DO YOU MAKE A GOOD COACH?

There aren't many things in life more powerful than a good coach. Good coaches challenge, encourage, and inspire us to do the hard work that reaching our potential requires us to do. They have a clear vision for the person or the performer we can become, and they have a way of recognizing what it is we need to hear and how to deliver that message most effectively. They help us go someplace we never could’ve gone without them. Many of us have had the privilege of playing for a good coach, and we’re thankful for their impact to this day.

At the same time, there are few things more disheartening than the burden of a bad coach. Bad coaches have a way of diminishing us. Their involvement in our experience makes our very best harder to come by, and we often leave our interactions with them feeling discouraged and defeated. We question whether or not they have our best interest at heart, and whether or not they are worthy of our trust. Unfortunately, many of us have had to endure an experience with a bad coach, and the negative impact still lingers today.

I'm asking you to think back on some of the coaches you've had in your life because I’m also asking you to take a minute and evaluate your own coaching ability today. It’s likely of course that you’re not a coach - at least not officially. And yet, I think there’s value in recognizing that in many ways, you are responsible for coaching at least one really important person: yourself. You are constantly talking to yourself, evaluating your performance, and framing your experience, and the truth is, the way you lead yourself is either moving you closer to the success you say you're after, or farther from it. So the question I'm asking you today is…do you make a good coach?

The best way to evaluate your effectiveness as a coach is to imagine if the interactions you have with yourself on the inside were coming from someone on the outside. Imagine a coach walking beside you throughout the day, talking to you the way you talk to yourself. Many of us would sadly have to admit that we spend a lot of our time doing what bad coaches do. We dishearten and diminish and discourage ourselves. We constantly remind ourselves what we can’t do instead of encouraging ourselves on what we can do. Great coaches fill us with courage and confidence, but we dwell on messages of fear and doubt. The truth is, if you were honest in your evaluation, you might have to admit that as your own coach, you deserve to be fired.

I want to challenge and encourage you today to see the important role and responsibility you have as a coach. How you talk to yourself, how you evaluate your performance, and how you frame your experience matters - maybe even more than you realize. Your job is to create a clear vision for who it is you’re capable of becoming, and to challenge and encourage and inspire yourself to do the hard work that reaching your potential requires you to do. Your job is to figure out what message you need to hear and how you can deliver it most effectively. Your job is to speak courage and confidence, not fear and doubt. Your job is to help yourself keep getting better.

So based on your evaluation, what do you think? Do you make a good coach? If you are constantly beating yourself up or tearing yourself down. If you are constantly disheartening or diminishing or discouraging yourself. If you are constantly reminding yourself what you can’t do instead of encouraging yourself on what you can do, then it might be time to make a change. It might be time to fire that old coach, and hire someone new - someone who's got your best interest at heart.

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