"Your squad is only as good as its' weakest player"
When it comes to coaching, the 'missing link' to team success resides in each and every player on your squad. Each player MUST BE what I call a 'complete' athlete and by complete, I mean that player has optimized 3 areas of their game:
Their Minds
Their Feelings
Their Behaviours
This is what I believe my high school team had down to the 12th man...
My high school squad: Nantyr Shores Tritons
We definitely had our faults, including me...
Me losing my cool over most likely a foul call
But every player was 'complete' in the fact that they knew their role, weren't selfish, played with maximum effort and focus (most of the time), had a strong bond, were composed under pressure and that all lead to undeniable achievement! I would call athletes with those traits and mental skills a level-1 'complete' athlete.
Our coach Trevor Neale was the final piece. He facilitated our mental strength while directing us to a common goal and in those 2 years, we lost under ten games, had a 20-game winning streak and won the regional championship both years!
Nantyr Shores Tritons Year 1 championship squad
Nantyr Shores Tritons Year 2 championship squad
As mention in part 1, for your players to develop into 'complete' athletes, you must fulfil the PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS of each individual athlete and these needs again are (2017, Mulcahy):
Competence: being able to compete at a high level
Autonomy: feeling in control of their situation
Relatedness: bonding with the teammates and coaching staff
The next step is knowing how to fill those needs but how can coaches do that?
Well, it's a little complicated because to create 'complete' athletes, you not only have to satisfy their needs, but also, the athlete MUST PERCEIVE you are doing so! This is because no matter what you do (i.e., punishing or rewarding your players) or say, if they don’t perceive that they are getting their needs met, they will actually believe that their needs ARE NOT being met no matter how many minutes they play!
So, that's the REAL aim for coaches, to change how players perceive stressful situations in competitive sports. There are psychological therapies that are used exactly for this purpose. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is becoming popular in sports and within CBT is many different techniques and the one that is the backbone of my first course is Cognitive Restructuring. The steps of Cognitive Restructuring go as follows (2018, Hayes):
IDENTIFY. Identify an athlete's problem, the thinking pattern underlying the problem, and the emotional and behavioural impact of the thinking pattern preventing the athlete from performing well.
EVALUATE. The evaluation stage involves introspection of their thinking pattern to find the thoughts that caused the harmful response to competition stressors (like a bad call or a coach's criticism).
MODIFY. Lastly, you want to modify those harmful thoughts by helping athletes intentionally create thoughts that will help them reach their sports goals and help your team win.
Once you change how a player perceives situations and pressures in sports, they will become the 'complete' athlete, able to perform under pressure, enjoy playing for you and, instead of working against you, they will assist you in bringing about a winning culture!
In Part 3, you will learn how Psychvancing builds championship pedigree within athletes!
Read Part 3 Now!
Reference:
Towler, A. Why the basic psychological needs autonomy, competence and relatedness matter in management and beyond. (2019, September 7th). CQ Net.
Hayes, S., Hofmann, S. Process-Based CBT. (2018) Context Press.
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