So yes. It's been a while. I intend to get back on schedule and post on my normal Monday evenings.
I want this place to be dedicated to coaching. The struggles, the victories, the excitement, and the frustrations. I realized I was not in the best mental space due to stresses on the job and that the purpose of my blog would have been corrupted by a few posts. So I made the decision not to blog until I felt like I was ready and in a better place.
Then the season kicked in and we had our share of struggles. Didn't really help. Actually, let's just call it what it was. I was a mess. I felt like I couldn't do anything right, doubting myself, and just completely miserable.
I don't really know if a switch in my head flipped, or if someone said something, but I just suddenly found myself with less. It hit me. As much as I try to keep my two lives separate, that's a little naive. When I see success and joy in one, the other seems to improve. When one gets overworked and stressed, the ability of the other is weakened. I hate that. Coaching was supposed to be my escape. It was my place to put all the stresses of the "9-5" in a box and shut the lid tight. You can't though. You can control it to a point, but it's like all things in life - When the cup gets full, it's contents have to go somewhere. Once we made that realization and accepted it. Rather than split them entirely, I just made the decision to refocus the energy a little bit and became more determined to maintain a balance that had a more positive result.
It all rings true with the theme the team has come up with this season as we work collectively to learn from our mistakes and "right the ship" this season. In essence, we all said we need to find our next level. For them it's about thinking faster, executing sharper, and playing harder, but for me its about preparing, game time adjustments, and things like that. But you have to be mentally ready, mentally committed, and when you get to that point where you find yourself wanting to be lazy, or take a shortcut, to have the conviction to stop yourself and refocus and push to the goal. It's been said that if you want to get to the next level, you have to be uncomfortable. I was absolutely uncomfortable for about a month. Through that discomfort, I've learned, refocused, and seen improvements in my coaching ability (and yes things at work got a little better). As we push through the season, the last few weeks of practice have sent the boys home practically exhausted, and most are actually sweating - but our play has seen improvement. We're not where we want to be. In fact, we're far from it. Once we adjust to the system, and the uncomfortable becomes comfortable, we'll have found our next level and have a season we can be proud of.
While it isn't something you want to do constantly at an extreme clip as I did, every now and then you need that jump start to encourage (or practically force) you to find that next level. It's been a while since I felt that, and as a coach it was a nice reminder of what I'm asking players to do all season long. It reminded me that to be effective, I have to not only encourage growth but take time to celebrate it so that players don't get to a point where they are overwhelmed as I was.
