Coaches Toolbox

A Creed for Self-Discipline

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A Creed for Self-Discipline

by Napoleon Hill

Willpower:

Recognizing that the power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise it daily, when I need the urge to action for any purpose; and I will form habits designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.

Emotions:

Realizing that my emotions are both positive and negative I will form daily habits which will encourage the development of the positive emotions, and aid me in converting the negative emotions into some form of useful action.

Reason:

Recognizing that both my positive emotions and my negative emotions may be dangerous if they are not controlled and guided to desirable ends, I will submit all my desires, aims and purposes to my faculty of reason, and I will be guided by it in giving expression to these.

Imagination:

Recognizing the need for sound plans and ideas for the attainment of my desires, I will develop my imagination by calling upon it daily for help in the formation of my plans.

Conscience:

Recognizing that my emotions often err in their over-enthusiasm, and my faculty of reason often is without the warmth of feeling that is necessary to enable me to combine justice with mercy in my judgments, I will encourage my conscience to guide me as to what is right and what is wrong, but I will never set aside the verdicts it renders, no matter what may be the cost of carrying them out.

Memory:

Recognizing the value of an alert memory, I will encourage mine to become alert by taking care to impress it clearly with all thoughts I wish to recall, and by associating those thoughts with related subjects which I may call to mind frequently.

Subconscious Mind:

Recognizing the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to submit to it a clear and definite picture of my major purpose in life and all minor purposes leading to my major purpose, and I shall keep this picture constantly before my subconscious mind by repeating it daily.

Discipline over the mind is gained, little by little, by the formation of habits which one may control. Habits begin in the mind; therefore, a daily repetition of this creed will make one habit-conscious in connection with the particular kind of habits which are needed to develop and control the six departments of the mind.

The mere act of repeating the names of these departments has an important effect. It makes one conscious that these departments exist; that they are important; that they can be controlled by the formation of thought-habits; that the nature of these habits determines one’s success or failure in the matter of self-discipline.

 


Attitude Obstacles and the 85% Rule

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Mike Neighbors is one of the best coaches around to study for the way that he thinks about coaching.

These are some notes on team building from a presentation he made entitled “The Top 25 Things I have Stolen.”

Probably most of these concepts you already know, but if you’re like me, it helps to continually read, revisit, and review the things I believe to keep me focused on them rather than focusing solely on the urgent items that come across our desks every day. I also think that some of the concepts are worth considering sharing with your team.

 

ATTITUDE IS THE DIFFERENCE MAKER Janet Wood, John C. Maxwell

ATTITUDE is NOT everything. A great ATTITUDE does NOT mean we will be successful at whatever we dream.

There are things our ATTITUDE can do and things it can not do.

CANNOT DO:
1) Your attitude cannot substitute for competence
2) Your attitude cannot substitute for experience
3) Your attitude cannot change the facts
4) Your attitude cannot substitute for personal growth
5) Your attitude will not stay good automatically

CAN DO:
1) Your attitude can make a difference in your approach to life
2) Your attitude can make a difference in your relationships with people
3) Your attitude can make a difference in how you face challenges
4) Your attitude can make a difference

THE BIG 5 ATTITUDE OBSTACLES:
1. Discouragement: Are you a splatter or a bouncer?
2. Change: AM/FM, cassette deck, cd player, IPOD jack
3. Problems: flee it, forget it, fight it, face it
4. Fear: breeds fear, causes inaction, weakens us, wastes energy, inhibits potential
5. Failure: wills/won’ts/cants

85% Rule –Ronnie Tollet, Jeff Jannsen

Jeff Janssen is widely considered the world’s top expert on sports leadership. He helps coaches and athletes become world class leaders in athletics, academics, and life. He is the chief architect and lead instructor for cutting edge Leadership Academies at North Carolina, Stanford, Yale, and PITT. As the founder of Janssen Sports Leadership Center, Janssen associates are highly sought after speakers at many of the nation’s top athletic departments including UCLA, Michigan,Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Florida State, LSU, Arizona, and Xavier.

