I’ve been in coaching roles during most of my adult life. Coaching in sports, with volunteer organizations and throughout my career. I have a presentation based on Don Shula and Ken Blanchard’s book called “Everyone’s a Coach.” We have all been or will be in coaching situations. Be it at home or in the professional world, a good coach teaches, encourages, develops, provides guidance, examples and support.
My most memorable “coachable moments” often deal with negative outcomes. Situations where someone didn’t meet their expectations (and likely mine). I recall coaching a baseball game when my player was struggling mightily with the bat. True to his plight, he came to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of ninth. We were trailing by a run. As he plodded toward the plate his shoulders slumped and the bill of his blue batting helmet was tugged toward his nose to mask the fear in his eyes. I suspected the pitcher picked up on his body language as well as I had. I quickly called time out. Meeting my player half-way up the third base line he looked up at me with those hollow, scared eyes. I said, “Would you like me pinch hit for you?”
His eyes lit up as he said, “Sure coach, if you think that’s what’s best for the team.”
I smiled and said, “What’s best for the team is for you to forget about everything that has happened before and look forward to how good you are going to feel when you get the winning hit in the bottom of the ninth!” I continued, “You see it doesn’t matter what has transpired up to this point. What matters is what you do next. Now I want you to turn around, race to the batters box, dig in and swing at the first pitch. It’s going to be an inside fastball that you’re going to smack for the game winning hit.”
With renewed confidence, he swung at the first pitch and smashed a single up the middle for the game winning hit. It was a magic moment for him and frankly for me. I have several good memories of coaching moments that turned out positive. But that’s not the point of the story. The point is, we all have slumps. We all make mistakes. We all have shortcomings. We all say and do things we wish we hadn’t done. I’ve learned it doesn’t help to dwell on those slumps, mistakes, shortcomings or errors in action or judgement. What does help is to learn, apply what you’ve learned and move forward.
Do you ever lay in bed at night and think of all the things that went wrong during a day? I have. It’s not a fun way to fall asleep. A much better process is to find a quiet time and place and think about what positive contributions you will make tomorrow.
I could fill these blog posts with hundreds of pages of mistakes I’ve made and things I would do differently. But the only purpose that would serve is to feel sorry for myself and enable a “Victim Mentality.” Woe is NOT me.
What I suggest, and what I continually try to do, is think about what I can do better and how I can approach things in a more positive vein. Then use what I learned from my past which will help me in the future. It’s not always easy to do. As I’ve talked about multiple times, that voice inside your head loves to take over and control you mentally and physically. Don’t let it.
End your day by thinking about tomorrow. Anticipate the goodness that lies ahead of you and look forward to making that tomorrow the best day yet.
Until next time……