The Small Steps I Took to Rekindle My Love for Coaching
Issue 156- Jason Payne, CMPC
I have written a lot about the moment when my coaching career flipped.
Burnout led me to make an important choice that significantly changed my life. I needed to find a more meaningful way to coach or find a different way to spend my time. The cost of maintaining the status quo was too high.
What I have not written much about is what I did the following season.
The changes were not dramatic or flashy. They did not yield immediate change. And most of what I changed was not visible from the outside.
When I used to teach History, I loved helping students see the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary change. Revolutionary changes were interesting to study. Big changes that happened quickly, that dramatically reshaped the world. Brought about by people who usually had to choose violence to improve their lot in life. Evolutionary change is less exciting; it is a series of slow changes that gradually reshape the world. It is seldom the result of violence. But it is just as powerful a force.
Finding my love of coaching required embracing evolutionary changes. I needed to make some small changes over the course of multiple seasons, to reset the course I wanted my program, and career on. To take it all on at once would have been incredibly hard and overwhelming.
I started by working on myself first.
I enrolled in a Master's program in sport and performance psychology. I discovered I loved learning. This had very little impact on my team in the first year. We spent a bit more time talking about mental performance skills. But it started to affect me.
I also started seeing a therapist. Not a mental performance consultant but a therapist. She helped me explore how life was affecting me. Providing me with tools to experience the full range of emotions. Most importantly, I acquired the skills to choose curiosity rather than simply reacting to events in my life. This changed how I interacted with everyone, including my players.
This mattered more than any structural change I made after it. I needed to be different before the team could be different. I could not fake it. Your athletes have an acute detector for authenticity.
I spent less time on X's and O's.
Not zero. Just a little less. We started opening practice with connection before we ran a drill. Sometimes it was ninety seconds. Sometimes it was ten minutes. Sometimes it was one question I put to the whole group: What are you carrying today?
We lost twenty minutes of court time on some practices. We gained a team that was actually paying attention when the ball went up.
I started asking about the person, not the player.
Individual meetings with every athlete, once a month. Fifteen minutes each. Half of the time was about basketball. Half was about everything else. School. Family. What they wanted from the season. What scared them about the season?
Most of the time, basketball was easier to talk about after we had talked about life.
I built culture on purpose.
I knew that this was a bit part of the problem. My actions and the words in our handbook and on our walls were not aligned. My assistants and I sat down and unpacked our non-negotiables. Then we stayed consistent in upholding them.
And this is the part I did not expect.
This isn't a Hollywood story. It doesn't end with my team winning a string of provincial championships and me being carried off the floor on the shoulders of my grateful athletes.
We won more games than we lost. But more importantly, we were far more resilient when things got hard. Relationships grew stronger. I grew. My athletes grew, and their enjoyment increased. The level of connection between my teams after that shift were much stronger than previous teams.
But the biggest change was that I loved coaching again.
The season after the year I was completely burned out is the reason ALIGNED: The Inside Out Path to Coaching Excellence exists.
There is a better way. That allows you to create an environment where you can be your best, and your athletes can grow.
If you are in a version of that season right now, and you are burned out, languishing, or wondering why the wins do not land, the tools that pulled me through are what the book is built on.
You do not need to enroll in a Master's program. You need to work on yourself first. Add connection to practice. Meet with your athletes as people. Build culture on purpose.
The order matters.
— Jason
P.S. Three quick things.
The Aligned Coach Scorecard is at ninety-two coaches. If you have not taken it, this is the one that maps to the framework the season above was built on.
Kindle pre-order for ALIGNED: The Inside Out Path to Coaching Excellence is live on Amazon. Pre-orders help the book find coaches beyond my list. Amazon uses early velocity to determine where to rank the book at release, so if you were going to grab it anyway, pre-ordering today will certainly help me out.
Members of the Launch List got Chapter 1 in their inbox this week.
Are you or your athletes struggling to be their best?
Let's find a solution together.
I help coaches thrive.
As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and a basketball coach with over 25 years of experience, I understand the barriers to peak performance for both you and your athletes.
I would love to help you or your team build a competitive advantage.
Here are a few ways I can help:
- Consult with your team or coaching staff
- Teach mental skills to your team via Zoom
- Work 1-on-1 with coaches
- Work 1-on-1 with athletes
Book a Free Discovery Call
If you’re feeling the weight of expectations, pressure, or burnout, you don’t have to figure this out alone.
A discovery call is simply a chance to talk through your season, your goals, and your process with another coach who’s been there. No pitch. No obligation. Just a meaningful conversation.
Schedule a discovery call here.
Shoot me an email at jasonpayne@evolutionmpc.com. I love talking about coaching and seeing how I can help you.
Coaching is hard; let's make it easier.
Check out my website at http://jasonpayne.ca
Thanks for reading, and have a great week.