Thursday, 28 March 2024
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Coaching Mental Performance: Termination Conversations

Coaching Mental Performance: Termination Conversations

The season is coming to a close and the last tune-up tournaments are taking place before the big National events. It’s the perfect time to prepare your team for the end of season. In the counseling world we call the time when we prep our client’s to move-on from our care: Termination. Making it this far will have meant your team has gone through line-up, personnel, and position changes, potential coaching changes, an increase in skill level, and adjustments in offensive/defensive schemes to get to where you are today.

Termination conversations:

  • may require you to re-establish roles/responsibilities and be clear and direct with your team’s values as you train your team to peak during their final tournament.
  • are a great time to reflect on what the athletes and coaches have been working toward during the season
  • allow athletes time to acknowledge what they have learned thus far
  • and leave your athletes with a lasting impression of you and your work.

Further conversations with your athletes explore what it would look like if they contacted you after the final match, encourage them to stay in touch with each other during the summer break and throughout their school seasons, and reinforce the learning moments (aka nuggets of knowledge) that you have given them throughout the year¹!

About the nuggets of knowledge

Learning moments (nuggets of knowledge) are (1) what you noticed throughout the season and (2) what the players noticed about themselves. Let the athletes have an open discussion around what they learned about themselves as a player, teammate, competitor, etc. When you give them the space to explore their growth across the season, it gives their investment deeper meaning and allows them to “color” in their experience. These conversations also allow space for you to identify ways in which they can continue their growth, for example, exercises to further develop skill, steer them towards supplemental resources and even individual, group, and camp sessions during their off-season.

Emotional responses at the end…

Athletes may feel anxiety and/or fear around separating, so consider what leaving the group may mean to them as an athlete. What are their chances of continuing and making their high school teams? What positions may they be required to play during their next season? Is this their last season playing club volleyball because they are not playing at the college level? When an athlete has an emotional response, remember that it is about sitting…

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