Self(ish) motivation
I've been reading and re-reading this article I found on ESPN the other day. It seems all the more appropriate as I get ready to dive back into the reality show I call coaching.
Here's the article.
Since reading it, I've spent some time reflecting on the season as a whole, the pressures that come with it and the pressures that I apply to myself and how I go about dealing with them or working with them.
Clearly I'm not at the level outlined in the article. I may stay up late but I've yet to drop that sort of weight inside of a single season. I would argue that as much pressure as I might feel - whether it's real pressure or pressure I imagine - I've yet to experience anything close to what Urban Meyer put upon himself.
However, the basic premise of the article rings true and I've done a lot of self evaluating in the last 48 hours from my interactions socially to my progress in other parts of my life outside of the office and boat house. And I've come up with a few flag raising conclusions.
I know that what I want coaching to be, where I want it to go and what I hope to accomplish are things that will require the rest of my life time. I joke often about how I will quit coaching when the boat I'm chasing sees me keel over and the launch veers and beaches itself and my final words will be scrawled out upon the practice plan; One more, faster. I absolutely love my chosen career path and cannot see myself doing anything else.
I've also started to notice some trends. I typically "go under" for 10 months out of the year while in season which means, with few exceptions, most of my friends see me in June and July before I start to disappear again. Most of my spare time is spent tinkering with practice plans, reading my notes from previous seasons and evaluating where things went wrong, if they went wrong and how best to be better the following season. I don't foresee that as anything that any other coach has done, is doing or will do.
However, I have noticed that more often than not, I will use all of my spare time to do this and being "in season" has become less of a reason and more of an excuse for why I don't go out and see friends or just get out. Even in the relatively slow period of winter training I tend to immediately grab for that as a "reason" for why I cannot be bothered to get out of the office or off the computer. And like a virus, it's slowly spreading to other aspects of my life including the dating scene. While I won't delve into the details here I will say that coaching has started impacting that as well and while it started as a legitimate reason, that particular reasoning has long since expired and yet I'm still keeping it around.
For that fact and the fact that I too do not want to become "that guy" I've decided to do some self remedy this winter. This last week I have stepped up my work schedule, pushing beyond fall training and heavily detailing out winter and spring training. Typically I put together a solid frame and then plug in pieces based on what I've seen in the fall. This year I've gone a different route and am now close to putting the finishing touches on winter and have put into place a majority of what we'll be doing in the spring as well as revamping next summer's training regiment.
The whole purpose for this is so that this winter I can travel. I had planned on traveling this summer but things got in the way and I've had a fairly typical summer of tiny one or two day breaks and then mostly work. This winter I plan on heading to Hawaii just before the 2013 season starts as well as a quick stop in San Francisco to see some friends and head out to Napa. These are on the books and the tickets are being bought shortly and with other friends relying on me to show up, I don't really have a good excuse or reason to not follow through with this.
I work at being a reasonable workaholic. I enjoy what I do so working long or late doesn't necessarily bother me. But having read that article, having seen some minor flags start to pop, I think that it's more than time I step back a bit and make sure that I don't end up in my own ESPN article or become, "that guy."
Here's the article.
Since reading it, I've spent some time reflecting on the season as a whole, the pressures that come with it and the pressures that I apply to myself and how I go about dealing with them or working with them.
Clearly I'm not at the level outlined in the article. I may stay up late but I've yet to drop that sort of weight inside of a single season. I would argue that as much pressure as I might feel - whether it's real pressure or pressure I imagine - I've yet to experience anything close to what Urban Meyer put upon himself.
However, the basic premise of the article rings true and I've done a lot of self evaluating in the last 48 hours from my interactions socially to my progress in other parts of my life outside of the office and boat house. And I've come up with a few flag raising conclusions.
I know that what I want coaching to be, where I want it to go and what I hope to accomplish are things that will require the rest of my life time. I joke often about how I will quit coaching when the boat I'm chasing sees me keel over and the launch veers and beaches itself and my final words will be scrawled out upon the practice plan; One more, faster. I absolutely love my chosen career path and cannot see myself doing anything else.
I've also started to notice some trends. I typically "go under" for 10 months out of the year while in season which means, with few exceptions, most of my friends see me in June and July before I start to disappear again. Most of my spare time is spent tinkering with practice plans, reading my notes from previous seasons and evaluating where things went wrong, if they went wrong and how best to be better the following season. I don't foresee that as anything that any other coach has done, is doing or will do.
However, I have noticed that more often than not, I will use all of my spare time to do this and being "in season" has become less of a reason and more of an excuse for why I don't go out and see friends or just get out. Even in the relatively slow period of winter training I tend to immediately grab for that as a "reason" for why I cannot be bothered to get out of the office or off the computer. And like a virus, it's slowly spreading to other aspects of my life including the dating scene. While I won't delve into the details here I will say that coaching has started impacting that as well and while it started as a legitimate reason, that particular reasoning has long since expired and yet I'm still keeping it around.
For that fact and the fact that I too do not want to become "that guy" I've decided to do some self remedy this winter. This last week I have stepped up my work schedule, pushing beyond fall training and heavily detailing out winter and spring training. Typically I put together a solid frame and then plug in pieces based on what I've seen in the fall. This year I've gone a different route and am now close to putting the finishing touches on winter and have put into place a majority of what we'll be doing in the spring as well as revamping next summer's training regiment.
The whole purpose for this is so that this winter I can travel. I had planned on traveling this summer but things got in the way and I've had a fairly typical summer of tiny one or two day breaks and then mostly work. This winter I plan on heading to Hawaii just before the 2013 season starts as well as a quick stop in San Francisco to see some friends and head out to Napa. These are on the books and the tickets are being bought shortly and with other friends relying on me to show up, I don't really have a good excuse or reason to not follow through with this.
I work at being a reasonable workaholic. I enjoy what I do so working long or late doesn't necessarily bother me. But having read that article, having seen some minor flags start to pop, I think that it's more than time I step back a bit and make sure that I don't end up in my own ESPN article or become, "that guy."
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