Category: COW

Coach’s Obstacle of the Week (COW) #2 – Words

cow-basketballOne of the biggest pet peeves I have as a coach is the damaging words that players sometimes use.  As we get older, we appreciate how important the words we use are and, as a coach, one of the worst things to hear is when one of the players on the team says “I can’t”.  I know how much damage those words are doing to that player in terms of confidence and future potential and I can feel my blood pressure starts to rise.  I would much prefer them to say “I am not yet able” and I will tell you why…

Words program our minds

We all have an “internal dialog” going on in our head.  We are telling ourselves what everything means that happens to us and this often leads to the mood we are in, or worse, whether we quit and never reach our full potential.

The good news is that we can take control of our internal dialogue and start to program our mind to take us where we want to go in life (and on the court).  The first step to controlling our internal dialogue is noticing what you are saying and putting a stop to the words or phrases that are holding you back.

light-hfordAs I mentioned before, one great example is “I can’t”.  Whenever you catch yourself saying, or thinking, the words “I can’t”, immediately STOP and take another look at the situation.  When you say “I can’t” that implies that you never will.  The reality often is that you simply have not trained long enough to accomplish the task or have not learned what is required to do it.  I always come back to the idea that if someone else has done it, then I can too.  I just need to find out what they did and do the same thing (or at least use their path as a guide to my success).  This is called “modeling” and is a powerful tool to get what you want.

What words or phrases are holding back your players?

Another word that I hate to hear are the infamous, “But”.  “Coach, I know that is the right way to do it, but…”  Typically the word “but” is followed by an excuse.  At the very least, it says that the statement they just made is not true or they don’t believe it is possible.  As a speaker friend of mine likes to say, “You can either have results or excuses. Your choice.”

Are there words or phrases that you hear that are holding back players?  What are they? How do you turn them around?  What words are better replacements?  Leave a comment below and let us know!

Did you miss COW# 1?  Check it out here…
Coach’s Obstacle of the Week (COW) # 1

 

Coach’s Obstacle of the Week (COW) #1 – Slow Start

Coaches Obstacle of the Week (COW)
cow image courtesy of ModernFarmer.com!

What obstacle have you encountered this week?  What obstacles or challenging situations have you overcome (or not) and how did you tackle it?

I have always said that problems at the individual level are always easier to solve at the group level.  Why? Because the odds go up in a group that someone has already solved the problem or challenge or “obstacle” that is causing you trouble.  Is there more than one way to solve a particular problem? Of course, but wouldn’t it save you time to at least consider what someone else has already tried?

Our goal with the weekly “COW’s” is to leverage the experience of our fellow coaches so that when you encounter one of the situations we describe here you are armed with some ideas for a solution.  As the coach of your team, you always get the choice of what you think will work best for your team in that situation.  Need an example?  Here is one from my own history…

COW # 1 – The Slow Start / Poor Shooting

This example of a COW might be something that a lot of coaches have encountered…

My team started out the game very slow and fell behind 7-0 before we knew what hit us.  To compound the situation, it was against our toughest rival who had beaten us multiple times the year before.  If things kept going this way, it was not going to be a pretty picture by the end of the game.  What would you do?Need more information about the situation?

We were taking good, high percentage open shots that just were not going in.  They were shots that we typically make.  We also did not get as many offensive rebounds as we had against other teams.  (That could be because of the competition or our own effort… hard to say.)  Our full court press, which was one of our strongest weapons, had yet to be applied since we had not scored.  I called a timeout.  What would you say to your team?

Here is what I said in the timeout.
Do you agree? Or would you have done something different?

“OK, we are taking good shots and we got the misses out of the way.  Keep moving the ball and shooting those open shots.  Do you know why we were missing?  We were TOO open.  We had time to think about the shot before we shot it.  We don’t have to think… just pull the trigger and put it in.

What we do need to do is hustle after those offensive rebounds and get more shots. Keep playing hard, especially on defense and we will wear them down.  They can’t keep up with us!”

What do you think happened?

Leave your comments and ideas below.  Once I get a comment or two, I will let you know how this challenge turned out and break down the psychology of it as well.

Be sure to add your own COWs to the comments as well.  It might be chosen for next week’s COW discussion!