Accelerating Progress

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From Coach Traub:

I found that if you are going to win games, you had better be ready to adapt.
Scotty Bowman, Hockey Coach

If I make a mistake, I'm going to make a mistake aggressively and I'm going to make it quickly. I don't believe in sleeping on a decision.
Bo Schembechler, Football Coach
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Making appropriate adjustments is a critical aspect of behavior. No one is perfect and no athlete-as-scientist is successful (doing her best) unless her experiments are helping her move forward? fast. Athletes who learn faster will win more as they progress in the game. Leaders consistently coach themselves to repeat things they do effectively and change things that they could do better. This may be simple at times, but it is quite challenging at others. Unlike the laboratory scientist who controls for all but the experimental variable, the athlete has many factors affecting results at once. Therefore, she must be able to glean information from patterns, not just what worked or did not work one time. Many athletes who are hoping to find an easy means to a difficult end (being a champion) demonstrate an unwillingness to analyze and adjust. Looking or hoping for an easy way out is immature; there are no shortcuts to success. Responding effectively is where leaders get an edge, because if accelerating progress was easy, everyone would do it!Bridging the gap between potential and performance requires courage, honesty, and intelligence. Leaders are fine with learning that their former beliefs are not accurate. They are smart in part because they know what they do not know, and they know that intelligent people have simply become skilled at guessing. Others (e.g., coaches, teammates, and parents) may aid in the search for what works and how to do it, but it is ultimately each athlete?s responsibility to find a way to get the job done. Leaders never stop learning, and they do what is right, even when it means hurting now to help them reach their goals later. In fact, they recognize parallels between weight training and life: more pain usually means more gain. The best leaders even learn to like the right kinds of pain.

Please email feedback to me at aaron@coachtraub.com