Chris DeSantis
Your Goals are For You

If you’re a coach (or a manager, the coaches of the business world) let me ask you if the following scenario sounds familiar to you. You sit down at the outset of a year with one of your charges, and you’ve asked them to present you with a list of goals. Perhaps, to take it to the next step, they’ve also given some thought to the process that they will use to try and achieve those outcomes.

Chris DeSantis
What Most People Get Wrong About Body Image

I’ve struggled with “body image” for the greater part of my life. I’m going to qualify all the statements I’ve made in this post so far. Before that- let me make one more. I think many people that struggle like I do try to “solve” that problem backwards, so I want to share how I went on that journey. The process is one that you can replicate for anything, not just that niggling sensation you get when you pass a mirror.

Chris DeSantis
Empathy vs Permissiveness

In part two of this series, I discussed what I perceived as the lack of empathy for men generally. One of the things that I think that is often misunderstood is how we acknowledge the “privileged” nature of being a man. I won’t attempt to broach that giant subject here, but I do want to distinguish between what I think a lot of people substitute for “empathy” and why many people may think that there is already too much empathy for men in the world.

Chris DeSantis
Swim Brief Bonus 7/16

I’ve been on a hot streak of podcasting recently. It’s been over a year since I changed the podcast format and committed to at least trying to put up an interview podcast every week. I think I’ve done that about 95% of the past year, and I’ve seen benefits well beyond what I’ve expected.

Chris DeSantis
Practical Advice for Husbands

I’ve often joked that at some point in my career I’m going to host a men’s seminar. In this joke scenario, I walk into the room with some tall boys of beer and crack one before holding forth on my secrets to being a happy man, husband and dad.

positive emotion

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Shaming is Not a Coaching Technique

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When I was a senior in college, just finishing my swimming career, my teammates laid down bets. Their gamble? How much I would weigh by the time I finished school in just a few months.

I was in the best shape of my life that year, a slim 6'1, 180 lbs. The heavy money was on 200 lbs,. and they ended up being right. Inside, I felt shame. Shame was just one end of a pernicious cycle- wherein I would isolate myself emotionally and try to push away shame with food and alcohol. Doing so would only lead to more shame.

The swimmers didn't come up with the idea to shame me on their own. A permission structure was already in place from my coach. His primary tactic for getting me "in shape" was to shame me. 

A lot of coaches think that shame works. It certainly invokes strong emotion, and sometimes that strong emotion can lead to change. But use of shame is playing with fire- a game that many coaches may not even be aware of.

Shades of Shame

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever publicly reprimanded an athlete in front of their peers? I know I have. That's shaming. Although it may feel "right" and "necessary" in the moment, I want you to reconsider.

Have you ever used group punishment for individual behavior? 

I cringe thinking about the time I pointed out that a 13 year old girl should "close her mouth" when eating. As a mom chaperoning our trip pointed out, her braces prevented it. 

Have you ever compared one athlete to another? Even if your intention was to use one athlete as a positive role model, there's a good chance you elicited shame. 

As with any good rule- ignorance of it is no excuse. Shame has serious consequences. So what kind of positive coaching can we replace it with?

Tough Positivity

One objection coaches will immediately say to me is "so I have to stop telling people they are wrong ever? That's how we got this spoiled generation". I am not saying that at all. There is a way, however, to still set boundaries around what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior.

It's harder, but you must communicate one-to-one to swimmers the specific action you consider inappropriate. Be clear that you do not believe that the action is a part of who the swimmer is. Express optimism that they can improve in the future.

For swimmers that struggle with fitness, as I did, there is often a lot of emotional coaching to be done. All of the commonly employed shaming techniques (weighing in swimmers, public comments, etc) only make things worse. As a coach you cannot start from expectations of fitness, but you can have a huge impact on the emotional health of your athletes.

Instead, you can help your athletes to feel positive emotions. Make them feel connected to you- communicate often that you care about them and show it with your actions. Express empathy for what they are struggling with. Show them what they are capable of doing and empower them to do it. 

Learn to recognize shame and talk about it openly with your athletes. Teach them to be empathetic to each other and recognize what things may be leading them to shame. 

Let's drop shame from the coaches toolbox forever.

Want to incorporate Positive Psychology into your coaching? Write me!