Take care of the person and the players will take care of themselves
The messenger is just as important as the message. People who are respected and connected can exert enormous influence over others. This “power of one” can be used to influence positive behavior or task completion, however, their athletes must accept this individual as a man of character and respectability for the influence to take hold. Character has nothing to do with the way you write a program or your exercise selection. Character is derived from how you carry yourself and how you interact with others. Too many coaches view their athletes as commodities that have a four-year shelf life. To be successful, you must find a way to connect and see your athletes as human beings who have lives outside of athletics that influence their moods (both highs and lows) and adds volume in the form of stressors that can be recognized and overcome.
Success is more than the challenge of reaching the next level. It is a measure of who we are. It is the reward for setting high standards of who we want to be, and then working hard to become that person. Quite often there is no tangible reward for achieving success, but merely the satisfaction that we are better now than when we started. The most powerful incentive is our own evaluation of our behavior and accomplishments.
Often athletes react to their tasks and environment as if they were on autopilot, mindlessly plodding through their activities. They don’t consider how their immediate actions connect to their values and personal standards. This means that when they make mistakes, it is not as if they are choosing to do the wrong thing, but more that they are not choosing at all. It is that lack of thought, or lack of presence, that enables the wrong action.
Athletes won’t attempt or be compliant in a program unless two conditions exist. First they must believe the activity is worth the effort, and secondly they must believe that they can do what is required. Not to say that the activity must not challenge the edges of their performance level, however, they must believe they are up to the challenge. If not, why try? Fear of failure is a very real deterrent.
Despite the fact that most coaches are convinced that athletes who show poor self-discipline need to exert a stronger will, the truth is demanding that they suck it up, dig down, or show character doesn’t improve performance. More likely, by breaking down complex tasks into achievable short-term goals, providing constant feedback of progress, allows those athletes to continue on until the end.
Many coaches fear that rewarding incremental improvement means rewarding mediocrity. That cannot be farther from the truth. What you are rewarding in these situations is effort and more importantly focused effort on the right behavior. If all we ever do is reward the final outcome, athletes will find the short cut to achieve the outcome and thus we reward behavior that ultimately hurt the team.
Build mini goals. By focusing on small goals, monitoring them daily, and meeting them, athletes focus on something they can see and control. This self-efficacy clarifies the intent of the program, validates its effectiveness, and increases or motivates compliance. You have to make sure that the expectation of success grows concurrently with their ability.
Rewards and punishments can get tricky quickly. Rewards should be linked to small, measurable tasks that are achievable in small increments, not always held out until a bigger task is achieved. Often the lack of small measure celebration leads to athletes mulling over whether the endeavor is actually worth it.
Viewing being unsuccessful as failure creates anxiety, tension, and pain that are unnecessary. Failure cannot be avoided. The best in the world are unsuccessful at times, so it is safe to assume that your athletes will be unsuccessful at times as well. By seeing a lack of success as an opportunity to learn and improve, it makes the experience more tolerable to the point that it allows us to develop. Setbacks are lessons in improvement; they are the only way we can progress. When athletes think about the experiences that have taught them the most, they most likely involve times they have failed or have faced monumental challenges. Self-confidence comes from knowing our weaknesses and learning from our failures. Self-esteem comes after an accomplishment. Too much of it and we will believe that we have arrived before the journey has begun. It should be a byproduct of success.
Taking risks is part of being alive. It is a natural progression to living greatly. However, getting your athletes to take risks, which includes potentially failing, is a matter of trust. They must trust you the strength coach, not that your programming is solid, but more that you are there for them when they fail. They must trust that you care about them as a person, not just the end result. They need to believe and trust that you will help them up when they fall, without ridicule or contempt for the shortcoming. Only when they believe this and trust you, will they risk and thus achieve greatness they never imagined.
