Zari Goldmann shares advice and expertise around how to bring the best out of the people you coach in today’s guest post.
Zari is a gymnastics coach and you are invited to consider, with your own coaching grounding, how this applies to your clients/athletes.
Bringing out the best in you and your athletes:
1. Be prepared with options. No matter what you’re coaching whether it be sports or life we (hopefully) go to our athletes or clients with a game plan. What are we going to do in our workout today, what do we need to accomplish. But the worst sides of ourselves often come out when we get flustered, when something goes wrong and we don’t have a plan to fix it. Go into every day with both a game plan, and a plan if those things go wrong. It will make you more comfortable, as well as those you are serving.
1b. Don’t always be the one to figure it out. One of the keys to athletes being successful is self reflection. Like I said above, if something you had planned isn’t working have a back up idea. But (and this depends on the age group), if you have a little time, ask the athlete or client what THEY think they need. Who knows they may come up with something similar to what you had planned, or they may not. But if what they come up with HELPS them, you’ve just made tremendous strides towards self efficacy.
2. Be motivated. Be as motivated as those you serve. Your mood, your presence and your work ethic rubs off on those around you. If a coach continually shows up late to practice, are kids going to be inclined to show up on time. Instill those values you want to see in your athletes in yourself. You’ll be surprised what an impact you have on them. The overall mood of practices will change with this.
3. Find your greatness and find your resources. We aren’t all good at everything, lets be honest here I’m AWFUL at some things in the gym (birthday parties much?). But I’m also great at some things. I try to strategically place myself in those things that I’m really good at, and those things that I’m not good at I either try to get another coach to do (not because I don’t want to look bad, but because I know overall it will be better for the gymnasts), or if that’s not possible I’ll sit down with someone who is really good at it, and just talk it out. Talk strategy. Here are the things I feel I’m really struggling with, how do you deal with them? Normally other coaches are happy to sit and chat for as long as it takes to feel comfortable in that role. Find YOUR strength, and when you can’t, find your resources even if they aren’t within your club or company.
About Zari Goldmann
Zari Goldmann is a gymnastics coach, judge and blogger. After spending most of her life growing up in a gym she decided to dedicate her passion to creating a business that would give gymnastics coaches resources to better serve their athletes. That’s how www.swingbig.org was born.
Website: www.swingbig.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SwingBig
Twitter: @Swing_Big
Pinterest:http://www.pinterest.com/swingbig/
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