The Biggest Lessons I Want My Players To Learn

  My coaching philosophy is simple, “I want to use my passion for the sport of volleyball to make a difference in the lives of others.”.  Every good coach understands the game at a high level and knows how to teach it. What makes a coach different is the methods they use, and what they choose to focus on.  I choose to focus on mental performance.  I do this for 2 reasons.  1.  Because it doesn’t matter how talented you are if you don’t know how to use it. 2. Because the mental skills I teach will impact players lives far beyond sports.  The 2 core areas I focus on are “faith in the process” and “perception”.  I believe that almost every aspect of mental performance comes back to those core areas. I think what I do best, is open players eyes to new ways of thinking.  When you’re having trouble seeing, you go to an eye doctor and they give you glasses.  You put the glasses on and think “whoa this is so much better”.  Actually the world’s exactly the same, all that changed is how you see it.  Everyone knows what it takes to succeed, you can google it and get an answer in 2 seconds.  So then why doesn’t everyone succeed?  It’s because people are so focused on outcomes and instant gratification that they lose track of what’s important.  Very few people are able to look past the  bumps in the road, and focus on the process of becoming great. They get caught up in the results and change their process before they ever get to see it work. Greatness isn’t born, it’s built. It’s not built in a day it takes time, the journey isn’t clean it’s messy.  Persistent discipline in doing what you know is right, will always lead you down the path you want to go.  Even if it doesn’t end up taking you where you thought you wanted to be.  The outcomes we seek are based off of who we want others to think we are, not who we actually want to be.  If you ask a 17 year old boy what it means to be great, most of them would talk about rewards and recognition.  Those aren’t what it means to be great… those are the things you get when you are great.  Becoming great requires you to look past external validation.  You have to journey deep inside yourself to figure out exactly who you are and who you want to be.  It’s Not what you want to achieve in your life,  it’s how you want to live your life.   When you find the answer to that question it will be different from anyone else’s answer.  People fear different, they question things they don’t understand. Comparison is the most dangerous thing in the world. It can make someone believe they aren’t doing enough, when they’re really doing too much.  It can make someone believe they’re doing too much, when they really haven’t even scratched the surface.   You wouldn’t buy a house after sending someone else to the open house.  You wouldn’t buy a car after having someone else test drive it.  So why would you live your life the way somebody else thinks you should.  One of the first questions I ask in 1 on 1s is “ why are you here? And why do you wanna be on this team?” Some players immediately say “because I love volleyball”.  Some players end up really confused by the question, because they never really thought about their why.  I aim to help my players figure out their why. I want my players to fully understand who they are and who they want to be. I do this because if they don’t know where they want to go, I can’t help them get there.  Coaching to me is about opening eyes to new possibilities.  If you can change someone’s perspective, you can change their life.  “You are what you think about”.  That quote changed my life.  The moment I started changing the way I think, everything changed.  how can you stop someone who believes everything that happens to them is in their best interest? How can you stop someone who at their lowest point in life continues to thank GOD for every second of it?  How can you stop someone who sees failure as progress… you can’t….. every hard moment in your life was carefully orchestrated by GOD. GOD is perfect, he doesn’t make mistakes.  Therefore you were perfectly made.  There’s nothing wrong with where you are, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.  Being able to separate the process from the outcome is game changing.  We don’t control the outcome, we only control the process. You can do all the right things and still fall short of your goal.  That doesn’t mean you failed, that doesn’t mean the process was wrong. You fell short of your goal but you still made progress.  It’s not about where you ended up, it’s about how far you’ve come. 3 steps forward and 2 steps back is still 1 step further than you were before. You can waste time concerning yourself with the things you didn’t achieve, or you can focus on taking another step forward.  How can you fall short of your goal if your goal is progress.  The biggest lesson I want my players to learn is that winning isn’t the most important thing, it’s the product of the most important thing. The most important thing is the process.