Thursday, October 27, 2011

Win-Win

October is a very tough month for both teachers/coaches and students. If you pace yourself, you can accomplish everything. Don't worry - everyone feels like they had the toughest workout of their life during the fourth term of school. The best piece of advice I have come up with is to not skip lunch - or breakfast. Many teachers do it; few can keep their eyes open when they return home. Remember to eat regularly during the day.
Most athletes are so competitive they want to beat everyone - even when it's inappropriate.
If you've ever tried to show up a teammate or sibling, you know what I mean.

You realize it's bad for "the team" to be competitive, but you can't help yourself.
You still want to outshine them.

This sometimes carries over into our classrooms and with our dealings with the learners on the sport field. In all conflict and arguments we want to win and so do the athletes we teach/coach, thus tensions rise. Both parties when arguing think “I’m better than you.” When challenged by learners we tend to react poorly. There is a better way. It's called thinking Win-Win.

We need to find a better way of handling challenges. We’d have to think Win-Win. We have to imagine a game in which both of us excel. We must think, how can both of us win in this current situation? The end result must be that we supported each other completely. Rivalry is not a problem. You as a teacher/coach must think...

“Good You want to challenge, you want to argue! You’re making me better!”

This is called a positive rivalry...you feel inspired, not threatened. If we learn these key decisions we can make it will assist us to becoming a teacher/coach. Then we can start to be a team that challenges conflict in the school as one with the same goal. It will fill you with confidence allowing you to win under pressure consistently in the classroom or on the field.
Recognize that anger is nothing more than an outward expression of hurt, fear and frustration.
Trust yourself to come out from behind your desk, clipboard or whistle and deal with what happens, and love them through it.
We are sometimes the only support these children have.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Divorce

When I was 11, my parents divorced. My mother moved 2,000 kmaway and my father plunged into an intense affair with his new girlfriend. For the first nine months after the divorce, I did not cry. In fact, I did not think about the divorce at all until my sister said, "Dad thinks you hate him."

Her words shocked me. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't upset at all. I even prided myself on my stoic nature.
See, I thought I could outsmart emotional pain by stuffing it down. No, I wasn't feeling intense pain. But I wasn't feeling confident either. My trademark as an athlete - my unstoppable confidence - was gone almost overnight. Plus I was overwhelmed with negative thoughts about myself, including my skills as an athlete. These thoughts really alarmed me.

I was a great athlete and a nice chap. Why was I filled with negative self-talk?

Simple.

Because confidence is not a quality. It is not a character trait. It is an emotion. And if you want to keep your confidence strong, you need to be able to FEEL. You can’t be depressed, shut down, or numb - for any reason.

But this is exactly what happens when we have trauma, loss, disappointment, and failure - in sport or life. When we are traumatized, our instinctive response is to shut down.

Negative self-talk a symptom that we've stuffed down fear and failure from sport or life. Maybe you lost a big event or maybe you had your personal life turned upside down.

If you watch yourself carefully, you'll see that your negative self-talk happens when you're agitated about a failure or disappointment of some kind.
But you are denying the depth of your emotional reaction. So instead of healing yourself, you're plugging along, hoping your negative self-talk and low confidence goes away on its own.

Your mind is your basic tool for survival. Betray it by stuffing down your fear and disappointment - and doing nothing - and your self-esteem always suffers.
My story has a happy ending. I made an appointment for counseling. There I finally touched my true feelings about the divorce. When the tears finally came, my sadness was so great I feared my chest would split open.

I didn't run away though. Running from myself made no sense. I stayed the course and healed my heart. Little my little my confidence and self-esteem were restored. The wins came back too.

Negative self-talk is a typical stressor or distraction we face in sport. It's easy to defeat IF you know how.