Out with the old, In with the new

So it’s time for a well overdue blog post, after an extremely busy festive period and the joy’s of christmas and new year it’s time to get back to business.

2015 was an amazing year for myself and during christmas I managed to find time to sit back and reflect on my coaching journey throughout the year, replaying my coaching adventure and analysing goals I set myself and whether they were achieved.

During 2015 I was fortunate enough to have some amazing opportunities and come into contact with some fantastic coaches who have had a real impact on my development as a coach, I gained my first full time u16’s coaching role with a grassroots club, spent two 1/2 months in the heart of America coaching, seeing sights I never thought I would see, coming into contact with two professional footballers and supporting them with my coaching within there academy, expanding my knowledge by undertaking Futsal and Goalkeeping courses and most recently gaining myself a job at Fleetwood FC as a full time coach. All which were extremely exciting opportunities which I believe were created by myself through hard work and dedication to coaching which have only supported me in my development as a coach.

2015 was a year that helped me to understand myself as a coach, where I am currently and where I want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years and even 5 years. My coaching has developed from turning up and putting on a session to fill the hour to something that I put my all into, the enjoyment, challenge, emotions and learning that goes on during my coaching journey now highlights how much of a privilege coaching is to me. Over the last year I have taken every opportunity given to me in order to develop myself. My session focus has changed from ‘filling the hour’ to focusing on my players, how can I make the best difference to them in the time I have? What do they need? What does he need compared to what she needs? Will they find that fun? What will challenge them?. I could go on forever with questions I ask myself before sessions in order to ensure the players get the most out of the sessions, they are the reason I love coaching.

After a highly successful 2015 I have decided to raise the bar and set myself new goals for the new year and hopefully exceed what was achieved in 2015, this year I have chosen to follow the EPP model.

Step1: Process
Step2: Performance goal
Step3: End goal

So, my 2016 goals:

1. Continue to develop my learning my attending more CPD events. Being open to attending events from different sports and see how other coaches work within them sports.

2. Work hard and make time to get out and watch elite coaches and pick their brains on how they work. Pick ideas from them and implement them into the way I work by developing their ideas into my own.

3. Completing a reflection on each coaching session. Jotting down what I thought went well with the session and why, what could be improved, why. Gain feedback from players and their opinions on the session which will help me to create different ideas on how to meet the players need more often.

4. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the national coaching conference at St Georges Park during December so a big goal of mine is to attend in December 2016. A great experience for myself to develop my coaching knowledge and meet other coaches in the same position as myself.

5. Finally, continue to enjoy my coaching. Not being one dimensional – being open to change and different ideas, embrace learning and continue to work hard.

Climbing is not about getting to the top, it’s about enjoying the journey and making it more interesting.

Time to test myself and my players, bring on 2016.

Reference list:

Brause. J (2016). Effective goal setting in coaching. [Available at]www.janbrause.co.uk/user/custom/downloads/GoalSettinginCoaching.pdf [Accessed 8th January 2016]