Working Out Our Own Stuff

Greetings VARA Community,

As part of VARA’s young athlete development programming, Kids Today and What They Need From Us, this email is Topic 2/Part 1 - Working Out Our Own Stuff. This section focuses on you, the coach, and the parent and will help you understand your "why," how to adjust your thinking, and realize your importance as a trusted adult. The series will assist educators, parents, and coaches with their ability to help our student-athletes reach their potential by learning more about yourselves.

Introducing Elle Gilbert

Elle is a former VARA competitor; she grew up in VT and raced in the MVC council system. Elle competed for Suicide Six and Woodstock Ski Runners. A 2012 SMS graduate, Elle went on to compete for Middlebury College. Following a successful alpine racing and academic career at Middlebury, Elle coached for MMSCA. She later earned her Master of Arts in Sport and Performance Psychology from the University of Denver.

As a fully integrated Mental Performance Specialist at SMS, Elle is currently working with all five of the athletic programs on campus.

This topic is at the forefront of athletics and sports performance at all levels. I am super excited for Elle to share her work and experience in youth and sports psychology with the VARA community.

Please enjoy the series, take notes, and save them and discuss with your coaching team. We are planning a zoom follow-up at the end of the series and will include the date and time in one of the next email blasts.

Thank you!

Julie Woodworth

VARA Executive Director

Understanding Our Young Athletes

Topic 2, Part 1, of the Series

By: Elle Gilbert

Working Out Our Own Stuff: Part 1

Working to understand what’s going on with our teens on an individual and societal level is a noble mission, and the relevant information from different fields and perspectives is enough for a lifetime of learning. On the other end of understanding our young athletes, is understanding ourselves. To live up to the importance of what it means to be a parent or a coach, it’s vital we flip the lens and take our turn to sit in the spotlight we so often prefer to place on our kids. Time for some self-exploration…for the sake of our athletes! We ask them to put in the work on a daily basis, so we better make sure we’re doing the same.

Crafting Your Coaching/Parenting Philosophy

Whether you’re a parent or a coach reading this, you’re in the business of developing young people. With the constant barrage of challenges and lack of time that most likely define your life, it’s so easy to lose sight of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. What about that strong sense of purpose and passion that you started your journey with? If you’re like most of us, these things have gotten lost in the daily grind. Whether you’re someone who feels very connected to the what, the how, and the why of your role, these things peek out of the shadows every once in a while, or they’re buried away in a deep, dark place – it’s time to explore, clarify, and recommit.

1/ What’s most important to me?

A first principle was initially defined by Aristotle as “the first basis from which a thing is known” or the central assumptions at the base of a theory. Your first principles are what you know to be fundamentally true about who you are and what you stand for. These are the values that you do not alter under any circumstances. What are they?

If you’re looking for ideas and inspiration, pull from your past experience when you were in the shoes your current athletes are in. Take a critical look at the coaches you had throughout your youth or how your parents raised you. What are the values they refused to compromise on? What did you admire most about their approach? Which of these influences from your past conflict with your style or beliefs? Once you distill your list of first principles to no more than 3-5 items, your job is to build your approach, your training sessions, and your entire day around those values. These values are the destination you’ve plugged into the GPS – they ensure every road you take is leading you in the direction you want to go. Without this certainty, your efforts may be misguided, inefficient, or even aimless. I’m confident we can all empathize with this unpleasant experience. Set your GPS. Uncover your first principles.

2/ How do I want to show up?

How we’re committed to showing up in our role is intimately connected to those first principles, but may take on a slightly different tone. Instead of asking what’s most important to me, now we’re asking, what’s most important to me about how I am? These are our “being” values. This will help illuminate the way we want to navigate the roads programmed into our GPS. It will also force us to put ourselves in our athlete’s shoes and ask, “What does it feel like to be coached (or parented) by me? What do I want it to feel like to be coached (or parented) by me?”

3/ Why do I do this?

Our young athletes become a means to an end (winning) when we navigate our roles as parents and coaches with traditional notions of success and achievement as our north star. This outcome orientation positions us to pull more from our athletes than we pour in. Although we may deny the emphasis we put on achievement and objective outcomes, for many, it lurks just below the surface. Our athletes pick up on it. It’s our job to reposition our true purpose securely in the forefront and be very clear about what we want to accomplish in our roles. Crafting a statement of purpose that highlights your true why, will help pull you back to earth – to the learning and development of the athlete – when you feel the lure of outcomes and shiny things shifting your priorities.

4/ What’s my coaching/parenting style?

For coaches, the first question to ask yourself is how you conceptualize your role: do you coach a sport, or do you coach a person? If you coach a sport, your coaching most likely takes center stage, and you may find yourself utilizing a one-size-fits-all approach. If you’re coaching a person, the athlete takes center stage as a learner. You empower them to think critically and develop autonomy. The athlete-centered approach may seem obvious here, but when faced with many young individuals with different needs and on different developmental timelines, taking the time to get to know them and prioritize serving all of their unique needs within the team environment is incredibly challenging. Prioritization of the individual moves your coaching from transactional (focused on actions and performance) to transformational (focused on development of the whole person). What’s the impact you want to have on your athletes?

For coaches and parents, it’s also important to develop an understanding of your default style and your ability to move fluidly between styles based on the individual and the situation. To understand your own tendencies and those of the people/athletes around you, taking a brief assessment can be an effective way to begin the process of building self- and relational-awareness. An assessment tool through the organization Equilibria breaks personality into four categories that live within each of us. Through a series of questions, we have the potential to identify what dominates within us (the doer, thinker, socializer, and relater) and what the implications are when looking at our own behavior and responses across various situations (this free, quick assessment will be linked in the PDF work-along).