Jeff has lots of great thoughts, ideas, and exercises on developing leadership. In his travels he gets to visit face-to-face with the winningest coaches in sports. He is afforded the opportunity to pick the brains of the coaches and the players. His research is cutting edge. His access to these programs has produced some of the most useable data in existence.

His COMMITMENT CONTINUUM is the one that struck home the hardest with me because of an exercise he did with all of our programs. He asked each coach to list their team roster. Beside each player we were asked to label each player in one of the following categories:

Resistant: complain about coaches, teammates, workouts, conditioning team rules, pull against the goals of team
Reluctant: half effort, wait and see attitude, skeptical, hesitantly do what is asked, not bought in totally
Existent: are there in body but not in mind or spirit, show up but give little, apathetic toward team, go through motions
Compliant: will do what is asked by coaches and leaders, do just enough to get by, have to be pushed to start
Committed: go the extra mile, self motivated, take initiative, will do right even when you aren’t watching
Compelled: higher standard people, no matter the adversity they are there 100%, prepare, train and compete at highest level

After we labeled each player, we were asked to determine what % of our team were on the proper side of the continuum. He then walked around the room looking at the results and correctly predicted every team’s season results. He could tell so many things from this one exercise. But the main thing that stuck with me was that in all of his research NO TEAM HAS EVER WON A CHAMPIONSHIP WITHOUT 85% of the players being Compliant, Committed or Compelled.

Never!!! That’s some useable stuff. His book, The Team Captain’s Leadership Manual
speaks of how to move players from level to level and strategies for dealing with situations that really effect your team and your efforts.

 

continuum


Program Building Gold for Coaches

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One of my favorite coaches to study for my own improvement and the improvement of our program is Kevin Eastman. In addition to speaking to coaches, he is also a sought after speaker in the business world. This post contains some bullet point notes that I have taken from him over the past several years.

As you think about ways to improve your program, I hope that you can apply at least a few of these to improving both your coaching staff and your athletes.

Success lies in the simplicity. Confusion lies in the sophistication.
Encourages athletes to have big eyes, big ears, and a small mouth.
Asks as many purposeful questions anytime he has an opportunity to learn from anyone. “I already know what I know. I don’t know enough. I need to know what you know.”

Be on a mission every day to seek and find new information that will make you a better coach and leader. Then take the time to think deeply about how you can immediately apply your new knowledge to your job.

Be so prepared as a coach that you have the answers before your athletes ask.

7 things he makes the tine to do daily

1) Read for 2 hours on his sport and leadership
2) Spend time in sustained thought focused on improving
3) Plan/Organize how to apply those thoughts
4) Work out
5) Do his job
6) Daily family time
7) Get adequate sleep

Become a learn it all, not a know it all
Be a great question asker
Become a meticulous note taker and organize them to help you be better
Working hard should be a given for everyone in the program. It is the price of admission
To get ahead, do the unrequired work that makes a difference.

No job is too big, no job is too small.
Figure out what you don’t know, then figure out a way to learn it and apply it to improve your team

Make a total commitment to un-distracted thinking time every day.

Seek wisdom from those who came before you.

Wants his athletes to develop an “improvement” stamina, a development discipline that can stand the test of the greatness grind every day…

Mad, Sad, Hard–get over all of those!

The best organizations don’t just see teamwork as an internal necessity; they understand customers/vendors/fans, etc are vital teammates too!

We have all heard “seeing is believing”: so much application to leadership. To get your team to believe they have to see that you believe!

Letting your people know not only that you value them but also letting them know what you value in them gives everyone more confidence/enthusiasm!

A team is a variety of talents, attitudes, and commitments. The leader has to be able to reach them all and get the best out of them!

Best way to get your job done well: 1) Define your job. 2) Do your job. 3) Finish your job. 4) Evaluate your job. Lastly: make adjustments & repeat!

Leadership question. Do you raise the level of your team or maintain it? Constantly evaluate & improve!

Reminder to us all: the circles we travel in have tremendous bearing on how we think; how we view things; and how we make choices. Be careful! We become like the 5 people that we spend the most time with.

Think about changing your mindset by changing your words. For me “problems” have become “challenges” & “competitions” to see if I can solve them!

