There Was This Coach: 6 Motivational Concepts for Great Coaches
Opening reflection:
- Be yourself — besides, everyone else is already taken.
- Write the first name that comes to mind (outside your family); try to have four different ones. Are you a confident person? If so, who gave you that confidence? Who taught you to trust yourself and to be willing to take a risk? Who inspired you to become what you are? Who influenced you to choose this profession? Who provided a vision? Who believed in you when you were young? Have you ever personally thanked those people?
How many successful adults, when you ask what brought them to success, begin with these four words: "There was this coach…"? How many adults still feel like they can't do something because some coach said they couldn't 25 years ago? To change the level of confidence changes the level of success. The ability to motivate is one of the key differences between good coaches and great coaches. Good coaches can encourage and motivate; great coaches motivate through love and modeling and therefore get every ounce of attention and energy from their athletes — they can get people to do all they are capable of and enjoy it. In other words, life changers. Coaches who can motivate have learned how to take a negative and turn it into a positive, how to keep a positive string going, how to reach all kinds of personalities, how to avoid the pitfalls of defeatism, and how to use their personality and the natural influence of this profession to effectively and consistently activate athletes.