5/ Articulating your coaching/parenting philosophy

Time to put it all together, put pen to paper, and articulate our personal coaching or parenting philosophy. The clarity and intention this process brings are what will allow us to show up for our athletes the way we want and the way they need.

Keep it front and center, and revise when necessary. This is the set of ideas that will guide your decisions, direct your actions, and define your relationships. If you get away from your vision, don’t beat yourself up – just notice when you stray and deliberately recommit. Share your ideas with your colleagues and develop a dialogue that fosters accountability.

Exploring History and Context

While our coaching or parenting philosophy may feel incredibly individualistic and as though it stems from us alone, it’s vital we broaden the scope and consider ourselves as part of a bigger system that is laden with assumptions about what it means to be a coach or a parent. What does our society tell us about the way coaches should act, the way they should communicate, and the lifestyle/sacrifices required to be a good coach? (All of these same questions could be posed to parents as well). We perform these roles as social creatures, so we exist as co-creators of our values and purpose. Our learning through history, our immediate organizational context, and the people around us inevitably play a role in determining values and purpose. It’s our responsibility to see their influence, ask where these norms and assumptions were born, and consider them all with our eyes wide open. What are the implicit and explicit rules and expectations about how you show up and fulfill your role?

Rethinking Success, Failure, & Competition

As we’re thinking about our coaching and parenting philosophies and getting to the root of who we are, how we are, and what we do within our roles, it can be helpful to reconsider powerful language and ideas that carry rigid, entrenched definitions within the world of sports.

Success: the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame

The Problem: Achievement, as the traditional definition lays out (including results and victory), is inherently dependent on things outside of our control. We can take action to move towards the outcome-oriented goals we desire, but at the end of the day, we cannot control other’s decisions, opinions, or performance. If we measure success in terms of things we do not have full control over, we’re setting ourselves up for a journey of frustration, fluctuating motivation, and an unfulfilled sense of constant chasing. This goes for our athletes and for us. Our society places so much emphasis on success and achievement; our athletes can end up feeling suffocated by the pressure – as though their identity and self-worth depend on their performance outcomes. Success of this kind is shallow and does not encompass the kind of higher purpose that brings genuine fulfillment. We are just as susceptible to falling into the same trap where our identity and worth hinge on the outcomes of our kids, athletes, and teams.

Reconsidered: Success is defined by how aligned our words, actions, and decisions are with our first principles and our “being” values. Success is understanding what matters to us, how we want to show up in the world, and how we want to treat others. Success is holding ourselves accountable to being the person we’ve committed to being. Success is rewarding our progress. Success is being courageous enough to put ourselves out there to try, regardless of the outcome. Success is the commitment to learn from failure. Traditional success will follow if we live up to these high standards of personal integrity day in and day out.

Failure: omission of occurrence or performance; a lack of success

The Problem: Failure is traditionally perceived as the opposite of success. If we don’t succeed, we fail. There is very little gray area. Because the confines of success are so narrow and our success depends on others in some way, shape or form, we are likely to find failure much more often in our lives. If we (athletes, coaches, and parents) are failing more than we are succeeding, we will feel the consequences. The perception of constant failure has the potential to rob our joy, obscure our original passion, and paint our role as an obligation.

Reconsidered: Failure occurs when our words, actions, and decisions are misaligned with our first principles and our “being” values. Failure is not taking the time to understand what matters to us, how we want to show up in the world, and how we want to treat others. Failure is not holding ourselves accountable. Failure is letting fear determine our actions, preventing us from showing up and trying. Failure is not being brave enough to face failure head on and put ourselves in a situation where we might fail. Failure is not learning from failure. Failure is achievement without joy and fulfillment.

Competition: a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal that cannot be shared (where one's gain is the other's loss)

The Problem: This idea of competition sets us up to believe our success is linked to the failure of others. It positions our competitors as enemies (whether they’re on the opposing team or within our own team), and we infuse competition with battle language (crush, kill, slay, murder, slaughter, destroy, decimate, etc.) that further emphasizes the competitor’s enemy status. It reinforces the practice of our most deadly habit – social comparison – to determine our standing. When we compete against others, we hold onto the idea that we will finally be satisfied when we put everyone else down.

Reconsidered: The Latin route of compete is competere, which means “to strive together.” When we compete with others, we compete with compassion and hold onto the idea that we need our competitors to bring out the best in each other.

Words are powerful. Either on your own, with your colleagues, or with your athletes, explore the traditional definitions of these three words (and others) along with how they could be reconsidered. Reimagine and redefine these words in a way that fits your culture, your family, or your organization. Use these words intentionally, allow them to get under your skin, and work them into your coaching and/or parenting philosophy.

* * The worksheet to accompany Parts 1 & 2 of Working Out Our Own Stuff will be released with Part 2. Think about the ideas laid out above in relation to yourself and your role, so you’re ready to put all the pieces together!

References (and Resources You Should Also Check Out!)

Brené Brown – www.brenebrown.com (Professor, Shame Researcher, and Licensed Master Social Worker – check out her full body of work)
Dare to Lead – Podcast Hosted by Brené Brown
Equilibria – www.equilibriainsports.com
John O’Sullivan – Every Moment Matters

Articles:

McGladrey, Murray, & Hannon (2010): Developing and Practicing an Athlete-Centered Coaching Philosophy
O’Conner & Yballe (2007): Maslow Revisited: Constructing a Road Map of Human Nature
Schwartz (2006): Basic Human Values – An Overview

Elle Gilbert, M.A., CMPC

M.A., Sport & Performance Psychology

Certified Mental Performance Consultant

Stratton Mountain School Mental Performance Specialist

Equipped to Excel: Sport & Performance Psychology Consulting

VARA | www.vara.org

Ph: 802.236.4695