Two groups you must pay 100% attention to: 1) the group of people (your circle) you travel in; 2) the group of thoughts you allow into your mind!

“Getting there” requires you first to “get in”. Get in the fight. Get in the hours. Get in the work. Get in the study. Get in the mindset!

What you put on paper is most powerful when you put it in front of you on a daily basis. Seeing it makes it become a part of you every day.

What matters most must be taken care of the most. This certainly goes for family but should also apply to it life & career. Self audit this!

Leadership comes with just as many difficult situations as it does with fulfilling moments. You must sign up for both!


Positive Self Talk for Your Athletes

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This article was written by Lindsey Wilson. Lindsey is the Co-Founder of Positive Performance Mental Training Zone. Lindsey played basketball at Iowa State and then played professionally overseas. She has been teaching, writing and speaking about mental training for the last 6 years.

The Truth About Positive Self-Talk

By Lindsey Wilson

There’s a lot out there about positivity and the importance of having a positive mindset: talking to yourself positively, talking to your kids positively, even talking to your pets positively. (Groan… Yes, it’s a thing!)

All this positivity can be a bit much.

And that’s saying a lot, especially coming from someone like me who’s a BIG believer in the power of the glass-is-half-full mentality. The complication with positivity is that it can be hard to distinguish what is actually helpful and what is just, well, fluff.

That’s why I want to talk specifically about self-talk today because, in my opinion, self-talk serves as the basis for so many things in our lives: our beliefs, our outlook, our confidence, how we interact with others, and much, much more. But, I don’t just want to talk about self-talk alone; I also want to dive into the research behind it to make sure this isn’t just another ‘positive self-talk is great’ article. Yay!

Seeing as our focus is athletics, I want to specifically analyze the research looking into the relationship between self-talk and performance. Basically, my big question is:

Is teaching athletes positive self-talk worth it?

So, here we go! This is what I found:

  • Positive self-talk can improve confidence.
  • Positive self-talk does positively affect performance.
  • Self-talk effects motor skill performance more than cognitive performance.
  • Self-talk is best scripted ahead of time and practiced.
  • Research shows there are differences in what type of statements you should say at different times, but…
  • What works for each person is fundamentally a matter of personal preference.
  • Addressing yourself by name or ‘you’ is found to be more powerful than ‘I’ statements.
  • Self-talk should focus on what you should do rather than what you should not do.

First, before we can talk about self-talk in depth, we need to establish a solid definition. More specifically, we need to be able to answer the following questions:

  1. What IS self-talk?
  2. What different types of self-talk are there?
  3. Are there types that are more helpful in certain situations than others?

These questions get really specific, really fast, so let’s start with a basic overview of self-talk and go from there.

Defining Self-Talk

The Mayo Clinic defines self-talk as “the endless stream of unspoken thoughts that run through your head… [that] can be positive or negative.” Furthermore, “[i]f your thoughts are mostly positive, you’re likely an optimist — someone who practices positive thinking.”

Positive thinking, therefore, is the result of positive self-talk, and those can offer multiple health benefits, such as increased life span and increased immunity.

The Mayo Clinic then gives us examples of both positive and negative self-talk:

Putting Positive Thinking Into Practice

Negative self-talk

 

Positive Self Talk

 
I’ve never done it before. It’s an opportunity to learn something new.
It’s too complicated. I’ll tackle it from a different angle.
I don’t have the resources. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m too lazy to get this done. I wasn’t able to fit it into my schedule, but I can re-examine some priorities.
There’s no way it will work. I can try to make it work.
It’s too radical a change. Let’s take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me. I’ll see if I can open the channels of communication.
I’m not going to get any
better at this.		 I’ll give it another try.

The Mayo’s cover-all rule: “Don’t say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to anyone else.”

Simple enough right? Not so fast. Let’s dive into this a little deeper…

TYPES Of SELF-TALK

Research shows there are 4 specific categories of performance-based self-talk:

  • Calming/relaxing (“Take a deep breath.”)
  • Instructional (“Bend your knees.”)
  • Motivational (“Yes! Come on, let’s go!”)
  • Focus (“Don’t think about anything. Just concentrate.”)

