This is a quick look back at a great Twilight Workshop I ran for coaches last week – with many thanks to all the participants for taking part with such openness and positive energy.
Our Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Confidence Centred Coaching covered some of the big underpinning ideas and influences, then got into working through their relevance to actual coaching practice across sports. We had several coaches from two local tri clubs, swim coaches and teachers and a coach from team sports too: stoolball and cricket. Together they spanned coaching people of different ages, such as teaching young children to swim, others working with novice open water adult swimmers.
Some of the sources for the big ideas and influences captured in the Workshop
Everyone seemed to really value the chance to share experiences – in fact this part overran beyond what I had provisionally planned for but was the better for it.
I won’t go into the detail of everything we covered – not least because you have to come and experience it for yourself. However, two general points struck me.
The Righting Reflex and Self Awareness
At the start, when going through the way we would work together, I introduced the idea of the “righting reflex”. This comes from the co-founder of Motivational Interviewing, Professor Stephen Rollnick, in his new book Coaching Athletes to Be Their Best. He and the other authors suggest that as coaches we tend to instinctively jump in and fix what we see as not right. At the start of the workshop I asked us to agree we would listen to each other to understand and not to offer quick fire “you should do…” or “I had the same and I did…” solutions.
Everyone adhered to this, listening without judgement or ready made answers. What struck me, though, was that as we each shared our experiences, in pairs and trios, how often we slipped into prescribing for ourselves our solutions – “I should have done…” – as if wanting to quickly fix and put right our actions, rather than allowing ourselves to stay with what it had felt like.
I also noticed in my own recollection of a super, positive experience that week – of a young Level Water swimmer I’ve been teaching who did her very first swim gala and came away with a medal – how in the moment I had instinctively been reluctant to accept praise from her mum, all too ready to give all the credit to her daughter and her and not take any for myself. Yet how can we attune ourselves to the feelings of those we’re coaching – their sometimes contradictory mix of emotions, highs and lows and the ebbs and flows of confidence and self-belief – if we don’t allow ourselves the time and space to take in what we are feeling?
Although it might not be conventional, this is why I think it’s so important to create the space for reflection and deeper self-awareness in even a short, two hour workshop – doing so in a safe, supportive way that lets each person go as far as they feel comfortable with.
Belonging and Purpose
The second thing that struck me follows on and was the sense I came away with of belonging to a community with a shared purpose.
I sometimes find coaching can be quite isolating. Certainly private coaching puts you out there on your own. Even in a Club coaching environment, working with other coaches, there can also be moments of feeling on your own, under the spotlight and needing to find resources in yourself. Simply by sharing our experiences – some revealing common challenges whilst all unique to each one of us – I came away with an uplifting sense of being somehow connected to the energy and creativity of others in what we do.
In listening to others’ stories – such as the elation of an impromptu bowling lesson in a corridor to prove to someone they could do the very thing they’d convinced themselves they couldn’t; or the joy of seeing nervous first time open water swimmers overcome their fears – I had a sense of how privileged we all are, supporting people to surprise themselves with what they can do.
A few days later I happened to meet someone recently arrived in the UK and who is learning English. He didn’t know the word ‘coach’ and I found myself explaining what I do as helping people make their dreams come true – a dream to swim or run or race at their best. Afterwards I thought the unusual description came from the feeling I had in the Workshop of us as coaches being in the collective business of making things happen for others.
We tend to focus on lessons learnt from events like workshops or courses – and the Twilight Workshop was certainly designed to have a strong practical focus to take into each participant’s different coaching set up. For me, there was also a special underlining sense of connecting with others, of belonging and sharing a great common purpose.
So a huge thanks to all who took part. I’m hoping each of them got as much out the Workshop as I did!
The next Twilight Workshop will be another Introduction to the Principles and Perspectives of Confidence Centred Coaching, date toward the end of April or early May to be finalised soon. So get in touch if you’d like to make sure you have a place – and pass on the details if you know of other coaches with an interest in making confidence a more central part of what we practice.
Comments below as always much appreciated.