Hello, and welcome back to Brain in the Game. Brain in the Game is a podcast that I've specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are looking to do their sport just that little bit smarter. Brain in the Game is a mental toolbox, and I'm your host, Dave Diggle. In this episode 43, we're going to look at the 10 most important questions a coach can ask their athlete when they're preparing and planning. As the world of sport has got more more professional, and the realms of a coach has shifted from being the ringmaster that does everything, decides on what the athlete is going to compete in, the direction they're going to go, what their potential is, to more of a support specialist role, and the athlete steps up and has more of a say in their career. We need to be very specific about how we create our teamwork, how we create our entourage, and get that athlete to where they want to get to. So the coach needs to be more specific about the questioning they're asking so they can give the athlete the right advice. And the athlete needs to be more aware of what direction they're going to go and what they can and maybe cannot achieve in reality.
What we're going to look at today is a 10 top questions that you as a coach should be asking your athletes when sitting down and planning with them. Now, when I sit down and I plan with athletes, I make sure the coach is involved, the athlete is obviously there, their support specialists. So that could be myself, their mind coach. It could be their strength and conditioning experts, it could be their nutritionist. And also involve their parents or their partners, depending on how old they are and who they're interacting with. So making sure that everybody involved in this team, in this entourage, is on the same page and singing the same song. So the first question that I always ask the athlete is, what do you want What's the big end objective? What's your big dream? Where do you want to take this? And now the athlete might turn and go, I want to be an Olympic champion. When in reality, they may be state or national level, athletes. We'll be able to pull them back down a little bit and go, Okay, let's shoot for something just a little bit lower than that then. Or they may turn and say, I want to be an Olympic athlete.
Well, you've got the potential to be the Olympic champion. You've got a chance being the best out there. Then we might need to raise them up a little bit, get their perspective and their focus on something a little bit higher than just settling for mediocrity. By asking that first question, what specifically is it that you want, gets their emotional buy-in and enables us as coaches to gauge where they're shooting for. Are they shooting too high or are they shooting too low? Or are they absolutely right on the button? They know exactly what their potential is and what they're going for. So that first question is the most important question. What is it that you do want? That big end objective, that emotional buy-in, that big why. Why am I here? Why am I Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I spending so many hours training? Why am I giving up a career in a normal job to train all these hours? Why am I giving up my social life and not hanging out with my mates at school because I go training every single night. If we understand that big why, we as coaches and we as support specialists can feed that in those tough times.
The next question is, what do you see, what do you hear, or what do you feel If you closed your eyes and you thought about that big end objective right now. If you closed your eyes, describe to him, what is it that's going on in your mind? If the athlete turns around and say, I can see myself standing on top of the dais. I can see the medals around my neck. I can see my name up on top of the board as being first, as being that Olympic champion. I see all my family around me. I see all my peers and my friends there cheering me on. We know that that athlete is predominantly a visual athlete. They see in pictures. If they turn around and go, You know what? I did this. I went out and I performed really well, and I watched everybody else do their routines, and I knew. I knew that I'd won that competition. I knew by doing my routine really well and making I'd done all my preparation, all my training, I got my end objective. Then we know they're more orderable. They're more order and sequence-driven. They're looking for the one step, the next step, which calls the outcome.
Again, as a coach, we can utilise that. If they turn around and say, I just knew I could do it. I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that day. I woke up, it felt really good. I knew that was my day. I knew that I could go out there. I'd done all my training, and I felt right. They're more kinesenic. They're more emotion and sensory-driven. Understanding what drives them, how they process that information, will determine how we deliver our message to them, how we deliver our coaching strategies and our coaching styles to them. Now, me, I'm predominantly a visual person. When people talk to me, I transcribe that into a big picture so I understand it. I get that picture in my mind. I know what they're looking for, what they're trying to achieve. I can see it. I'm a big picture person. However, if they talk in the audible, they're talking order and sequence. When I transcribe that back into that big picture in my mind, I make sure that I'm really conscious of taking all those steps in, not just diving into the big picture. I need to look at all the steps involved in that to get that picture.
Because when I come then and say, Right, What we want to be doing here is this, this, this, this, and this. This is the approach we need to take. This is the mental training that we need to do here. I then deliver it back to them in an order and sequence format. It's pointless me taking my big picture and giving it to an audible person because they'll go, Yeah, that's nice, but what do I do first? As a coach, I need to understand my style. I need to understand my athlete style. I need to make sure that not only do I take all the parts of their process to make my picture, I need to unpack that again and redeliver it to them in their format. If they turn around and say, I saw it in my mind. I saw this big picture, and I'm a picture person. Again, I've got to listen for the details, because when I see my picture, it won't be the same as their picture. It won't be what they've been aiming for. So I got to make sure the detail, the devil's in the detail. We know that. If they're an emotional processor, I've got to talk in sense and feelings to them.
