End of august I got the opportunity to share my experience with a group of young, motivated students at the HIHM-Høgskolen Hedmark Campus Elverum during their bachelor studies for coaching. I held a lecture and shared some moments from my coaching past. I explained how my perception of things has changed over the years and I guess the students were surpised to hear how many decisions I made, thinking now that those were bad decisions.
The essential message of my lecture was to point out the importance of a holistic view on an athlete as well as knowing the lack of information one has to live with all the time. You think you know and when you find out you know you might know nothing. I advised those ambitious students to be humble, reflected and curious along the way. A good mix of common knowledge, specific knowledge and experience helps making good choices and hopefully helping athletes on their struggle towards perfection. A coaching collegue of mine once said ” at least I managed not to stop them from being good”.
As coaches we have the responsibility to train, educate, guide and develope the whole person as such in tune with parents, teachers and social surroundings. “Find the athlete where he is and take it from there.” Sounds simple, but this process of defining a status might take a year, at least if you take everything possible into concideration.
I believe that a very important part of coaching is reflecting what we do. Question your decisions and actions as you ask your athletes to do and you might keep the door open for improvement and success.
A nice line form A. Einstein should be the approach for both coaches and athletes:
“I have no special talent, I am only passionatly curious.”