I am a proud coach as last night our boys became men, as they for the first time played an entire game. They fought until the game clock was at 00:00. It was the last regular season game, and if that is how it all ended, win, lose, or draw , I’m good with that. Mission accomplished.

As they figured out how to look in the mirror and have an honest moment with themselves. Are they giving it everything?

So in pregame Coach Lynch asked them if they had mentally prepared. Visualized their game. I had told them that alone, probably got me a free education way back when.

I then went onto talk about their personal responsibility to themselves and their team. That they alone must take on the blame for they are part of a team.

That is why I coach. It is to witness the evolution of the player from boy to man. When he takes on that responsibility. His life changes, and magically so does that system he calls a team.

What system are you part of that can change with you or because of you?

Systems Theory simply put is kind of like the idea that you are the average of who you hang out with. Hang out with mostly smart people and you can’t help but get smart. And the opposite is true.

So on a football team, finding the leaders and fostering leadership via personal responsibility values can assist in tilting the team into a team of leaders.

So in a small group you may have someone who wants to change, but the group will obstruct that person from changing for a multitude of reasons. Mostly I think is because that person will not be predictable any longer.

But in order for that person to change, that person must have incredible leverage to change against the tide of the group pressure to stay the same.

As a coach, building up as many physical as well as psychological reasons to change is the only way to get the player to grow. Once enough flip and start looking for growth, the pressure flips for the greater good of the team. As more and more adopt to the new normal. Only to fight that new normal from changes for good or bad. And on and on we go.

From Wikipedia:
Systems psychology
Systems psychology is a branch of psychology that studies human behaviour and experience in complex systems. It is inspired by systems theory and systems thinking, and based on the theoretical work of Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and others. It is an approach in psychology, in which groups and individuals, are considered as systems in homeostasis. Systems psychology “includes the domain of engineering psychology, but in addition is more concerned with societal systems and with the study of motivational, affective, cognitive and group behavior than is engineering psychology.”[17] In systems psychology “characteristics of organizational behaviour for example individual needs, rewards, expectations, and attributes of the people interacting with the systems are considered in the process in order to create an effective system”