New Year’s Eve: Making adjustments to swim tools for the first session of the year.
As we head into a new year I’ve been asked about my ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ for 2016. Unfortunately I’m a bit of a grinch on this subject and I’ll explain why:
As a young, inquisitive fellow, I once asked legendary Australian swim coach, Don Talbot, what his resolutions were to receive the following response:
“Son, anybody who has the luxury of saying this year ‘I’m going to do this or do that’ has been coasting through the other days and months of the year”, before turning and walking away to more important things.
My first reaction was ‘what a grumpy old bastard’. However, it has since put a dampener on the tradition for me as upon re"ection I realised what a profound statement it was on his approach to coaching and life.
Part of our philosophy here at Trisutto.com is not to advise, but to implore all of our coaches to self evaluate their performance as a coach not on a yearly, month or weekly basis, but a daily one.
When the alarm goes off in the morning one should consider it their duty to to be the best they can be on that day and that anything less is unacceptable. This over time should be grounded into oneself so that self-improvement becomes automatic.
If as a coach you are asking your athletes for total commitment, then it is you who needs to set the example first and be equal to such commitment.