Coaching The Hopeless Athlete

Have you ever had an athlete whose default mode when learning something new and difficult was to shut down?

I have had a couple like that. They would just shut down, pout, and sometimes cry and quit when they would have to learn something new or practice something that they weren't good at. It was a lack of confidence and a feeling of hopelessness that was equally sad and frustrating as a coach. We know and try to communicate that the path to getting better is filled with obstacles and failures and misses. These athletes didn't want any part of the failure process that is necessary to get better.

So, what do you do with these athletes? I was reading a book called, "Building a Bridge from "I Can't to I Did.'" They named this 'Learned Helplessness.' Learned helplessness is when an athlete believes that they have no control over their ability to improve and master something. Every great athlete needs self-efficacy - the belief that they have the ability to get better. Part of our job as coaches is to help them reach their goals, maximize their experience, and maximize their potential. That often involves getting them to do things that they don't want to do so that they can have the things that they want to have. But how do you do that when they don't even have the belief in themselves to push through the hard times?

Creating the Right Environment
The first step is making sure that you have the right environment for all kids to learn and grow. Creating a growth-mindset environment built on relationships and connections so that all of the athletes know that risks are welcome and encouraged and mistakes are met with correction. One way that I have heard it put is to have an environment of high expectations built on relationships, trust, and unity.

A good practice is asking your players what they want to accomplish as athletes and as a team. Ask them what they feel confident about, and ask them what they think they need to get better at. Also, ask them how you, as their coach and leader, can help them grow and get better, and ask them how they want you to communicate, coach, and correct them in a way that they will respond.

Lower Their Affective Filter
We all have what is called an affective filter. When that filter is up and high, we go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. There, we meet instruction and correction (coaching) with either anger, we freeze, or we shut down altogether. Our brains have two main purposes - to learn and to survive. When our filters are up, we go into survival mode. We have to keep those filters low so that we can learn and get better. We do that by creating a learning environment, and by the way that we communicate with our athletes. I am not saying that we have to be soft. We can be as tough as the toughest coaches we have ever had. But the tougher we are, the more risk we have of raising those filters on our athletes, and the stronger the relationships, communication, connections, and trust we need to have with our athletes so that they know the why behind the tough-love.

High Expectations
The Opportunity Myth found that the most important factor to student success is how much their teacher believes in them and their ability. Our expectations for our athletes have as much to do with their ability to get better than anything else we can do for them. If we have high expectations, we teach them and coach them at a higher level. The drills, skills, and plays that we teach increase in rigor when our expectations are high. But they will need support to live up to these expectations.

Crucial Conversations

- Tell them that we are learning something new and hard and that they should expect to make mistakes through the learning process.

- Talk to them before practice about some of the things that they are doing better, about some of the things that you are going to help them get better at.

- Ask them what their goals are, what they can do to reach those goals, and ask them how you can best help them on this journey.

- Talk to them about things that they like outside of sports too.

- Provide appropriate support, and build on what they already know.

- Make sure that everything you do is relevant and that your athletes know the purpose. We can throw any drill out there and force them to do it - we are the coach. But you will get more engagement and they will work harder for you if they see how the drills can translate to them becoming better players and increase their roles and opportunities. They need to know that what they are doing has a clear purpose that is part of a bigger picture.

- Make sure that your directions and instructions are clear so that they know what they are supposed to do, how to do it, and what success looks like.

- Have clear, organized plans for how you do things. When they don't have a clear idea of what they are supposed to be doing, their filter rises and they get thrown into fight, flight or freeze mode.