Maybe It's Not Them

Every team is different. Even when there are some of the same girls from the previous year, the dynamic is different. But for some reason, we were on the same emotional roller coaster as the year before. So I began to examine myself and my feedback patterns. My job and passion as a coach is to help the girls not hurt them. Sometimes as coaches, we need to step back and feel what it is like to be coached by ourselves.

As a coach there is some balance between teaching the mental challenges of letting go of mistakes and also talking about mistakes. When I listened to myself, I was focused too much on how many mistakes we were making and I think it was backfiring. My motive and method were intended to help and motivate but for this group it didn't work.

So after one very rough tournament, I made some different choices the following weekend. The first match of our pool turned out to be the toughest one of the day. We only play 2 sets so the point differential matters. We were winning 23-22. We lost 25-23. The last 3 points that they scored were on our hitting errors. So after I put in the line up for the second game, I walked over to the team and said "great game". Because it was. Everything in me wanted to say something about the 3 hitting errors we had just made - in a row. The reality is: they don't need my help in feeling bad about their mistakes.

And it worked. I could see their countenance change when I didn't focus on the 3 hitting errors they had just made. And we won the next set.

#coachforhisglory