COACHING DEVELOPMENT Heidi Thibert, MFS, MM, MC
A Case for Self-Regard (And How to Build It) D R . L A U R E N K . M C H E N R Y, C M P C , N C C
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n a Netflix series titled The Playbook: A Coaches’ Rules for Life, Head Coach of NBA team Philadelphia 76ers, Doc Rivers stated: “Every time I walk into the locker room for the first time I tell my players every year, and I’ve told ‘em for 21 years: I’m Doc Rivers, and I’m human, and I’m going to make mistakes.” Rivers’ opening statement to his athletes each season is a powerful modeling of the ability to take responsibility for mistakes while maintaining a consistent sense of positive self-regard. In other words, Rivers can own his mistakes and continue to accept and respect himself through them—a necessary precursor to learning from mistakes and challenging oneself to improve. And this is just what he wants his athletes to learn to do. To have consistent self-regard is to accept, respect, engage with, believe in, and challenge oneself in any circumstance. With this definition, you might agree that consistent self-regard is an important quality for athletes to develop to own their mistakes without it crushing their confidence, accept your critique without taking it personally, and challenge themselves in the face of fear or adversity. Rivers reminds us that a coach’s way of being—for example, modeling your own consistent self-regard—can be as impactful on athlete development than anything you say or do. Yet modeling consistent self-regard is hard to do! Think about the way you talk to yourself on a bad day. Is it always accepting or respectful? Most people’s (myself included!) response to this question is, “…Nope!” As human beings, we are all susceptible to blind spots and missing information that might help us improve. Become more attuned to your own self-regard by trying one or more of the following strategies. Grow your strengths: What do you have within you that is valuable, authentic, and inspiring for your professional role? Retired head coach of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) gymnastics team, Valerie Kondos-Field, asked herself this question after her first two seasons as head coach in which her team failed miserably. KondosField had compensated her for imposter syndrome by
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mimicking how she thought a coach should be. She took a “my way or the highway” approach and exerted power over, belittled, and shamed athletes. This approach was so ineffective that after two years, she was ready to resign. Yet before doing so, she came across John Wooden’s definition of success: “success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” KondosField realized that in trying to be someone other than herself, she had not done her best to become her best in her head coaching role. Instead of resigning, she identified and began to capitalize on her own strengths while delegating roles to others in areas she was lacking. Her shift toward coaching with authenticity led to a 28-year career as head coach at UCLA during which she led her team to seven NCAA national championship wins. Take a moment to reflect on what you bring to your job that is valuable, authentic, and inspiring. Consider how you can grow these strengths within your coaching daily. Check your values: Values are defined as the “guiding principles in people’s lives.” Dr. Shalom Schwartz indicated that there are six main features of values: (1) values are beliefs, (2) values refer to desirable goals and can be used to motivate action, (3) values transcend specific situations (e.g., they apply in sport and in life outside of sport), (4) values serve as standards or criteria, (5) values are ordered by importance, and (6) the relative importance of multiple values in a given situation will guide action. We quickly become ingenuine and inauthentic when the values we say are important don’t match our actions. A key strategy is to check your actions with your values daily. For example, head coach of women’s soccer at Idaho State University, Debs Brereton, created an acronym with her top four values—GRIT: gratitude, respect, integrity, and trust. Brereton shared of her daily practice: “I’ve got [GRIT] written on my mirror [in my office], and before I leave the office every day, I look into it and just, you know, be honest with myself for a few seconds and I’m like, ‘Was I good and true to those words today?’ And if I wasn’t, then why? If I was, then ‘Good on you, do it again tomorrow.’”