This list got me paying attention. Why? Because these categories are all so different. Even for myself, I can see one type of statement working in a certain situation and not working in another. (Leaving the research aside for a moment, this is where I encourage athletes to build up self-awareness and to practice what works with some trial and error.)

But, back to the research…

WHAT TO SAY, WHEN

In Perspectives on Psychological Science[i], a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Thessaly did a meta-analysis on 62 research studies on self-talk. Their analysis revealed that, not only did self-talk improve sports performance, but different self-talk cues work differently in certain situations.

Here is what they found:

    • Instructional self-talk (i.e. “Elbow-up”) is most helpful for tasks requiring fine skills or for improving technique.

Motivational self-talk (i.e. “Give it your all”) seems to be more effective in tasks requiring strength or endurance, boosting confidence and psyching-up athletes for competition.

It is a matter of personal preference or what works for each person; but generally, it is advised that self-talk is positively rather than negatively phrased and focuses on what you should do rather than on what you should avoid…”
Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, researcher at the University of Thessaly

A SMALL TRICK

According to an article in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology[ii], a researcher by the name of Kross and his associates at the University of Michigan did an experiment with one small caveat: participants would either use the word ‘I’ or ‘You/[their name]’ when addressing themselves with their self-talk.

This is what the experiment looked like:

Kross asked volunteers to give a speech. Catch: they were only given five minutes of mental preparation. During the five minutes, he told some to talk to themselves and to address themselves as ‘I’. For the rest of them, their five minutes was spent using ‘you’ or by addressing themselves in the third person (using their own names).

At the close of the study, this is what Kross found:

  • People who used ‘I’ said things like ‘Oh, my god, how am I going do this? I can’t prepare a speech in five minutes without notes. It takes days for me to prepare a speech!’
  • People who used ‘you’ or their own names said things like, “Ethan, you can do this. You’ve given a ton of speeches before.”

Positive self-talk effects your everyday life. Clearly, the people who used ‘you’ or their names sounded more rational and less emotional—perhaps because they were able to get some distance from themselves.

Truly, it sounds like they are coaching themselves.

SELF-TALK CAN INFLUENCE RESULTS!

Research done out of Waseda University in Japan[iii] shows again that motor skills especially are greatly affected by self-talk. The results of their research show that positive self-talk improved physical performance by 11%.

Their research was based around a simple balancing exercise. Students completed the exercise then were given 30 seconds to rest before completing it a second time. In between the sets, students were told to pay attention to their self-talk. Some students reported having negative self talk; others reported positive self-talk; still another group reported using a combination of positive and negative self-talk.

The results were shocking.

Students that reported using positive self-talk exclusively during those 30 seconds were able to hold their balance a full second longer than those who used exclusively negative or had a mix of both negative and positive self-talk.

The positive self-talk resulted in an average balance time of 9.29 seconds, while the other two groups averaged out at 8.29 seconds. This is more than an 11% increase in performance, really close to the proven 15% increase in athletic performance we see with Positive Performance’s mental training.

CONCLUSION

Based on the above findings it’s obvious that teaching athletes how and when to use positive self-talk—that is, using positive self-talk appropriately—is not only a good time investment, but a worthwhile one.

While talking about positive self-talk can seem merely warm and fuzzy, research shows that it is a powerful, actionable tool in achieving one’s peak performance. And, based on our own work with athletes, here are some simple best practices for self-talk education:

6 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE POSITIVE SELF-TALK

  • Self-talk should be practiced ahead of time (outside of competition).
  • While there are best practices, the focus should be less about negative/positive, or good/bad self-talk, and more about what is PRODUCTIVE for athletes in certain situations.
  • Individual preferences are okay.
  • Self-talk should be focused on what should be done, rather than what should be avoided.
  • Different situations might call for different types of self-talk.
  • It is difficult to turn off self-talk. For most people, self-talk is going to happen, for the good or the bad, regardless of whether you work on it. Knowing that, you may as well make the monologue in your head helpful… and positive!

Here’s to athletes everywhere, using self-talk as a tool to find their peak performance every time they step onto the playing field.

P.S. Want to pump up your performance even more? Click HERE to learn about our Competition MasteryTM training and get a FREE sample training.

