This is the most commonly asked question I get asked by coaches in all sports – all over the world.

See the article I just wrote on http://www.sportscoachingbrain.com about how we are all trying to create an environment where the athlete’s Passion to Prepare is equal to or greater than their Potential to Perform.

I don’t think it’s laziness – kids have more than enough energy to do pretty much anything even without serious training.
It’s just that swimming is not their “thing”.
Buy yourself a copy of Ken Robinson’s book called THE ELEMENT – How finding your passion changes everything” and read it.

I agree with you – there are some kids you don’t have to inspire – they have the fire inside them.

There are others you can change with your ability to engage, communicate and inspire – who you can change with your coaching skills.

And others who are just not into swimming and who you are wasting your time trying to change.
It is not you.
It is not the program.
It is not the sport.
It is not even the kid who is the problem.
It is just that swimming is not their passion.

Let it go my friend. It will only frustrate you and cause you to lose energy and even worse it will impact negatively on your capacity to coach the kids who are passionate about swimming and the ones you can still change.

Enjoy every moment with those swimmers – they breathe life into every day and inspire you to be the coach you want to be.

WG

Hate to sound negative, but that is where I am at right now, appreciate any feedback.

In recent weeks I have had the great fortune to work directly with world class elite athletes in three professional football codes, three Olympic sports and professional tennis. There are a lot of cultural differences between the sports but as you point out, there are a lot of similarities between good athletes – and most of it relates to their attitudes, behaviours, standards and self management.
I have seen this over the past 20 years – all sports, all over the world – the patterns are the same: they work hard, they have a passion for what they are doing, they deal with hard times and adversity very well, they do more (as in they spend more time on the little things in and out of training time), they are internally driven……basically the same as your list.

You will see a common theme in my articles about the importance of an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to performance. My early training was in exercise physiology and whilst it is important but it is just one small piece of the puzzle.
The question we all have to ask is that if real success is determined by the things on your list and by the things I have noticed over the past 20 years, then why is the vast majority of performance enhancement literature still based on physical improvement and physical performance?

Why aren’t we basing coach education programs around helping coaches to recognise and enhance the personality, attitudinal and emotional factors of performance in addition to the physical stuff – if the latter is so critical to long term success?

Thanks again for your excellent contribution to the discussion.
WG

About 20 years ago when my wife and I were planning and designing our home, we found a really interesting book called “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander – The book includes a number of cross-cultural constants in successful design – use of color, shape, light sources from more than one direction – designing into the environment, etc.

At a meet warm-up yesterday morning, I was thinking about a few of our swimmers who are just about “bullet proof” – able to perform consistently well in just about any situation – sick, tired – well, rested – they are always able to find a way to put a great race in the water……they all share a number of traits or behaviors which are consistently applied in practice or in their training environment that may explain their consistency in meet performance……

Attendance;

Focus on technical detail;

Hard to tell when they are having a “bad day”;

Focus on process goals in practice that apply to meet performances;

Always prepared.

It’s a much longer list than I have included here!

All of the athletes have stronger and weaker areas – but they all consistently follow/demand/whatever – patterns which result in the best possible outcome at their meets……..from the outside looking in – you could say that they are all just really tough – but it’s a lot more than that…….