Moving forward

 At practice recently I mentioned the importance and the usefulness of "self-evaluation."  I also noted that self-evaluation is something I conduct on a regular basis and have for many, many years.  Like most people I have goals and expectations, and understanding and analyzing the effort made to achieve them is almost always enlightening, but more importantly productive.  I'd encourage any of you to perform a self-evaluation as often as possible. You'll be amazed at what you find out about yourself.

When I was young and making my climb up the corporate ladder (which in retrospect was neither a long climb nor a "corporate" ladder) I would set short term goals for myself.  Understanding a performance review might be conducted at any time, I would try to prepare for it by asking myself any number of standard questions.  What was I most proud of?  What would I do differently?  Where did I want to be a year from now?  I can now see that approach was more self-aggrandizing than reflective; designed to make me perhaps look better than I may have actually been.  

As I grew older, my questions became more self-reflective.  How have I performed in relation to my goals?  How would I rate my overall performance?  How did my performance improve or develop the agency I worked in? These questions required honesty and a true analysis of my efforts.  They also allowed me to determine mistakes I made along the way, what I learned from them, and how to move forward from there.

As I made my most recent self-evaluation as it pertains to coaching, I took the more mature approach again, reflection being far more productive than building my resume, and came to one simple, startling conclusion.  I have not given our athletes enough credit.  OK Coach, what do you mean by that?  Let me explain with the following example.  Some time ago when I too was a runner, I would train with the athletes. If they were going out 6-7 miles, I would be leading the way.  If we were doing intervals on the track, I was right beside them.  Most days, I would either extend the run or the number of repeats. Not because I could do it, but because I KNEW the kids were capable of it. And they responded as expected. It was that extra effort they were willing to expend that made them the great runners they were.  I was simply recognizing their true desires to achieve their highest potential and providing the opportunity to do it.

About six years ago, for health reasons, I was forced to stop running and began training the athletes from a bicycle.  Without getting into the boring details, I stopped running for what can best be described as an overuse running injury.  As a result, in recent years I've lost some perspective on the willingness and in fact, the need, on the part of some of our athletes to work as hard as they possibly can.  Fearlessly.  I may have lost sight of the facts that our student-athletes want to achieve their very best and are, in most cases, willing to do whatever training is required to become the best.

So, for the final part of my self-evaluation I am willing to acknowledge my mistakes and tell, no show you how I've learned from them. And I'll be perfectly clear about my goals moving forward. We've already stepped it up the last few days.  Nobody has been injured.  And I still see smiles. The trend will continue.  We'll still have Fun Friday, but the rest of the week will be reserved for only hard work.  My goal?  To make you the very best runner you can be.  Healthily. Happily.  

See you all at 2:30. (And tomorrow AM at 8:15!)