default
Member
From Coach Traub:
Today?s Mental Skills Tip ? I look for role models. I've met or studied many high achievers who appear to have earned the right to be satisfied with what they already know. However, the highest achievers are consistently the people who are the most eager to learn more. For example, Michael Johnson didn't stop improving when he became a World Champion sprinter. It was his continuous drive to be the best he could be that allowed him to set World Records and stay on top for his entire professional career (all 19 of his medals in the Goodwill Games, World Championships, or Olympics are Gold Medals). It's an ironic fact of life that the people who need the most humility usually have the least, while the people who seem to need it the least usually have the most.
Life really is, as author of Peter Pan Sir James Matthew Barrie says, a "long lesson in humility." I've been learning... Experience teaches that when I am performing great and I get over-confident, something will happen very soon to cause me to lose my "flow." If I am not open to criticism, someone else will surely learn what I missed and pass me on the way up the ladder. If I am not respectful of others, I will forfeit my chance at the teamwork it takes to approach my own potential. Even in individual sports, I am much more powerful with the support of others. If I am not intense in my approach because I start believing this won't be too difficult, I will not give a best effort performance. If I lose my sense of urgency because I don't think the opponent is capable of humbling me, I sometimes get lucky - but I often pay a hefty price and lose when I certainly could've (most would say "should've") won. Why take that chance (and build poor habits in the process)?
Does the importance of humility defy the importance of confidence or interfere with aggressiveness? Not at all. Great athletes are confident, aggressive, and humble. They respect that giving a best effort performance is always difficult. Life and performance are balancing acts, but champions don't fall over because they maintain a hunger to learn and an eagerness to work. It is their preparation that allows them to consistently perform at a high level. Performance will always have ups and downs because people, by definition, are imperfect. However, with a disciplined, humble approach, great athletes achieve superior consistency because their dips in performance are shallow, not deep "slumps." Likewise, their peak performances occur more frequently and last longer. Their humility breeds their consistency!
COACHING POINT - How do you work with an "uncoachable" athlete, perhaps a teenager with no humility? Do you give up on him when progress stalls or show the consistency of your high expectations and your commitment to your players by staying with (and on) him? Do you complain about his stubbornness or view it as a worthwhile test of your coaching skill? It is the rare, fortunate coach whose players hang on his every word. Of course, providing great advice based on years of training and then watching it get totally ignored can be very frustrating... if you allow it to be. If what you're doing doesn't seem to be working, keep trying (often with a twist in your strategy). What alternative is there? Even if you don't ever reap the benefits of your great work, that kid probably will. It may take years, but your persistence and creativity will probably allow the lesson to sink in long before it would've without your help -- and down the road this could be the difference between him keeping his job and getting fired. Does that difference down the road help you, a coach who loves to win games this year? Absolutely. Your win total might not increase at all and you may not get any of the credit from peers that you deserve, but it is a great truth of this life that you cannot help another without helping yourself.
Today?s Mental Skills Tip ? I look for role models. I've met or studied many high achievers who appear to have earned the right to be satisfied with what they already know. However, the highest achievers are consistently the people who are the most eager to learn more. For example, Michael Johnson didn't stop improving when he became a World Champion sprinter. It was his continuous drive to be the best he could be that allowed him to set World Records and stay on top for his entire professional career (all 19 of his medals in the Goodwill Games, World Championships, or Olympics are Gold Medals). It's an ironic fact of life that the people who need the most humility usually have the least, while the people who seem to need it the least usually have the most.
Life really is, as author of Peter Pan Sir James Matthew Barrie says, a "long lesson in humility." I've been learning... Experience teaches that when I am performing great and I get over-confident, something will happen very soon to cause me to lose my "flow." If I am not open to criticism, someone else will surely learn what I missed and pass me on the way up the ladder. If I am not respectful of others, I will forfeit my chance at the teamwork it takes to approach my own potential. Even in individual sports, I am much more powerful with the support of others. If I am not intense in my approach because I start believing this won't be too difficult, I will not give a best effort performance. If I lose my sense of urgency because I don't think the opponent is capable of humbling me, I sometimes get lucky - but I often pay a hefty price and lose when I certainly could've (most would say "should've") won. Why take that chance (and build poor habits in the process)?
Does the importance of humility defy the importance of confidence or interfere with aggressiveness? Not at all. Great athletes are confident, aggressive, and humble. They respect that giving a best effort performance is always difficult. Life and performance are balancing acts, but champions don't fall over because they maintain a hunger to learn and an eagerness to work. It is their preparation that allows them to consistently perform at a high level. Performance will always have ups and downs because people, by definition, are imperfect. However, with a disciplined, humble approach, great athletes achieve superior consistency because their dips in performance are shallow, not deep "slumps." Likewise, their peak performances occur more frequently and last longer. Their humility breeds their consistency!
COACHING POINT - How do you work with an "uncoachable" athlete, perhaps a teenager with no humility? Do you give up on him when progress stalls or show the consistency of your high expectations and your commitment to your players by staying with (and on) him? Do you complain about his stubbornness or view it as a worthwhile test of your coaching skill? It is the rare, fortunate coach whose players hang on his every word. Of course, providing great advice based on years of training and then watching it get totally ignored can be very frustrating... if you allow it to be. If what you're doing doesn't seem to be working, keep trying (often with a twist in your strategy). What alternative is there? Even if you don't ever reap the benefits of your great work, that kid probably will. It may take years, but your persistence and creativity will probably allow the lesson to sink in long before it would've without your help -- and down the road this could be the difference between him keeping his job and getting fired. Does that difference down the road help you, a coach who loves to win games this year? Absolutely. Your win total might not increase at all and you may not get any of the credit from peers that you deserve, but it is a great truth of this life that you cannot help another without helping yourself.
Steffi Graf, "When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win."
Carl Banks, "I never underestimate an opponent. A guy might be small in stature, but he can be very tough inside."
Carl Banks, "I never underestimate an opponent. A guy might be small in stature, but he can be very tough inside."
Benjamin Franklin, "To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness."
Albert Einstein, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Coach Wooden Quotes-of-the-Month: "If I am through learning, I am through."
"Be slow to criticize and quick to commend."
Albert Einstein, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Coach Wooden Quotes-of-the-Month: "If I am through learning, I am through."
"Be slow to criticize and quick to commend."