CoachStill

Much of my early professional career was spent pretending to be an athletic coach.  I mistakenly thought that when I stepped out of that athletic life my "coaching" would end.  My lack of understanding got the best of me (again).  

I now have a better understanding that coaching is a mindset, a belief system, that goes far beyond a particular field of interest or specific endeavor.  

Coaching occurs when a valued other challenges, prods, pushes, demands, encourages, baits, demands, expects, .....  us to be better versions of ourselves.  That coaching lifts us upward in our thinking and performance (whether athletic or professional or spiritual or intellectual in nature).

That said, below are a few commonalities I find in the very best coaches.  My best coaches expect me to:
> Focus on the things WITHIN my control.
> Quickly process, then move past, failed attempts (self-pity pays no dividends).
> Just as quickly, celebrate achieved milestones (self-aggrandizement pays no dividends).
> Reflect, often and thoroughly, on goals and performances.
> LEARN, to be a voracious student in the area of desired improvement.
> Schedule my growth, regularly and incrementally (to be disciplined).
> Invest myself fully in the process of continuous improvement.
> In turn, "coach" my teammates in similar fashion (mostly through modeling).

I still have coaches (even at my advanced age of 62).  I still NEED coaches.  I still love my coaches.  And all that they do to shape a better me.