Success in the playoffs is when preparation meets opportunity.
“Know yourself and you will win all battles”
– Sun Tzu
An effective playoff coach is one who operates with mindfulness and self-awareness. These are foundational attributes every coach needs in their tool case. Success in the playoffs is when preparation meets opportunity. A coach who is prepared, by understanding who they need to be for their team, not just what they need to do, will increase their ability to inspire success.
With the end of the regular season, a coach may experience many emotions. If their team excelled and came in the first place, the coach may feel pride, joy, and a sense of accomplishment.
However, if their team peaked too early and dropped a few places in the standings, frustration, anger, and disappointment may set it. No coach is ever happy with just coasting into the playoffs.
Emotions are just energy in motion. We are supposed to have them, not become them. Whether the season ended on a high note or not, learning to be aware of what you are feeling is an integral part of letting the regular season go. To let go, is to accept. Acceptance means understanding the past played out as it did, and that is okay; it was what was and is what it is. The future is just our expectations. Thus, the thoughts of what the future might be, can not be the truth, because it has not happened yet.
“If life is a journey, then one of life’s greatest tragedies is to not have not enjoyed the trip.”
The playoffs are where champions are crowned. All the team and personal stats are reset to zero. Every team that has made the playoffs, has the same opportunity to win it all. However, it can be very easy to over-attach to the outcome and miss the magical moments that will arise along the way.
“Leadership is an interaction where influence happens.” – COR.E Performance Dynamics principle
Every coach bears the responsibility to prepare their teams for battle. A coach who begins by preparing themselves first is a coach who will effectively inspire their players to do likewise. Setting up a personal blueprint for success will help a coach stay focused when the games get real. The three things need for an effective and successful performance blueprint as a coach are:
- Goal: Who does your team need you to be?
- Intention: What actions arise in the moment because of your being?
- Target: At the end of the game, what has happened?
Understanding who you need to be for your players to thrive under your leadership, is a key and an integral aspect of a successful blueprint. If you have had playoff success in the past, reflect on what attributes you were embodying at that time. For example, it was passion, poise under pressure, and clarity of purpose, then identify that. If you do not have past playoff success to draw from, think about a successful coach you may admire or be inspired by, and identify the attributes that you would like to embody. Once you select the attributes you would like to have, make it specific and put them in an I am statement list as follows:
- I am passionate
- I am poised
- I am clarity
- I am all that!
The intention is a committed choice. Your actions will come naturally and have flow when you are operating in alignment with your I am statements. You will be able to make conscious choices that will serve you and your team. For example, the intention from the above statements may be: I am passionate yet under emotional control and make intentional in-the-moment decisions that influence and inspire my team to play up to their potential.
A target is where you would like your actions to take you. In the end, every coach would like to win every game. However, because the playoffs rounds can be the best of 3, 5 or 7 games, having an achievable target for every game, regardless of the result, is important. This will keep a coach’s inner critic in check and reduce some of their stress reactions. This will help a coach show up in a meaningful way for their team. Stress reactions will keep a coach from being in the zone. An example of a process-driven target may be: With every decision I intentionally made, I gave my team every opportunity to win. If we did not win, then we learned something that we can use to adapt and be more effective in the next game.
“Our mind is a tool. We do not perform in the tool. We perform in the present moment.”
– Walter Aguilar
Being in the present moment on purpose, without thinking, and just being, is the state of being in which allows the zone to emerge. It is where access to knowledge, skills, talents, and connection to creativity and intuition (our gut feelings) is at its highest. Having a simple and effective personal success blueprint for the upcoming game allows a coach not to be overwhelmed or emotionally hijacked by the emotional ebbs and flows of a game. They can trust their intuition and not overthink their decisions. By being in the moment you can become the game and experience the joy and passion of being in the zone. This is where you can create, experience, and observe anything you desire as quickly as you believe possible.
Although only one team wins the championship, success is possible for every team. Especially when they are led by a coach who embodies their success blueprint in the moment. In the end, a meaningful definition of success is the emergence of a unified sense of ‘us,’ in the players and coaches, who choose to journey and dare greatly, in their noble pursuit of excellence in the playoffs.
