As coaches, we spend a lot of time caring about our athletes and our staff. At every practice, I ask my athletes and staff on how they are feeling and they give me an estimate on their current physical and mental state. In order to improve this process further I have looked into several monitoring systems to make it easy to collect data and get feedback from the athletes not only when I see them in practice but also on the days I don’t see them and use it as a conversation opener. I came across Logit.ai and decided to test the App on myself before I would implement it with my athletes. Logit is a free App and it goes through a series of questions that are send out by email on a regular basis. Logit was developed by a former high-performance swimmer who realized that a lot of athletes are burning out from overtraining and that this could be prevented by logging not only their practice sessions in quantitative numbers but also track how the athlete is handling the workout mentally and how other aspects of life can affect the overall stress load that is placed on the athletes.

I decided to test the App on myself for about 3 months before I would roll it out to my athletes and staff. When I first started I discovered that this is actually the first time I’m reflecting on my own health and wellness and although the questions are very simple I started to think a lot more about my physical and mental state. I started to see some patterns and made adjustments to the days after my scores were low. It made me realize how much I enjoy being a coach and in order to have happiness I need the regular involvement with my training group. The most important thing though is that the App forces me to take 1 minute out of my day to reflect on how I feel. The questions are different in every survey and I have to pay attention on what I answer. This process is motivating me to try and improve on my scores but even more important try to not let my scores fall down to low. It’s motivating to get instant feedback about my health and wellness being in excellent shape and somehow sets me up well for the day.

An article in medical news today stated that seven in ten people in the US track some sort of health marker. The most common is weight followed by exercise and sleep patterns. The article states that instant feedback is a great motivator. Seeing numbers improve instantly is motivating to people and will keep them trying to get better. It was suggested that the monitoring tools should be used to raise awareness in one’s life and highlight the changes needed to make a significant difference. When deciding on what to monitor following recommendations were made.

1. Tracking your health and wellness should be easy and fun.
2. Setting realistic and achievable goals when using monitoring tools.
3. Celebrate your success and reset your goals and targets.
4. Focus on the things that make the biggest impact in your life.
5. Be prepared to experiment with new activities and habits.
6. Identify patterns that will help you improve on your scores.

Over this month I will encourage my athletes to sign up for Logit and will see how they respond to it. To me it has made a big difference in my wellness and I will keep on scoring my physical and mental state to make sure I reflect on my own wellbeing. “Because a happy coach is a good coach”!

In our Coaching Effectiveness class our task is to create a 5 minute video on our Coaching Philosophy. We are supposed to talk about our Mission, Vision and Values. In order to do this I made a list of the 10 most important values that I personally feel are important to me.

1. Family
2. Friends
3. Health
4. Happiness
5. Honesty
6. Equity
7. Fairness
8. Sustainability
9. Longevity
10. Passion

Although the order of importance might change depending on what stage my life is at but I think that these points capture what I personally value in my selfs and others. Recognizing that Family, Friends and Health are my top 3 values always guides me in developing my own career and life goals.

When I first started coaching most of my values were much attached to winning and creating the best performing program possible. Over the last 10 years that has shifted significantly since I realized how much more important all the other factors are to the development of a person. Personal growth will be at the core of my coaching philosophy. It will be my mission to help athletes to personally grow as an person and become not just better at athletics but life in general.

Wade Gilbert explains in his book “Coaching Better Every Season” when creating your coaching philosophy you have to understand who you are as a coach and person. Secondly you have to know your athletes and last but not least you need to understand your Sport. These 3 pillars are important will guide me in the creation of my Philosophy. I have created a 1 page philosophy outline when I attended the Advanced Coaching Diploma and some of my values are reflected in the outline but some are not. However when it comes to the implementation of the Philosophy I think I still have much room to grow. I will expand and elaborate on my current Coaching Philosophy that will then reflect a more holistic approach. I’m looking forward to formalize and organize my thoughts and then clearly communicate to my athletes and assistant coaches.