Being a better coach is not measured by the wins under your belt. It also does not require you to reinvent the wheel. Being a great coach is measured by making a player a better person. It is about developing life and sport skills that unlock a player’s true potential on and off the field. A great coach understands that players are not all created equal. And that maximizing a players’ potential is not just a physical thing. There are certain life qualities to recognize that will boost a players’ potential.

Let’s look at how you can be a better coach through self-realization.

Tips to Be a Better Coach

We all know the qualities that make a great coach: leadership, positivity, communication, and goal-oriented. Unfortunately, many times, it is hard to see the qualities of a coach flourish. Sometimes stress, frustration, and confusion cloud your vision. You are human too. To be a better coach is a constant development of yourself and your players.

Learn to Communicate

Communication is essential to becoming genuine and sincere. When you are honest and open, it builds trust and understanding. Therefore, communication will produce transparency and trust in your relationship. To communicate effectively, learn to listen, be open-minded, empathize, respect, and give feedback.

Embrace Change

Teach how to adjust, adapt, and change. Evolving requires changing. A coach needs to have good communication skills to explain what they want and be flexible and prepared to change their style to help players adapt. Don’t assume your players know what you want. Instead, tell them what you want and guide them. Let them gravitate and naturally figure it out on their own. Change needs to be natural to be long-lasting, permanent, and effective. You can’t force change, but you can guide and mold it into your vision.

Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

If you stay in your comfort zone, you will not maximize your potential. You cannot just train your strengths, as well as for your players. Many times, we avoid things that make us uncomfortable rather than understanding and accepting them. Yes, the anticipation of fear is worse than fear itself. However, you must face your fear and feel vulnerable to initiate change and unlock the powers hidden in your potential. When you can become comfortable with being uncomfortable, you will not feel uncomfortable anymore. From this, you will enhance your leadership qualities as well as empathy. “What does not kill you makes you stronger.” Fredrick Nietzsche

Accept

Acceptance is the key that unlocks the mind in a whole new way to understand your true potential. Developing only strengths and not being a mindful and understanding coach leads to a narrow-minded approach. To maximize your talents and skills and your players, you must understand and accept your weakness and imperfections. Coaches need to help players discover it for themselves. And create a comfort zone to teach them how to get it right. When you and your players learn to accept, you will find limiting factors preventing and holding back your coaching and your players’ performance.

Learn to Nurture

Mistakes are not failures. You have to let players know they will make mistakes before they get it right. Excellence is not something you can force on a player. It is an individual response of self-discovery that comprehends success and failure and can turn mistakes into success. Nurturing will help you gain your players’ trust and lead them to excellence.

Be Flexible For Players To Adapt

Your approach has to be adopted by the players. But you must have the ability for the players to accept your process. If you only create one way for a player to learn, it will be harder to maximize players’ potential and adhere and mold them to your vision. All players are different in learning. For example, some players to solve math will use the same equation. Some will use 2+4, others will use 3+3, or 5+1—they all equal six, but in other ways that produce the same result. As a coach, you have to understand this. You don’t have to compromise what you want, but you have to be flexible to players learning abilities to get the result. Adjust and diversify your style to bring many different molds into one.

Positivity Has More Power Than Being Negative

Being positive prepares the emotional state to absorb feedback, even if it is negative. As the coach, this is your number one job, and how you do it enhances a player’s skills physically and mentally. On the other hand, coaches providing negative feedback does the opposite. If a player makes a mistake, being hard and negative puts more stress on a player scared not to make a mistake again. Unfortunately, this will decrease performance and increase the chance of doing it repetitiously. Many coaches use negative feedback to make players tough and better. This process is not practical. Being negative, screaming at, or being hard on a player does not make them a superior athlete.

You have to experiment with being a better coach. You are the leader and, at the same time, a friend and maybe a parent. However, if you follow these tips, you can’t go wrong. Experiment and use what will work and what will not work. What works for you will not be the same for another. Your coaching process must mold the team and the various players to your vision, to function as a unit, not change them.

Read More:

• 4 Tips For First Time Coaches
• Coaching Tips on Game Days