I have been secretly thinking a lot about Beachbody
Coaching. I say ‘secretly’ because I
generally like to think about whether I am ready to take on something new like
this. Coaching is not foreign to
me. I have done it in many facets of my
life. This week, I will share a little
and by the end of the week, maybe I will have convinced myself, one way or the
other.
One or more of three things will happen here. Those who coach me will see that there has
been some positive impact on me from their work. I will get feedback on my thoughts. Last, maybe, if some think I am suitable
‘coach’ material, there would perhaps be those that would like to be coached by
me and will reach out.
In my coaching experiences at my ‘real job,’ I have done
some research along the way to make me a better coach or manager. I do this in all areas of my life. I try never to presume that I ever know all
or anything about a particular subject, no matter how long I have been doing
it. I figure that the only way to be a
responsible manager or coach of anything is to have, and continue to acquire,
knowledge.
With that in mind, today I address the ‘player’ or, in other
words, the person ‘to be coached.’
As a coach for performance, it is important to understand
that each and every player is different.
When you consider how to coach a player, you have to make sure you are
filling the needs that they have when it comes to reaching the desired outcome. They all come to the table with varying
levels of four things, and it is your job to first assess how much of each they
possess. Your approach to coaching,
which will be unique to each person, is based off of this assessment.
In any performance situation, the player should be evaluated
on four criteria. They are (1) Skill,
(2) Knowledge, (3) Motivation, and (4) Confidence. Every player comes to the table with some
degree of these four things. When I look
at the person to be coached, I have to make a complete assessment.
Every task requires SKILL.
If it didn’t, anyone could be successful and no one would ever need to
be coached. In fact, that one statement
is true for all four evaluation criteria.
When you look at a person’s skill, you need to assess their natural or
acquired ability to perform the tasks.
Is the task they are trying to master something they have been working
at for a long time but have not successfully mastered or conquered? Do they have a natural ability that
compliments the ability to achieve the task they want to achieve?
In Beachbody coaching, knowing a person’s history and
knowing whether exercise is something they have done their whole life or
completely foreign is a range you will need to assess. Is the player starting from ‘scratch?’ Have they been on every diet known to
man? Maybe they want to be fit with the
goal of losing weight. In Beachbody,
this will be an exercise and nutrition objective, so knowing this is important.
The next assessment criteria is KNOWLEDGE. All too many people attempt to perform a
given task based on here-say, rumor, or conjecture. They may pursue the task doggedly without continually
refining the knowledge and building on a strong base of facts. It’s sometimes amazing how many people just
bang their head against that stone wall with no results. A little knowledge would go a long way. You need to assess how much knowledge your
player has for the task they are trying to succeed in. The challenge as a coach, with this in mind,
is that you have and are continuing to refine your own knowledge and can ably
pass it on.
In Beachbody, understanding your player’s knowledge of
proper training and safe exercise technique is vital. Also, understanding their knowledge of basic
nutrition is very important. The
workouts and the nutrition go hand in hand.
To be in better shape you need to ‘exercise and eat less.’ That is the simplest way to state something
which is actually slightly more complicated when put into real action.
The third assessment criteria is MOTIVATION. How self-directed is the player? You need to assess the internal drive and
sense of ‘urgency’ in the person to accomplish their task. Motivation is the thing that gets the player
off of the couch and gets them to do the necessary activities that will merge
SKILL and KNOWLEDGE into results.
In Beachbody, knowing how motivated your player is can be
the difference between coaching success and coaching misery. Are you pushing a rock up a hill? The workout routines in Beachbody vary from
beginner to extreme. There are days that
your players will NOT want to get off of that couch. There are days they will ‘Wordalog’ (my new term
for text, chat, blogging, and email as a form of communication) what you want
to hear. How motivated are they?
The last criteria is CONFIDENCE. So many people do not pick up a challenge
because they do not believe that they can do it. It’s that simple. How much does your player believe in their
own ability to succeed? That lack of
confidence drives an internal ‘fear’ mechanism that stops many in their tracks. It’s that mental ‘deer in the headlights’
moment. How self-sufficient is your
player? How resilient is their
confidence? Instilling confidence is one
of the toughest things to do because it relies on your ability to get into a
player’s head. Confidence can be strong
one day and, due to some minor setback, be destroyed the next.
In Beachbody, you are dealing with fitness. This is a subject that many people have
failed at for one reason or another. The
path to fitness is loaded with the past skeletons of failure and short-term
successes. Many think fitness is
impossible for them. How confident is
YOUR player?
Coaching is hard. Let
me repeat that. COACHING IS HARD. In my ‘work life’, when I hire a person, I
look at all four of these criteria. Why? I am going to be dead honest with you. Because the more of these things the person/player possesses in high quantities,
the easier my life as a manager will be.
The biggest issue I always face is the assessment. I need to separate the talkers from the
walkers. That is critical.
Assess your player.
How much of each of these four criteria does that person have? If they have all of these, your coaching life
could be a little easier. If they have
none of these, you have your work cut out for you. You know what the biggest problem of all will
be? It will be whether you assessed your
player properly. The most frustrating
thing for you, as a Coach, will be when the player fakes you out. It will be when they had you convinced they
were good in a certain criteria and you bought it. You may coach with a certain strategy based
on your assessment and then, when success isn’t truly being achieved, beat
yourself up for your lack of coaching success.
Bottom line here…it may not be your coaching game plan, it might be your
ability to assess the player.
Tomorrow I will cover (1) How to help your player improve in
each of these areas and (2) Why every coach may NOT be the right coach for every
player.
Have a great day!
Note: I will credit all my key resources on Friday for those
of you wanting to do more research.
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