Coachable Athlete

Welcome to the Healthy Mindset app podcast where host Mike Hartman, a performance coach and former professional athlete brings his passion to help athletes and workplace athletes achieve their dreams and goals while being mindful of everything else in life. Mike also uses this platform to share his targeted assessment applications. Healthy mindset course meditation and goal setting technique for the athlete and workplace athlete. We're glad you're here. Now let's dive headfirst into this episode of the Healthy Mindset app podcast podcast. Here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Today I'm going to speak about coachability and being that coachable athlete. Whether you're a weekend warrior, elite athlete, doesn't matter what level you play. Coachability is so important. I'm in one of these groups on Facebook and I see that it's a pretty good group. These players are so called elite player for their level of their sport. But I see a lot of complaining from parents. That's all I'm reading is like every week my son doesn't play, my daughter's not playing a lot. They're, they're there, there's favoritisms, you know, and it's like that out there unfortunately in the world of sports and there's nothing that, that you could really do about it. We have to control what we can control and that's like for really a different episode. But the coachable athlete to me is that, that athlete that is going to be open minded. Great athletes listen, they learn, they take things in, they adapt to situations. No matter what it could be. The best ideas often come from feedback and learning and how you take that feedback. So the second thing I want to share with you is check your ego. Check your ego at the door. Confidence is key, but arrogance blocks your growth. Remember that. Confidence is key, but arrogance will block your growth. Be humble enough to accept instructions. My father always told me there's somebody always better than you out there and the best thing you could do is always learn. Learn from people, learn from your teammates, learn from your coaches. Even if you don't like your coach. Not all of us are here to love our coach. Sometimes you might love your coach but embrace that feedback. So number three is embracing the feedback. Don't take criticism personally or it's a knock against you see it as information to improve your game. That's all you could do. I remember as a young athlete that 13 years old and I was playing AAA hockey in Michigan and my coach would, would get on me all the time about, you know, doing a certain task on the ice, let's say And I would take it personally. I thought he was picking on me. And even when I thought I was doing it right, he still was on me. But, you know, I look back at that, you know, just take that feedback and don't take it personally. It's easy to say we, we get our egos in the way sometimes. So. One thing, I think I got mad one day and I. This is for number four. One thing I wish I didn't do is get mad. I think I banged my stick down, broke my stick. But show respect. Respect your coaches, your teammates, and the process. Just do it. You may not believe in everything, but how you listen says a lot about the teammate you are, and it says a lot about your mindset. Be consistent. Show up every day ready to learn. Coachable athletes bring effort. They don't bring excuses. Come to play every day. I read this form and everybody has all these excuses and some are valid. That's okay. I'm not here to judge that as much it sounds like I am. Maybe I'm judging. Yeah, I guess I am judging. But you know what? Who cares? All you could do is do your best and you show up every day with, with, with purpose. And you know what I would do is I'd ask questions. And not to be, not to kiss up or anything like that, but ask questions. Curiosity shows engagement. Be engaged. Learn. Hey, coach. Okay, what do you mean by that? Can you show it to me? We're all, we all learn differently. Sometimes coaches forget that sometimes we're visual learners. Sometimes we hear things and we have to listen to it a few different times. But really it tells your coach that you care about getting better. And that's the whole idea, the purpose of getting better. So the next thing I want to talk about is not only are coaches tell you this, but I mentioned that earlier, and I wish I did it when I was 13. But apply what you learn. Listening means nothing more without action. It's great. There's so many different books out there now and different tools. I see them all the time. There's sometimes there's. I, I look at. I mean, anybody could be an expert nowadays. You go to ChatGPT, you could add anything, and now you're an expert. Doesn't matter what level you played at, but it's the truth. But really take the time to, to listen to what it is that you're doing and put action behind it and put the advice into practice immediately. Another thing I want to say is it's no matter what it is, everyone says stay positive. You have to stay positive, which is really true, especially under pressure. And there's different tools to stay positive. And that's not what we're getting at today. We're just talking about coachability and understanding it. But staying positive under pressure. When things get tough, everyone uses these quotes and they've taken them for years. Tough times don't last. Tough people do. Tough players do that. That's great. Listen, cliches are cliches, but it, but it's, it is the truth for the most part. When things get tough, focus on learning, not blaming, and practice those things. Like I mentioned earlier, the other thing is, which I've learned a lot nowadays, especially about young athletes. I've worked with with thousands of athletes at all different levels, from the, from the big leagues of baseball to Olympians and weekend warrior pickleball players. But you have to hold yourself accountable, own your mistakes. So if you make a mistake, own it. It's okay. We make mistakes. I told an athlete the other day, I said, you're gonna fail. And the athlete said, what? Isn't that negative? Coach Mike? I said, no, you're, we're gonna make mistakes. Sports is a game of mistakes. I'm, I love watching the World Series. And you know, there was some mistakes made. These are the best players in the world. That happens. So you have to understand those mistakes. But, but you still have to hold yourself accountable. And growth starts when you take responsibility for your development. And I sometimes ask players this and at every different levels, let's say it's a, it's a, it's a young hockey player and they're talking to me and they're saying, well, my goal is to play college hockey. I said, well, how many years is that? Are you away? Is that. He goes, well, I'm 13, so maybe seven. You know, they guess I go, well, if you can hold yourself accountable every day and get better every day and just get even like 1% better yet, you're going to do great. We're not playing college hockey tomorrow, so now is the time to take the responsibility and really, you know, focus on your development and getting better. And the other thing I could say is, even I'm 58 years old, one thing I know is I can keep growing. Coachability isn't a one time thing or it's a lifelong mindset. You know, sometimes people say, well, you're going to hold on to this forever. One coach has one way, another coach has a different way. So coachability, just think about it. It's not a one time thing. It's really not. But it's also not something it might happen forever. I remember I played for a team in the NHL and one coach had a way of doing it and when I did that, it was completely wrong to that coach. So what did I have to do? I had to adapt as an athlete. I had to hold myself accountable like we said earlier on. So I hope this has helped you. This is the very basics of what we're but if you really want to get better, even as, like I said, even as a weekend warrior pickleball player and I don't mean even, but we have Olympians, we have world class athletes, world class tennis players now PGA golfers. And it's great. And I tell them the same thing. You have to hold yourself accountable and if you want to grow and you want to get better, be coachable.

We're so glad you joined us for this episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast with your host Michael Hartman. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That helps others find the show and we greatly appreciate it. To dive deeper and learn more about the Healthy Mindset program or to get in touch with Mike, please Visit our website healthymindsetapp.com thanks again for listening and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of the Healthy Mindset App Podcast. Until then, be well.