Today I want to share with you Pillars 3 and 4 of PFP’s Winning Athlete Formula so that you can help your student-athlete become high-performing, joy-filled, passionate and productive winners on and off the field.
This is exactly how we have helped more than 100 college athletes not only to “make it”, but thrive while at college and become leaders along the journey.
Earlier in the week I shared Pillars 1 and 2. Pillar 1 was the foundational one on one assessment. This could take a day or a week. You must gather information and get to know the “real them”. Mindset, physically, emotionally, how they are best motivated, etc.
Pillar 2 was one of the most vital of all seven pillars→ Connect and Build Trust. More coaches need to prioritize and operationalize this. We talked about serving our athletes, engaging with them, finding common ground, and taking interest in their interests, even if they are not your own.
For many coaches, strength trainers, and youth influencers in general, pillar 1 or 2 are where things fall apart without them even knowing it. They wanted to get into the “stuff that matters”, therefore they missed the most crucial 2 pillars to the house. They go for urgent rather than important.
Pillar 3: Strengthen the Mindset
Hold the term “mindset” loosely. When we say this, it could mean a myriad of things:
- Their internal beliefs about sports, their abilities, whether or not they are a “leader”, their worth, their weaknesses
- Their perfectionist mentality, their people pleaser mindset, their comparison tendencies
- Their “stick-to-it-ive-ness”, their resilience, their insecurities and fragility
- Their motivation, what drives him or her, whether it is too much on the extrinsic side of motivation or not
- Their fears or frustrations, their excuse making tendencies or blame shifting
- Their procrastination, lack of self-motivation, time management practices, and poor habits
We all have to work on so many components to our own mindset.
The list goes on and on. In a nutshell, pillar 3 is all about going to work on the “off-the-field” habits, mindset, and beliefs. It is an inside-out approach to developing the student-athlete. And it starts with vulnerability and authenticity from the coach. No one wants to follow a “perfect leader”.
We do work on Pillar 3 inside of PFP, but a lot of the Mindset Strengthening that we do is unseen.
Each week, between all of our coaches, we connect 1 on 1 with literally hundreds of students.
We are on mission and therefore in just about every waking moment when we are not training in person, we are connecting individually.
We send the athletes assignments, writing exercises, videos to watch, books to read.
We encourage them to join programs like PFP's Winning Athlete Online Inner Circle. We want them to have constant positive input in a world that tries to fill him or her with negative stimuli.
The key is that coaches, trainers, and youth influencers must take responsibility for helping student athletes with all things “mindset related”. One day at a time, one exercise at a time, one accountability piece at a time, one defining moment at a time, a young man or woman’s mentality and future success or failure is being created.
You’ve got this. Keep being a love-powered LEADER!
Dedicated to your child’s success and joy,
Coach Andrew Simpson and the PFP Team
