Permission To Fail: How to help young athletes succeed
‘As coaches & parents it’s our job to remove the fear of failure’, says social media’s favorite sports coach.
Coach Matt Lisle is one of the internet’s favourite softball and baseball coaches.
He trains Major League pros, coaches a college softball team, and to hundreds of thousands of followers online he is beloved for consistently sharing gold-standard sporting inspiration and actionable coaching advice.
Chances are he’s popped up on your Twitter timeline already.
The Heja app blog caught up with Coach Lisle to quiz him on his coaching values and tap into some of his secrets to success.
Winning the trust of the athletes you coach
“For me, as a coach now, I really try to invest in building relationships with my athletes,” said Coach Lisle on how he connects with softball and baseball players of all ages and abilities. “The more trust our athletes have and the deeper the athlete-coach relationship, the easier it is for them to buy in to what coaches are saying.”
Lisle’s beliefs were instilled in him by Frank Sanza, an old coach of his from high school. The special relationship Sanza built with the young three-sport superstar remains with Lisle to this day.
“He wasn’t just a coach on the surface but he actually cared about me. He really believed in me, loved me and built that relationship. He will always have a special place in my heart.”
Giving young athletes permission to fail
A renowned Major League Baseball hitting consultant, Lisle is also part of the University of South Carolina softball team’s coaching staff. One key focus, which Lisle returns to on the sideline and on social media, is the importance of giving young athletes permission to fail.
“As coaches or parents, I think it’s our job to take the fear of failure out of the equation.
“I’ve seen a lot of young athletes play with a fear of failure, who take that into their lives in future. Their efforts become geared towards not letting parents down or their coach down. They play to not get yelled at! They’re not playing with freedom or the joy of playing.”
Coach Lisle offers an example. Two days into a recent three game series, things weren’t going well for a member of his college softball team.
“On Friday and Saturday, one of our batters suffered a lot of failure. I could see her body language & posture showed her discouragement. As a coach, we can say nothing, we can get frustrated with her performance, or we can try to take away that negativity she’s feeling. I came up to her and said:
I know you’ve had a lot of failure in the last two days. But you know what, this is a game of failure. Even the best players have days, weeks or longer where they struggle and don’t have success.”
“I encouraged her to stay positive. I said ‘I feel today is going to be a great day for you and you’re going to be successful — every new pitch is an opportunity.’ Straight away, her shoulders went back and she smiled a little more.”
Freed of the of the fear of failure, the confidence-boosted batter suddenly succeeded and hit her team a home run.
Coaches have to lead the way
Sticking by your players is commendable, but isn’t it common practice for coaches to keep an athlete’s spirits high in times of adversity?
“In my experience, I know a lot of coaches who think ‘this is a really good idea, I believe in this stuff’, but when push comes to shove and real adversity hits, it’s like they don’t really buy into it.
“You have to prove to your athletes that when adversity hits you’re the first one to say, ‘Hey it’s alright, we’ve got you, it’s all good.’
“We steal the joy away from athletes when we show them, ‘when you fail I’m going to punish you by yelling at you’.”
Coaches have to lead in that way, they can’t be silent in those moments. They have to lead the way.
Helping young athletes grow and succeed
All coaches and parents like to see their athletes playing with joy, but does removing the fear of failure actually benefit performance?
“Absolutely,” said Coach Lisle, “It allows them to play to their full potential.
“We see the most growth with our athletes when they feel like they can do anything, like failure is just a small speedbump on the way to where they’re going — not a huge roadblock, which is what happens when we hammer them every time they fail!
“Athletes don’t want to fail, they want success all the time. But in sport there is failure all the time!
“When they know that failure is part of the journey, just part of the process, they look at it and say, ‘Okay, I failed — and I’ll get back up again!’”
