Coaching Yourself: Managing Your Emotions

By: Rainer Martens & Robin S. Vealey

Originally Published in: Successful Coaching

Just like athletes, coaches must manage their emotions to perform effectively. Your personal example of managing your anxiety is a powerful model for your athletes. It's critical to appear poised and in control so that athletes feel reassured when something unexpected occurs. A good image is to think of yourself as the eye of the hurricane, or someone who is challenged but not anxious as the storm swirls around you (Chroni et al., 2016). Sometimes this involves some acting to be outwardly poised and confident when your stomach is churning.

Emotion can interfere with your decision making and communication with athletes. Anxiety makes some coaches talk too much and overcoach, while for others, it can make them go quiet and stop coaching. Unmanaged anger can lead to embarrassing behaviors and even expulsion from competition. What are your emotional tendencies in competition? What are some strategies you can use to be more effective when these emotions arise? Here are some suggestions:

• Mentally prepare productive responses to situations that trigger your emotions. A basketball coach described using this strategy (Bloom et al., 1997, p. 133):
  • My biggest problem is emotional control during games, so I have to mentally rehearse all the situations and decide in advance how I am going to react. When I see who is officiating...I visualize those people making the usual screwups that they make and how I am going to react. I have to do that or I would be out of control.
• Mentally rehearse who you are at your best when coaching, and arrive at the competitive site as that person.
• Plan some simple strategies to use during competition to help manage your emotions. You could use a deep breath and shoulder shrug for a quick relaxation response and follow that with a go-to phrase to redirect your focus (e.g., "coach the game").
• Arrange to be video-recorded while you coach and study the video to evaluate your poise and nonverbal messages during competition.
• Ask a trusted assistant coach or someone close to your program to provide you honest feed-back about your coaching in pressure situations.
• Remember your controllable goals as a coach (versus uncontrollable goals) as well as your coaching philosophy and objectives in which the development and well-being of your athletes are of highest priority.

Successful Coaching, Fifth Edition serves as the text for Human Kinetics' Coaching Principles, Fifth Edition Online Course:

• Coaching Principles is recognized by numerous state high school associations, individual school districts, state departments of education, and other sport organizations as meeting coach education and certification requirements.
• Coaches receive a copy of Successful Coaching, Fifth Edition with their course (available as print or ebook).
• Visit the Human Kinetics Coach Education website for more information about the course.