REFERENCES:

[i] Girodo & Wood, 1979; Goodhart, 1986; Mahoney & Avener, 1977; Van Raalte et al., 1994; Weinberg, 1985

[ii] Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

[iii] Belief in Self-Talk and Dynamic Balance Performance.Kaori Araki (Waseda University, Japan), Joseph K. Mintah (Azusa Pacific University), Mick G. Mack, Sharon Huddleston, Laura Larson, and Kelly Jacobs (University of Northern Iowa).

Athlete Coach-Ability Checklist

I originally made contact with Lindsey after finding her Athlete Coach-Ability Checklist.

I like this resource because:

• There are concrete actionable steps for your athletes to take to improve their coach-ability
• It’s another voice (not yours, not their parents) that just so happens to be a former professional basketball player
• It helps your athletes be more self-aware of things they may not even know they are doing (rolling their eyes for instance!)

The checklist has been downloaded over 3000 times by coaches all across the country! Better yet, it’s FREE and comes in a nice, printable PDF format that you can share with your team. Click here to download it.


13 Ways to Be More Coachable

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This article was written by Lindsey Wilson. Lindsey is the Co-Founder of Positive Performance Mental Training Zone. She has been teaching, writing and speaking about mental training for the last 6 years.

I hope you can find a few points that you can share with your athletes that will have a positive impact on your team.

lindseywilson

13 Ways to be More Coachable

By Lindsey Wilson

Sports are filled with mental challenges, many of which we athletes bring upon ourselves. The coach-player dynamic is only one of the multitude of difficulties we face, but at the same time it is often the most difficult to navigate. And it’s not surprising why: receiving criticism in any area of life is tough – from teachers in the classroom, from the boss on the job, or from family or friends in our personal lives – but being able to graciously receive advice and mentorship is a necessary part of growth.

Today, I want to talk about being coachable. But, first, let’s define it. Being coachable is:

  • Being grateful that someone cares enough about you to push you to improve beyond where you would get on your own.
  • Being vulnerable enough to know you’re not perfect.
  • Being open to honest feedback (even if it hurts).
  • Working to actively change bad habits.

Uncoachable athletes show certain key behaviors. It doesn’t take long for a coach to spot an uncoachable player, and very rarely can a coach make a player coachable.

How does one coach an athlete who fights back? It’s a daunting task.

No question: We athletes can be sensitive people. Though we may look tough on the outside, we can be delicate underneath. In talking with a number of coaches, trying to sort out those characteristics of coachable versus uncoachable players, this is what we discovered about athletes in general:

  • We tend to roll our eyes or take things personally that we shouldn’t.
  • We can seem ungrateful even to those who help us most.
  • We read into things more deeply than we should.
  • We often believe everything is about us, even someone else’s bad day.

As a former collegiate athlete, I’m guilty of all of the above. While I tried my best to be coachable and to not take things personally, my attitude was (and sometimes still is) something that needed constant attention and required constant mental work.

(Becoming more coachable isn’t something that can be achieved with more drills, more reps, or multiple coach-player conferences. Those are external methods of repair that a coach can implement, but a player’s coachability is a mentality that requires diligence and attention from the athlete. In other words: coachability is up to the athlete, not the coach. The worst of it is that, most of the time, athletes don’t even KNOW they’re uncoachable! It can be a shock to find out that it isn’t the coach, it isn’t the team, it isn’t the sport, isn’t the equipment… it’s actually themselves who are making life so hard.)

But, before an athlete can start on the road to becoming more coachable, they first need to understand the benefits of having a coachable mentality. Top 5 potential benefits of being more coachable:

  • More playing time (and less drill or bench time).
  • Greater cohesion with team and/or coaches.
  • Accelerated learning.
  • Deeper and more fulfilling relationships with your coaches.
  • Greater internal calm: accepting criticism for what it is (INFORMATION) instead of what it isn’t (AN ATTACK) requires a solid internal foundation.

13 ways to be more coachable

Now that we’ve established why being coachable is critical to your development as an athlete, let’s go through the steps: 13 Ways to Become MORE Coachable:

    1. Listen to what your coaches say, not how they say it. Easier said than done but, like any skill, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Practice “mean no offense, take no offense” when both speaking AND listening to your teammates and coaches.

