Hello friends,
Welcome to my new newsletter! I am happy to be over at Beehiiv and I appreciate the new signups I gained along the way.
Yesterday I had a new article go up on The Coaches Site. It’s about building confidence in hockey players during the off season. Knowing tryouts are coming up can be a lot, but if you focus on building them up, they will enter tryouts with a lot of confidence.
Spring Hockey: 6 Drills to Build Confidence - The Coaches Site
thecoachessite.com/spring-hockey-6-drills-to-build-confidence
And that got me thinking a lot about how much confidence impacts our performance. I mean in sports, and in life in general.
I looked to my son as an example. He came to me and said wanted to be a faster skater. So I talked to some skating coaches and got him signed up for some private lessons. I got him on the skating treadmill, and then I also reached out to a skating coach through a friend and got him a list of at home workouts he can be doing.
After one week of working out at home, before he started any of the on ice stuff, he took the ice for practice and looked faster and played like a faster player. This was because he knew he was doing the work and just had more confidence in him to push himself harder. He no longer felt as if he wasn’t fast, he felt he was working on being faster.
A while back, a coach kept saying he was slow. So of course, if he heard he was slow, he’s going to think what? That he IS slow. He was never slow, he just wasn’t as fast as some and wasn’t very efficient.
Thankfully, he didn’t hear he was slow and throw in the towel. He came to me for help. And now he’s found his confidence.
We can’t as coaches, bosses, or leaders of any kind tell people only the negative that we see. He never should have been told he was slow, he should have been told, “hey, let’s work on your efficiency or increasing your speed so you can do even more on the ice.”
It does nothing to tear athletes or employees down. If you tell someone they can’t do something, they likely won’t.
❝
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”
- Henry Ford
Believe in your athletes, employees, or colleagues and they will believe in themselves.
Until next time,
Dan