Let me tell you a story....
I have been immersed in the world of working with athletes since graduating from college. That was back in 2015, well more like 2016 if you count the semester I was behind in and the internship I had to complete after I was a done playing my sport.
I have had the pleasure of training athletes physically to become stronger, faster and more explosive in group settings as well as individual sessions. I then advanced into more sport specific training where I started working on the technical aspects of the sport that I played through the collegiate level, which was baseball. It wasn't until I started to get more involved with the 1 on 1 environment and having the ability to see things from a different point of view that I started to wake up to what matters most.
Like any new and passionate young coach, I was excited to change the world and every single athlete I come in contact with.
You think you know everything, although you may know a bunch of things, you simple just don't. BUT!!!! The drive I had was very real and I didn't necessarily know how to start or what to address with the sport specific aspects of baseball as far as hitting and catching outside of what I knew so that's where I started.
I followed a simple process in my sessions:
1) What was wrong?
2) Here is what you need to do to fix it
3) Now go fix it, work on it and you will see improvement
Now there isn't anything wrong with this approach and in fact many coaches, trainers, and sport psychologists would probably agree that there is validity to these steps and it's a simple process to follow to see improvement in many areas. That being said, it's not always that simple as there are many things that may hinder an athlete being into their process like motivation, confidence levels, support system, but those are topics for different days.
A few simple questions to consider are what happens when the improvement doesn't show up the way the athlete wants it too? What happens when the improvement doesn't show up the way a parent wants it too? Or a coach? Or anyone involved in helping this athlete try to get better?
I was working with an amazing kid on his hitting mechanics for a little while now and I had the pleasure of watching him improve in different aspects. This was one of the first young athletes I started working with.
This kid was around 10 or 11 years old at the time and I really looked forward to his sessions because he was interested in getting better. He payed attention, worked hard, asked questions, and I could tell he appreciated my efforts to help him improve. Oh, and we had fun while we did it!
There was this little thing he would would do where he would step away from the plate with his front foot when he would take his swing and it was enough to bring some challenges to make things harder for his success. There are a bunch of things that could be causing him to do this with be nervous or it's just what his muscle memory was wired to do at the time, regardless, he was aware of it and we were trying to work on it.
While we would be in the sessions, dad would be in there as well. I could tell the kid felt some pressure to perform well as he would look back at dad every time he did something. If he did something well, he wanted to know if that was good enough. If he made a mistake, he wanted to know if dad thought he was failing. Either way he was more focused on not messing up than trying to learn and make the changes we were working on.
We worked on more than just the "stepping out" challenge, but this particular challenge would be the specific area dad would address. Whether it was to me or to his son, sometimes it would even be in the middle of the session while I was working with him. It became so constant that statements were made like, "Your still stepping out, and if your not going to change it, we can stop all this now"
There would be verbalized messages and non verbalized messages with head shaking or walking around, arms folded etc. Sometimes just flat out comments after sessions where I could tell the kid was becoming more and more discouraged.
As well all have probably experienced, when someone repeats the thing you already know you're messing up, it can be very frustrating and not helpful.
I proposed letting me sit down in a different setting with the kid outside of the cage to let me see if there was things going on in his mind that maybe hindering his little "stepping out" hiccup he was experiencing.
I sat down with him and asked some simple questions about different things to see if there was anything going on, and I finally asked about the pressure he may have felt from dad. As soon as I asked, I could see tears begin to build up in his eyes, his body begin to start shaking slightly and that's when I knew I was hitting the right questions.
I made sure he felt he could trust me and I just let him know if he felt like getting it off his chest that I will hear him out and that I got his back.
His response was simple and real, "I don't believe he thinks I'm even trying to make it better"
His response has stuck with me to this day as a reminder that there are other things under the surface going on that impact not just the process to improve and perform but the foundational things of how we feel about ourselves and what matters most.
The timeline is different for everyone and there is no way anyone can tell an athlete when something may click for them.
One of the absolute hardest things to go through when you are trying to work on improving something is having that delayed gratification to see the results of your efforts show up. Working extremely hard at one little thing and it not being there the way you want it to be day after day, week after week, month after month.
Then having to decide if you are going ot continue working for it the next day understanding it might not be the way you want it to be again when you wake up.
The next level of pain for a youth athlete is to be going through this thinking to himself "I am trying my best to change this thing, but no one thinks I am doing everything I can"
The beauty is in the EFFORT! The choice being made day after day to keep trying, to keep pursuing, and to keep maintaining the optimistic perspective that your getting closer and closer to what you want when things seem like they are staying the same.
Keeping hope alive that it's possible, whatever that "thing" is! It could be something as small as a sport specific mechanical change, trying to make a new team, playing in college, getting a little faster....anything.
The real win is having something to chase, caring about it, and pursuing it.
Sometimes they just need to be recognized for the effort they are putting in. Praise your athletes for their EFFORT instead of pointing out all the things they are doing wrong. Praise your athletes for their EFFORT instead of their outcomes! Praise your kids for their EFFORT so they will realize the beauty is in what they can control at all times which is bringing their best towards what they want to see improve or have a good chance at seeing happen.
We all need support and we all could use some acknowledgement of the effort we are bringing to the table.
Sometimes effort is the only thing you got.
Have you ever worked really hard for something and it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to? Or have you been working hard on something and it hasn't shown up yet?
The amazing thing is the effort you have been putting in to try and achieve it.
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