Are you ‘coachable’? Are you ‘capable of being taught easily and trained to do something better’?
If you are coachable it means you are willing to grow, learn, improve and excel in your performance. It means you’re ready to do whatever it takes to adapt and change. People who are coachable are open to listening to feedback, can receive constructive criticism without taking it personally, are willing to take a look at their own performance in order to improve, and are enthusiastic.
You should care about whether or not you’re coachable because you could be holding yourself back from making improvements!
Forbes released an article which looked at the seven signs of being coachable, ask yourself these questions;
1. Are you defensive in feedback situations?
Do you find yourself tuning out when a coach gives you feedback? Thinking to yourself that ‘they don’t know what they are talking about’, or ‘here we go again, what am I doing wrong this time?’ or Do you get emotional and take what they are saying personally?
2. Do you find blame elsewhere?
Are you quick to find excuses? ‘I can’t go that deep in a squat because of a knee injury’, ‘I can’t lift my elbows higher because I have poor mobility’, ‘I was sick last week so I can’t go any harder today’, ‘I don’t usually train at this time’.
3. Are you interested in your own growth?
Do you want to improve your skill level and fitness, or do you just come to the box to get your ‘dose of exercise’? Are you interested in new challenges and growing as an ‘athlete’?
4. Are you willing to be vulnerable?
Can you admit when you have done a movement wrong or used a weight that wasn’t appropriate? Are you willing to have a discussion with a coach about what you need to do to improve? Do you think you know more than the coach?
5. Are you open to new ways of looking at a situation?
Do you always have to be right? Are you able to trust what the coach has to say, or does your belief system sabotage you from listening to what they have to say?
6. Are you willing to experiment with new behaviour?
Does the coach suggest that you should try some new stretches to improve your mobility, but you have been doing it another way and you don’t want to try something new. Do you find comfort in routine and don’t want to change? Are you stuck in your own way of doing things?
7. Are you able to stay with new behaviours?
Do you just nod your head at the coach and say ‘okay’, do a couple of reps the way they suggested and then when they turn around go back to what you were doing? Are you unwilling to try something new and disregard what the coach has said?
You may be more responsive to some coaches; whether it be their gender, their age, their experience, their approach, their personality….regardless, every coach has something to offer....even if it might just be some friendly motivation. If you don’t like how a coach approaches you or gives you feedback you could, as an example, ask them the following;
Tell them you would prefer if:
• They showed you through a demonstration,
• Gave you feedback in private and not in front of everyone,
• Broke the skill down and only gave one cue at a time.
We are fortunate in our box to have an array of coaches with different backgrounds; we have coaches of competitive sports, have been athletes themselves, are teachers, have had to work hard on their own progression and who basically have years of personal experience of being coached themselves. The best thing about being coached by different people is that they all have different styles and ways of giving feedback….. from a personal experience one coach has been telling me forever that I need to lift my elbows higher when I snatch, and they will show me it over and over (‘BUT I DO lift my elbows high’!!), then another coach said to me ‘keep your knuckles facing the floor for longer’….. Arrrhhhhh (‘lightbulb moment’). If I didn’t have the experience of different coaches and I wasn’t open to their feedback I would not have been able to accept this cue.
Who coaches the coaches? Do you think they got where they are without being coached themselves? Just this morning I was at Open gym at 10 am (when many of your coaches train) and saw one of the coaches teaching another coach about making sure they fulling extend their hips during the pull phase of their snatch. These guys know how important it is to be coached!!
Put your arrogance aside, be vulnerable, listen and be open minded…… be coachable!!
People who are coachable are more likely to succeed when it comes to their health, happiness and attitude…. not just in the box.
Tianna Monea