Okay, if we do this, you're going to get to feel this. If you want to make sure that you're on the top of that day, it's that day, what do we need to do to make you feel right in the morning? What is it? If we look over the last 3, 6, 12 months through your journal, what's given you the most reliable sense of feeling right? Then we'll do that. We make sure that we feed their format. Number three is, what are you prepared to do to achieve it? That's asking, Okay, what's your action step? How are you going to make this happen? What is it you specifically are going to do to get that big end objective? That's important. It's not an expectation of someone's going to give it to me. Someone's going to tell me what I need to do. What are you going to do? As a coach, when you ask the athlete, it's getting them bought in. Okay, I'll do my utmost as a coach. I can advise you, I can guide you, but what is it you're going to do? What's the part that you're going to play? They might turn and say, I'm going to turn up to every single training session.
I'm going to make sure that I'm here early every session, I'm going to make sure that every time I learn a new skill, I can peak that skill. Whatever it is. That's an important getting the athlete to buy in in their role, understand what their role is. Who do you want and who do you need on your team to help you get there and why? Now, most athletes will dive straight into people. They'll say, I want John on my team, or I want Sarah on my team, or you know what? My uncle Bob, he's great at this. I want him. What we're looking at there is an emotional... And so we may need to have those people on the team to feed that emotion. However, what I would always say to an athlete is, let's look at roles. What roles do we need? Do we need a coach? Do we need a chiropractor? Do we need a A mind coach? Of course, I need a mind coach. Do we need a strength and conditioning expert? Do we need a nutritionist? Do we need somebody who's a manager, somebody who's marketing and research? Who do we need as a role?
Then let's put people in those roles because that way the athlete can look at it more clinically. You know what? In order for me to get my objective, to me to be an Olympic champion, I've got to have a manager on board. It's going to be an expensive journey, so I want to make sure that I'm not standing there worrying about money. I've got somebody sponsoring me so I can do what I need to do. I need a strength and condition in person. Mentally, I'm strong. Physically, I need to keep flexible and I need to keep strong, or vice versa. You know what? Physically, I've got it. However, mentally, when things get tough for me, I fall off the conveyor belt. We need to look at roles specifically for that athlete. As a coach, you understanding who they need to have will give you a better option of seeing how they progress. You're going to see as a coach, long before they do, who you need to slot in. Look at who do we need in our entourage and at what stage? Because you might not need them at the start, but near the end, you may need them, and vice versa.
You might need a real headstrong, strength and condition in person to get them into shape. However, as we get closer to the objective, you might need somebody who's better at maintaining that, somebody whose skill set is not necessarily the ground foundations, but the fine tweaking of the physical, the mental, the emotional, the nutrition, whatever it be. As a coach, understanding who needs to be in the team and at what stage enables you to orchestrate that with the athlete. The next question is, how do you want to be coached? This is a strange one because I've worked with so many different athletes and coaches. Very rarely have I ever heard a coach say, Okay, how do you want me to do my job? Because coaches, traditionally, and I was a coach, too, and I understand this because you have that expectation as a coach that you should know everything. You should know what that athlete needs. You should know what the best thing is at that time. When in reality, we often don't. We know what we would want or what we would do or what generally or generically could be good at that point. But by asking the athlete, a couple of things happen.
One, you get their interpretation. You know what? I want to be pushed. That's what most athletes will turn around to say. I want you to push me hard. I want you to keep me on track. And yes, sure, that's part of the journey. However, if you ask the question, you continually ask that question, the athlete will search, well, actually, what does work better for me? You know what? I need somebody who's going to be able to give me their perspective, but also listen to my perspective, too. I need to be heard because that's going to change the dynamics of how that athlete takes your information. If the athlete isn't being heard or doesn't feel like they're being heard, then they're going to have some internal resentment to you constantly going, do this, do that, do this. This is what you should be doing Next. If you can take the time and go, Right, you know what? I think you should be doing this. What do you think? By giving that athlete the opportunity to say, well, yeah, I agree. Bang, you've got them brought in. Or they might turn and say, I can see what you're saying.
