How can you keep yourself refreshed and excited every season? How can you keep yourself excited despite the repetitive lifestyle?
This article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes
By Dawn Redd-Kelly, Head Volleyball Coach at Beloit College.
Coaches, our lives are like that movie Groundhog Day, where the main character relives the same day over and over again. That’s us! Our off-season comes at the same time every year. As does our regular season. And also our non-traditional seasons. The athletes change, we change (hopefully getting even more awesome)…but the years are the same.
So how do we keep ourselves refreshed and excited each year? Of course our athletes keep us excited and motivated, but how do we keep ourselves excited about the drudgery of a repetitive lifestyle?
Have fun: Whenever you have a crisis of spirit and wonder why you’re putting in these crazy hours, remember that you love your sport. You love your athletes. And you get to lead, mentor, coach, and learn from these young people every day…that’s pretty fun!
Be yourself: When I first started coaching, I was acting the way I thought a coach was supposed to act…more specifically, a female coach. Only when I was true to myself (pretty serious, assertive, high standards) did I become more successful and have dynamic and successful teams.
Enjoy life: While we do spend lots of hours with our work, I encourage you to lead a full life…not just a coaching life. Hang out with your fam, grab drinks with your friends, workout, play candy crush. Whatever’s your thing.
Stay positive: Control your brain. You have a choice each day to be positive or negative…choose positivity.
A coach’s life is repetitive. Let’s be sure we’re repeating the good stuff!