Should coaches be literate in Psychology?
Aaron Walsh, mental performance coach with Chiefs Rugby Club, Scotland and Newcastle Knights shares five tips to help coaches bring mental skills into their practice.
I recognise that 90% of coaches may never have access to a mental skills resource in their setup. However, the coach is the loudest and most frequently heard voice athletes hear. As a coach, you will shape the mindset of those you lead more than you realise. Here are five simple things we can learn from psychology to help your coaching.
1. Understand that everyone grows differently- what motivates people and what brings the best out of them are rarely the same. If you can connect with the person in front of you and find out what makes them tick, you can deploy your coaching knowledge more effectively. For the most part, they don't learn as you did.
2. Understand that pressure is real and people respond to it differently. One of the greatest frustrations for coaches is working with athletes who cannot convert their capability into performance when pressure is present. Explore that gap, find out where the pressure is coming from, know their tendencies and help them come up with a simple plan
3. Understand the power of words- Words matter; they shape relationships and are the primary instrument we possess to reveal our feelings. Our subconscious grabs onto concepts and begins to embed these into our mindset. A throw-away comment that means nothing to you can impact athletes. An excellent way to look at this is knowing that their conversation with you at training will be the one they replay at home. What do you want them to be replaying?
4. Understanding the environment you create will determine how people behave. Groupthink is powerful; messages are constantly being sent that infiltrate the environment and send cues of what behaviours are required to belong. This is continually happening, and by understanding this, we can be intentional in what we want our environment to promote and value
5. Do your mindset work- you will feel pressure, you will be tempted to measure your self-worth by the outcome, and you will lie awake at night and be distant when you are with loved ones. Get some help and make sure you have your own set of practices and tools to revert to when you are wobbling in your confidence and belief. Don't be a starving baker by feeding everyone around you and forgetting to eat yourself.
Getting the best out of people is rarely straightforward and requires flexibility in leading and coaching. This means coaches will need to have some knowledge of Psychology, not deeply and thoroughly, but a basic understanding of core principles that will help you be a better coach and leader. Hopefully, these are helpful.
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