Resilience Part 2

Protective Factors for Elite Coaches

Continuing our series on resilience, this week is focused on how coaches utilize mental processes and resources to protect themselves from stressors in order to display resilience. Coaches are performers, and while it is important coaches are able to cultivate resilience in their athletes and teams, resilience is essential for their own performance. 

In this week’s 3 Point’s, I’ll discuss resilience in elite-level coaching, and what protective factors they rely on to enhance their resilience.

1. As a refresher from last week, resilience is defined as “the role of mental processes and behavior in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effect of stressors.”

As we look at resilience in coaching, it is important to build awareness around the stressors the coaches face and their impact before understanding how to protect against them. Research conducted by Dr. Sarkar, aimed to answer this question by conducting a series of interviews with five Olympic medal-winning coaches over the course of a year. And while this isn’t the most representative of the readers here, I believe there are meaningful insights to gain. I have chosen a few of the findings along with quotes from coaches that I believe are most applicable.

2. What were the stressors that these coaches faced?

Managing the Olympic Environment:

One theme coaches referred to is the pressure that comes with operating in a high-stakes environment. Further, coaches noted not just the pressure they face but how their response can impact their athletes.

“But certainly it’s a bit more stressful going to trials then going to the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games I felt relaxed, I felt I was at ease. I felt I belonged there and loved it. And I think my swimmers got that from me as well.”

Coach personal well-being:

Coaches described the challenge they face with managing their own well-being, and in particular, juggling the demands of their personal life with the demands of their coaching career.

“I think my greatest challenge has been and still is—my greatest challenge is confusing my life and my work life as the two being completely one… my mood was very much related to how my work was going, which wasn’t healthy. It was okay. It was livable. It was just not—It was just not a sustainable way to live, you know.”

Directing an organization:

The coaches in the study described, facing challenges leading an organization. Looking after their athletes, and coaching staff’s as well as learning to work with administration proved to be a stressor for the coaches interview.

“There were big decisions to make, there were big calls to make, but I don’t find that any more stressful than some of the decisions you make that affect people’s jobs and livelihoods. I have to make some hard calls not just with athletes, but with—with staff. So, there’s—there’s lots of difficult decisions to make day in and day out. But I think you—you know it takes certain mindset to handle and deal with that.”

3. Now to the good stuff. What were the resources and protective factors that coaches relied on to show resilience in the face of stressors?

“Progressive coaching”

Coaches embodied a “progressive coaching” style, described by the authors as a wide range of coaching behaviors and personality traits, such as openness to learning, conscientiousness, optimism, and proactivity. This approach allowed coaches to view setbacks and adversity in a more productive light.

“Yeah, just trying to make progress and listen and evaluate things and just, I think it’s all about progress to me, resilience, how quickly you can turn around disappointment, how quickly you can succeed any better through this challenging situation and who you become amidst the challenge and that’s what I try to do is, every challenge that we do, I either try to become better, a better operator or get a better result.”

Coaching support network

Coaches outlined the importance of social support in protecting them against the potential negative effects of stress. Coaches described importance of receiving social support from a variety of sources. One source that was highlighted as a protective factor was coaches having their own mentor or coach themselves to turn to. 

“You need somebody to be able to sound off to. The support mechanism is usually somebody listening to you, somebody giving you advice, and the mentor situation is so important. You say, “well, look, I did this, and it didn’t work?” Then your mentor says, “at what degrees didn’t it work?” You might be on the right track, just not doing enough of it. So, everybody needs somebody to sound off to, because coaches live in isolation, and it’s the coach’s responsibility, in my opinion, to actually find somebody that will listen to him, can sound off to, and not make a value judgment, but help in judgment.”

Maintaining work-life balance

Or as I prefer, work-life harmony. Balance sets an unrealistic precedent that work and life need to be evenly split. Coaches reported finding work-life balance in two primary ways, the first being to have an outside interest or hobby that takes them away from work, and the other centered on controlling the process around their work life, the example, given below highlights the importance or routines to help get ready for work as well as to help let go of work at the end of the day. 

“My key psychological factor or trick or tool is my daily routine. The daily routine is fool proof. It should, if done correctly, leave you in a good place every day. Look after yourself, healthily, be healthy I should say, do the right thing. Every morning’s the same deal with me. I get up, I drink water, I stretch, I write a list. On that list is the things I have to do that day, the things that I would like to do that day and my goal, what am I doing. All those things on a piece of paper and I have things that I will not do that day, for me that’s really important . . . and at night I review my day, religiously. I go through my list and if I’ve not done anything that will carry over to tomorrow but I can throw that list away. By doing that I keep everything in the day. I try never to have any carry over.”

Effective decision making

The last theme found in the article that I am highlighting is effective decision making, or self regulated learning. Coaches highlighted the ability to self-reflect, analyze and adjust accordingly to make more effective decisions under pressure. 

“I think you learn from it. You know, how that I used to coach when I was 35 and then how I coach now. Totally different. I think that again that’s a trait of more resilient coaches. Because some coaches—coached 30 years. But coached one year thirty times. Whereas, the more resilient coaches from any sport. Learn from the mistakes, and I’ve made thousands of mistakes don’t worry about that, but I’ve tried not to make them twice. Certainly not the three times.”

Questions for reflection:

• What are your stressors?

• What protective factors can you connect to?