183 Sports Coaching: How Being Compassionate Can Help Your Athletes Perform Better

Supportive coaching is shown to be effective in having a positive influence on an athlete’s development, particularly when athletes are unsure of themselves, are less confident and lack mental toughness. 

Feel free to check out today’s solo episode where I discuss compassion, mental toughness and high performance to help with the development of sports coaches and to improve the experience for athletes.

Key Learning Points

• High performing teams such as The Lionesses recognise showing compassion is hugely beneficial to individuals and the team as a whole.
• Fear cultures and giving out “tough love” are thing of the past in miliary circles.
• In elite sport top coaches are well educated and are aware of the need to balance support and challenge with their players.
• Compassion can help us feel safe and protected leaving us better able to learn and develop.
• Sarina Weigman’s response to Lauren James’ red card in a recent World Cup match versus Nigeria is a classic example of compassionate coaching.
• As a coach how do you naturally respond to difficulties or mistakes?
• Dr Kristin Neff has many helpful resources on compassion.
• Google Professor Sophia Jowett’s work on the coach-athlete relationship and the relationship with performance and well-being. 

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Relevant Podcast Episodes to Help Sports Coaches

Ep039: John Fletcher – How to Develop Fearless Athletes

Ep123: Richard Dorney MBE – Supporting People: What Can You Learn About Resilience From The Military

Ep180: David Charlton - How To Work With Team Units To Improve Culture In Teams

Ep181:David Charlton - How to Improve Teamwork using a 4Cs Mental Toughness Approach 

Ep182: Doug Strycharczyk - An Introduction to Mental Toughness and Psychological Safety #BITESIZE

Other Relevant Resources to Upskill Sports Coaches

Blog – 5 Ways to Create a Psychological Safe Sporting Environment

Blog – Mental Health Guidance For Coaches When Supporting Athletes

Blog: How Coaches Can Help Athletes Deal with Mistakes

Online Course for Sports Coaches developed by Professor Sophia Jowett - Empowering the athlete: The coach-athlete partnership

Dr Kristin Neff's Work on Compassion

Cath Bishop - Compassion can produce better performance – just look at the Lionesses