Last week I had an enjoyable mentoring session with an experienced coach looking at how we can build resilience in our athletes. It was a fascinating discussion and reminded me that if we must encourage our players to respond positively to challenges and setbacks if they are to succeed. Easier said than done of course! But how we as coaches respond to failure is crucial. We must encourage our young athletes to want to improve and accept that making mistakes is part of the learning process. Designing training sessions where athletes experience failure, loss and challenge will enable them to learn more effectively and practise coping skills that will in turn help them improve. Research has shown that success-only environments result in changes of lesser magnitude than challenging environments, subsequently leading to a deterioration of performance after failure (Dweck, 1975).
I have attached an article written by Robin Giles, Challenge and Failure, which he kindly shared with Inspiring Coaching. A great read and a timely reminder for all coaches at the start of the new season. It includes some useful recommendations on how to build resilience. Enjoy!
