For The Team.

“Every day is a great day to be a great teammate because every day is a good day to be a good person.”

This is something I tell athletes almost every day. Whether they are having a good workout/race or an off one, they can always be a valuable teammate. The goal of this mindset is to build the habit that every day (good or bad) is a good day to be a good person.

This mindset requires athletes to develop empathy for others and their situation. They must recognize that they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Developing empathy and emotional intelligence is a life skill that will serve athletes well no matter where life takes them. Learning how to cooperatively work together with others for a shared goal is a requirement for wherever life takes athletes above and beyond their athletic lives.

The behaviors and qualities of a great teammate and good person are:

• A contagious positive energy on both their good days and the bad. They have a positive attitude in the middle of a bad event/situation/mood.
• Willing to put a teammate’s needs ahead of their own
• Those who continue to push themselves and their teammates to be better than yesterday. They are an example of our shared standard of excellence.

Say an athlete is having an off workout or day. Directing athletes to turn their attention to helping their teammates with their workouts, while still training to the best of their ability on that day, accomplishes a lot of things. Athletes now have a new motivation- they are not just running for themselves, rather now to help their teammates. Diverting their attention from their own misery, this helps make the workout go by faster and reduce the perceived discomfort. Before they know it, the workout is over and a new bond has been formed. A new moment has been added to their long term confidence memory bank of a time when they did not give in when it would have been easy to do so and they helped make the team better as a part of this.

This has now turned an off day to a successful one because they were able to help the TEAM be better that day. This same motivation can be used in the midst of a race- reminding athletes they are running for the team and their teammates. This incorporates a much higher level of motivation than just running for one’s self.

It follows that the more motivated we are, the greater the perception of effort we are willing to tolerate. And when it comes to increasing motivation, studies show that doing something for others is generally far more effective than traditional incentives like money or reputation. The less we are consumed with ourselves, the more willing we are to do hard things for others.”

Steve Magness

TEAM → Positivity → Motivation → Response Inhibition

The bigger the focus on the TEAM and positivity, the more motivated athletes will be to inhibit their response to ease up and slow down.

As a high school cross country coach, I wanted to create a mantra that would help cue athletes to take their minds off of the ever-growing discomfort that comes with distance training/racing and redirect it to a specific executable action. A short simple phrase to help them inhibit their response to give in to the discomfort of training and racing. I use the mantra “For The Team.”

For The Team.

The main objective with this phrase was to help athletes talk positively to themselves instead of listening to themselves. By talking to themselves, they are able to return their attention to the task at hand- making sure that their movements and breathing are both effective and efficient. This helps athletes not focus on how much further they have to go and speculate about how they will handle it, rather focus on that moment in time and their controllable actions. The key to not giving in when “it gets real” is to refocus your attention to what you are doing at that moment in time and who you are doing it for- FOR THE TEAM.

FOR THE TEAM.

Directing athletes to give all their energy and attention to running for their teammates and their team is paramount. This is the ultimate motivation, they are not just running for themselves, rather now for each other. Everything athletes do is for the TEAM. Knowing that if you do give in to that voice you are letting down your teammates is powerful motivation.

“The less we are consumed with ourselves, the more willing we are to do hard things for others.” — Steve Magness.

An individual’s ultimate level of success is in direct relation to the size and strength of their support system. This support system is the TEAM. When the focus is on helping others and supporting the team, that is when their individual pursuits and achievements rise as a result.

For the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf.

For the Strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

I am a big believer in the principle that what gets rewarded gets repeated. Recognizing, highlighting, and rewarding the above qualities of great teammates lead to them being repeated. Repeated behavior becomes habit. Habits are the ingredients of a team’s culture. I believe that a team’s culture is defined as “the way we do things here.” The way we doing things is that we are good teammates, regardless of our own personal circumstances.

When a team is made up of great teammates, that is when cool things happen. Not only athletically, but this is how life long friendships are built. Above and beyond their days as athletes, these teammates become a support system for life beyond distance running!

As a coach, my ultimate goal is to prepare athletes to be good people as adults. Because athletes were good teammates on their off days, they know they can be good people in the world regardless of circumstances.