those perceptions I have about myself out in the real world and get real-world feedback and emotional data from them. When I started blogging initial, I tried to post something every so often and for all I knew it could have turned out that I didn't enjoy writing every day as much as I thought I would. As I started writing more and more, there were ( and still are ) moments where I realize that while I seem to have many thoughts going on in my mind there are actually times that I have a lot of trouble expressing some of them. There is a stark realization that there is a need for validation when you write not to mention a lot of failure and rejection involved in writing, which kind of takes the fun out of it. This, in a nutshell, is called life. Or at least what life should be. But somewhere along the way we all became so obsessed with being “right” about our lives that we never end up living it. So fact, what I've realized is that I enjoy writing, not so much for sharing and the hope that some or many are reading it but simply as a type of relaxing activity. I actually wrote a post about writing in the past. If interested you can find it here. writing-for-personal-benefit-and-growth.html However, again that isn't the main topic today. It is often said that people don’t take action because they’re afraid of failure. Someone is single and is always talking about wanting to meet someone and yet, they never put themselves out there or get out of the house. Or, those friends we all have who complain about their work, about how they feel they deserve better pay or a promotion but never confront their boss about it. The conventional wisdom about these examples is that they’re simply afraid of failure, of rejection, of someone saying “no.” But it goes beyond that. Sure, rejection hurts. Failure sucks. But there are certainties we hold onto which we are afraid to question or let go of, certainties which meet our needs and give our lives meaning. Not getting out there to date in order not having to confront perceptions about desirability and self-esteem. Or not requesting a meeting with the boss to discuss possible promotions or a salary review because it might actually challenge the self held perceptions about the value of one's work or whether they are actually productive or not. These type of certainties are designed to give us moderate comfort now by mortgaging greater happiness later. They’re terrible long-term strategies. These are the certainties that keep us in place and out of touch. I can tell myself that I will let others judge whether I was a good coach or not, I can let others express how I might have had some impact in their lives but that I for my part I am comfortable in the knowledge that I always did my best. However if I am honest, that is also a bit of a cop out, like saying that others' opinion of me don't matter and don't affect how I view my contributions. I have never been worried about other's judgements, in the sense that I didn't let the specter of how others might perceive my decisions affect making them. I have been a manager in the work place since I was 27 years old and spent 27 years coaching, both leadership roles and I always prioritized being fair, transparent and consistent over making decisions in order to be liked. Doesn't mean that hearing criticism or complaints didn't hurt, I am a human being, of course it has an effect on me, however, when you accept any type of leadership role, it is a reality of the role that you will not make everyone happy and some will simply not like you. However, I am talking in the bigger sense, was the "good" I hoped my coaching was doing, were the primary reasons behind my actions and commitment, those the drove me to continue giving of myself, really what I thought they were? Does my longevity and the perceived recognition I might have gotten along the way validate my commitment? What if maybe accomplishment something great and long lasting in life has less to do with the ability to be right all the time and more to do with the ability to accept we just might be wrong some or lots of the time. What if we take those moments when we are wrong as a way to ensure we can improve moving forward. So maybe I should try it, assuming that I am wrong, about everything. What would that mean? Where might it lead me? Whatever doubts I might be having right now, what if I approached them with some uncertainty. What if asked myself, “What if I was wrong about "this" or about myself?” Because in most likelihood, it is quite possible that how I perceive myself, compared to what others think is very different. Maybe I simply am very wrong just like everybody else might also be. Is it really so bad ? Actually no, it can actually be good news. Because being wrong means being open to change. It means being open to improvement. Every generation looks back at the past and points out all the errors that were made and how things could have been done better. We also have older individuals ( like myself ), who talk about " things today" and how they changed in ways that don't make sense. Imagine if we for once looked at who we were, regardless of what we thought we were, and just were, instead of trying to realign ourselves with what we think we are. We let go of our identity of self and our judgments of who we are. We let go of the trying, the act, and the effort that goes into our lives. Our reality fades from trying to keep up a persona to one that is at ease with the world. You will find the more you let go of who you think you are, the easier it is to be you. Now, this is not just about faults, but about all areas of your persona, for who we are underneath everything is who we are meant to be. It is us who gets in the way of being who we really are. We can carry false ideas of ourselves around for our whole lives, they can weigh us down and make us do things we don't really want to do. All because we once decided this was who we were. Usually any perception we have about ourselves tends to be negative or it can be on the other end with highly placed approval, again the balancing act. We try very hard to keep the scales even, even in our own mind. Let's tip the scales and be done with them. Let's throw away the good and the bad. Let's have no idea of who we are. It may seem deep and perhaps a little hard, but it can be done, for all we are really doing is letting go of the judgment we feel for ourselves. We are letting who we really are be there. Perhaps there is a part of yourself that feels unused, covered up, and waiting for release. Perhaps this idea of who you are really doesn't fit any longer. We change, and often our perception of ourselves doesn't. Maybe there was one time in your life where you were stingy or untrustworthy, but are you still, and is it fair to hold onto that, fair for you? What if we got rid of everything, all of the ways we see ourselves, and just left it open. What if we did not look for a identity. So much is connected to how we see ourselves. It controls our behavior, attitude, and how we relate to others. When we let it go, we are free to be ourselves completely. Stop identifying yourself by what you think you are. Let go of how you see yourself, so you can be you. When you do, you will feel so much better, happier, and freer because of it. So what if am wrong about how I am, what I have accomplished and how I am perceived? I guess I can only approach like I approach most things in my life. This is me, this is who I am, I can't change my errors of the past, just simply focus on my actions of the future.
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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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