| EliteFTS

Christmas has come and gone and by now you have your pile of gifts to return as large as the gifts you are willing to keep. That is, if you are still at the age where you still receive gifts. The moment you get married, all the gifts are for both of you, even if you're the one that bought it. If you have kids, then everyone is officially not obligated to buy you anything, anymore. You very quickly realize that the Holidays can add way more stress to an already stressful life. Between travel, shopping, decorating, and visiting; you need a holiday from the holiday and all this stops making sense to you. Surrounding yourself with other stressed out, grumpy people in order to buy other people things they really don't need when you travel way to far to visit with people you don't really look forward to seeing even if it is once a year. Of course I am kidding about almost all of this, but I bet you shook your head at least once.

As a coach during holiday break (if you get one), you are prepared to answer the standard, arbitrary questions of, "how'd the team do this year?" or "so, what do you do again?" from people who aren't really listening to you at your holiday party and who are just waiting for their turn to talk about their infinitely more fulfilling careers. Nonetheless, in the midst of all the holiday hustle, coaches usually put things more in perspective than most others. Coaches understand the importance of family time during the holidays mostly due to the lack of it during most other times of the year. It makes you really think about what our service men and women and their families go through defending our country. Puts things into perspective.

For me personally, Christmas (and the entire Advent season) has become much more meaningful because of my faith and belief in the birth of our Lord and Savior. I try not to wear my faith as a patch of righteousness, but I also am not afraid to evangelize what I believe in. Regardless of what Christmas means to you, there are some things that could possibly make you a better coach (and person) if Santa would have slipped some of this under your tree instead of those 3/4 white athletic socks and the gift card.

For Your Gym Bag

These are some items that I either have with me or wish my had them when I coached. These items are worth a look.

For Your Athletes and Assistants

Wisdom...

Wisdom is the combination of knowledge and experience. The people you coach and mentor should have all the tools to be better than you ever were. They should have all of your experiences, all of your mistakes, and all of the lessons you've learned from others. If you are a mentor, you should be a multiplier. You are teaching young people to be better than you. In the private sector, you may be training your competition or when they open their own gym. That is truly paying it forward.

Self-Efficacy...

Putting your athletes and assistants in situations where they can develop specific skills, self confidence, and task-specific competence is your job as their coach or mentor. Placing your athletes in situations where they will need to find the fortitude and shared suffering in order to accomplish any goals set forth is part of the job. Your assistants need to be coached to handle stressful, challenging situations and prepare them to become head coaches themselves. In either situation, both parties need to be able to truly feel they are over-prepared for any situation because of your training, coaching, and mentorship.

For Yourself

Humility...

Coach your athletes like everything depends on your programming and their performance in the weight-room while knowing it all depends on recruiting. The number one factor in determining success of an athlete in their sport is their ability to play that sport. Being a coach is one of the most important jobs in this country. Making sure it is always about the people you coach and not yourself is essential and precisely why not everyone can be a coach.

Courage...