 

    1. Trust me: It’s NOT about you. If your coach is having an ‘off’ day, don’t take it personally. You don’t know what happened to them that day. Did they get reprimanded by the athletic director? Did they lose a big recruit? Did they have a fight with their spouse? Is their son failing math? Your coach’s bad day could be a result of any of the other 99% of what is happening in their life. So, odds are, it’s not you.

 

    1. Remember ‘coach’ is only one hat they wear. Many coaches have spouses, children, families, friends, and lives outside of making sure your catered dinner is ready on the road trip. While you are important to them, remember they have lives outside of you. Respect that.

 

    1. They really (REALLY) want you to be your best even if it sometimes comes out sideways. They are there to help you be successful. Trust them.

 

    1. Your coaches are more stressed than you can probably imagine. Give them a break if they aren’t perfect or if their tone isn’t right in line with what you’d prefer.

 

    1. Always say ‘thank you’. In fact, say it more often than you think you need to. Thank your coaches for taking you on a road trip. Thank them for making you watch film (and for editing the film so it’s not as long as it could be!). Thank them for scouting your opponent late into the night. Thank them for totally committing themselves to your improvement. Thank them for holding you to a high standard. And especially thank them during those moments when you don’t feel thankful… those are times when they’re helping you most.

 

    1. Always look your coaches in the eye. Don’t hold your head down. Don’t look away. You want to be treated like an adult, so BE an adult; have confidence and class and look your coach in the eye. Doing so isn’t even for them: it’s for YOU. (Yes – this time it IS about you.)

 

    1. Shocker: Your coach is human, too. They aren’t perfect (and – surprise! – neither are you). Their stresses and emotions get misplaced just like yours do. They get hurt by things you do, say, and they feel pain when you disregard them or don’t appreciate them. (See #6.)

 

    1. Don’t roll your eyes. It’s immature and says more about you than the person you’re offending. (See #7.)

 

    1. If you really have something to say, SAY IT. I’m big on communication. Huge on it, in fact. So, if all else fails and you just don’t get what you need from your coach, be an adult and communicate that in a mature way. Whining about something constantly, or tuning out and not committing yourself to your team, is NOT a solution. In fact, it’s the exact opposite: absolutely detrimental to you, your team, and your coach’s ability to effectively train you.

 

    1. Directly ask for feedback. Your coaches have a whole roster of players to look after and might not always get around to you as quickly as you’d like. Every coach would love to have one-on-one conversations or meetings every day with every player, but that’s simply not a realistic goal. Therefore, if they don’t get to you right away, go to them and ask for their thoughts and feedback.

 

    1. Be prepared. Take five minutes before every practice to release from your mind the rest of your day’s activities. Remember your goals and remember why you’re practicing. Remember that your coach has put in uncountable hours to prepare drills, runs, plays, and practices for you. So, have some respect: when you’re at practice, really, truly BE at practice. Click here for our pre-practice mental routine-the BRAVR technique.

 

  1. Set up a weekly check-in with your coach in a place where both of you can chat informally about your strengths and skills that need working on. This doesn’t have to take long. Just a few minutes after practice can be a huge help in keeping you on track to your goals.

So, that’s my list. And, because transforming yourself into a more coachable athlete is mental training, there are many, many more ways other than these simple 13 that you can use to improve.

Now, huddle.

Athletes, I encourage you to get together with one or more of your teammates and see what their thoughts are on this list. What would you add to it? What can you expand upon? What are some times you’ve found it REALLY hard to keep to this list? If you are a more senior athlete, have you felt frustration while mentoring a less experienced player? How did the uncoachability of that player make you feel?

And, if you’re willing, please tell me about your experiences with coachability by sharing in the comments section below.

Here’s to self-improvement through mental training!

P.S. Too many rules to remember offhand? Download and print this How to Be More Coachable out as a consistent reminder on keeping yourself coachable. Tape it in your locker, post it in the locker room, toss it in your gym bag, share it with others… whatever you need to do to grow and maintain your coachability and to steadily improve your mental skills as an athlete.