How To Go All-In

One issue that coaches, teachers, parents and any person in a leadership asks consistently is:

'How do I get ___________ to give me their full effort?"

- How do I get my athletes to go hard everyday?
- How do I get my students to work as hard as they can?
- How do I get my kids to give their full effort?
- How do I get my athletes to play with grit, heart, and toughness?

Becky Burleigh is the women's soccer coach at University of Florida.  She recognized that her teams sometime create excuses for not going all-in.  One of the excuses is that if they don't go all-in and fail, they are able to justify it by saying that they didn't give it their all or that they didn't care. Intentness to succeed can lead to anxiety, and the excuses of not caring or not trying their hardest can be a coping mechanism.

She said that we need to identify and define what it looks like to go 'all in,' all of the time. Instead of telling our athletes to be 'all in' or to go harder, it might help if we gave them specific actions to do, like run faster, or beat their opponent to a spot, or be the first one to dive on the floor for a ball.

I once coached a kid who didn't 'play hard.' No matter how many times we told him he needed to play harder, he wouldn't.

We then defined four things we needed him to do:

- Box his man out every time a shot went up.

- In transition, beat his man to half court then to the three point line.

- Be in the correct, help position on defense, and take one charge.

- Win more 50/50 balls than you lose.

Instead of coaching him to play harder, we coached him on those four things and held him accountable to them.

'Play hard' became realer for him because we identified and defined what it meant, and it became easier for us to measure, celebrate, or correct.

So when a teacher or coach asks me, "How do I get my athletes to play harder?" I asked back, "What are some things you need them to do?"

Once we define and identify the actions or behaviors we want to teach, train, or change, we can create a plan on how to do it.

Something to think about: What are three things you want your athletes to do better, and how can you teach and coach those things every day in practice without taking too much time from the other things that need to be done?