101 Coaching Tips

By Wayne Goldsmith | In Coaching Tips

It takes 20 years to become an overnight success. Successful coaches have by a combination of experience, skill, education and practice, developed ways and means of getting the best out themselves and their athletes.

Here are 101 Coaching Tips to help you achieve your coaching goals.

1. Plan.
2. Develop communication skills and never stop trying to improve them.
3. Learn to effectively utilise the Internet, social media and email.
4. Never stop learning. Learning is for life.
5. Be open-minded. Never say, never.
6. What you may lack in knowledge, make up for with enthusiasm, desire and passion.
7. Be a role model for your athletes.
8. Accept constructive criticism as a positive. Learn from mistakes, take steps to improve from the experience and move on.
9. Allocate time every day for personal health and fitness.
10. Keep a detailed diary and record work actually done by athletes not just what was planned to be done.
11. Embrace effective change.
12. Use sports science wisely. The art of coaching drives the science of performance.
13. Seek out information – don’t wait for the “secret to success” to fall into your lap.
14. Coach with your heart but don’t forget the basics. Secure adequate training facilities, keep good records, observe O.H. and S principles, and maintain a commitment to safety and equity. Having the “nuts and bolts” organised allows you to focus on what you do best – working with athletes.
15. Believe in your athletes – they believe in you.
16. Steal ideas from others sports (and improve on them).
17. Strive to make yourself redundant – develop coach independent athletes.
18. Listen with your eyes and watch with your ears.
19. Attitude + application + ability = achievement.
20. Coach the person not the athlete. Coach the person not the performance.
21. Develop a network and support structure. Be a resource manager.
22. Best, better, brilliant – there’s always room for improvement.
23. What you believe will happen, will happen. What the mind can conceive it will achieve.
24. Persistence pays – never give up.
25. Learn basic business skills. Understand the basics of insurance. Be familiar with legal liability. Understand the basics of taxation and the tax system. Make coaching your business!
26. Give an ounce of information and a ton of practice.
27. Communicate – clearly, concisely, calmly, constructively, consistently and cleverly.
28. Seek out a critical friend. They are you greatest asset.
29. Help develop your sport not just your current athletes.
30. Mix with successful people. Success breeds success.
31. Delegate, delegate, delegate, give athletes, assistants, parents and officials responsibility for aspects of your (their) program.
32. Enthusiasm, encouragement, energy = Excellence.
33. Look for things to improve in yourself.
34. Have fun. Life is short.
35. It is easy to coach athletes when they are performing well. Do you have the ability to help athletes (and yourself) deal with the tough times?
36. Focus on the long term even when trying to achieve in the short term.
37. Contribute to the development of other coaches. You may learn from teaching and students are often the best teachers of all.
38. Listen to your athletes.
39. Develop peripheral vision – in your mind.
40. Present information at coaching courses and workshops. Be willing to share.
41. Treat athletes like customers – coaching is the ultimate in client service.
42. Read journals from alternative industries and seek out principles that you can apply to sporting situations.
43. Be flexible in your methods and approach.
44. Embrace the principle “For the love of it, not the money in it!”
45. Athletes develop confidence through competence. Nothing develops confidence like a thorough preparation.
46. Constantly challenge yourself and your athletes.
47. Create a safe, stimulating, interesting training environment where athletes enjoy coming to train.
48. In preparing athletes: leave nothing to chance, nothing untested: don’t rely on luck: make your own!
49. Subscribe to this Blog!
50. Do your homework. Know the strengths and weakness of your athletes, yourself, your opposition. Know the standards, what are the world records, national records, state records, regional records, and club records, what are your goals?
51. Look to help

Published with permission of the author, Wayne Goldsmith

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