However, I see this. This has worked for me in the past. I've done this research and this has worked for this person. And I think we're similar. By giving the athlete the opportunity to dive in and give you feedback as the coach will enable your dynamics and a relationship to work more harmoniously. Having that athlete know themselves how they like to be coached, It gives them also some control. They don't feel like they're the puppet on the end of the puppeteer's string. They want to feel like they're pulling some of these strings, too. That all goes all the way down to the junior athlete athletes. I was asked the other day, I was given a lecture, and a coach said to me, Yeah, I can see what you're saying, but surely you don't mean the six, seven, and eight-year-olds. Of course, I mean them. If we train them from a young age to tell us how they want to coached. It's like the red car theory that I talk about so frequently. If you buy a red car, you see more red cars. If you ask an athlete what they want in a coach, they're going to start thinking about, Okay, you know what?
When John talks to me like this, that really works for me. Or I like this coach because they make me feel good. Okay, cool. They're obviously focusing on the interaction between them and a coach. They may be six and seven, but we're going to get more out of them in their fundamental foundation years if they're enjoying what they're doing. They're not coming out of training crying because one coach is really strict and one coach is really cute and cuddly and put their arm around them and say, Hey, how about we try this? Whatever works for them. I've seen six and seven-year-olds who are so focused, who love that, right, next, next, next approach because there's no guesswork. They know what's expected of them. In The kids like that. Ask the athlete, How do you want me to coach you? What are your wants and what are your needs? You might want me to be really focused and really hard on you, but you might need that ear every now and again. You might need off time, that joke every now and again. I've got a client who, when I asked him for a testimonial, his big thing was, I love some of the jokes we have.
Well, I hadn't really considered that to be a major part of my progression with them. But I knew by taking some of the intensity out of the sessions we had, it lowered his anxiety and enabled him to focus a bit more and absorb the information. So I used it, but I wasn't as aware as obviously he was of how important that was in his training. So ask them, what do you want and what do you need? Number six, ask them, what motivates you and why? Because what motivates me will be different to what motivates you. Some people get motivated by the big end objective. Like myself, I'm a big picture person. So what motivates me is I know where I want to go. I know the big picture. I want to have an institution where everybody can come and learn this mental training for the athletes and the coaches. That's my big picture, my big end objective. That drives me, that motivates me. And every single time I get success with my clients, I feed into I'm a one step closer to my big picture objective. Some people are motivated by feedback, so they may love the, Hey, Sarah, you're doing really, really well this session.
Great. I'd love to see the way you're growing. You're doing excellent training. That might motivate them. Or they might get motivated by, Come on, let's do it. I believe in you. Let's get out there and let's go, go, go, go. That might motivate them. Ask them why it motivates them. If they're a big picture person like myself, why does it motivate me? Because I know that I can achieve it. I know that it's something that's not out there at the moment. It's unique. That drives me. That individuality drives me. If somebody is driven by, Hey, come on, I really believe in you, then that's going to help them understand, Well, you know what? My language I use, I believe in you. They're externally referenced. That's different. It's a different delivery than, You know what motivates me? Me telling myself, I can do this. I can see that picture in my mind of me achieving that. Well, that's me, me, me. That's internal referencing. My language as a coach will be, What do you see? How good do you feel? You must be so proud of yourself. The language I use as a coach, altars depending on what motivates them.
Question seven is, what demotivates you and why? From my perspective, the rara, the people going, Yeah, well, outcome, the buntings, and that thing, that derails me a little bit because it detracts from my focus on the big objective I'm going for. All the and all that stuff isn't me. Some people, what demotivates them is people constantly wanting to be involved with what they're doing. If you've got an athlete who, Look, I'll come to you when I need something. If I don't need something, I'm just going to go and do what I need to do. What might demotivate them is every five minutes, You okay? Can I help you? Those things. By you asking the athlete, and the athlete and the athlete being able to come up and tell you what motivates them and what demotivates them enables you to coach far more effectively and far more efficiently. Number eight, what will it give you when you achieve it? And this is a tough one because often athletes will go, I don't know. They've got their eye focused on whatever it is they're going to achieve, but they very rarely think past that. So If I become an Olympic champion, what would that give me?
What does it give you? Does it give you notoriety? Is that what you're looking for, that recognition of being the best, the number one, the person that went out against all odds and did something that was absolutely amazing? Well, then if that's you, you're an externally-referenced person, and that's fine, that's cool. If you like to be recognised, then as a coach, again, you know what? I think you're doing a fantastic job. Everybody in the club are watching what you're doing, and, wow, we're just in awe of how you're doing so well. We all saw that. Excellent. External reference. Or is it, you want to stand there and go, I did this. I did this. I made this happen. Then you're an internally-referenced person. Like before, well done. You did so fantastic. You must be so proud of yourself. Understand Training, what it is it's going to give them enables you as a coach to feed that. If they're externally referenced and they go, You know what? When I become that Olympic champion and I prove it to everybody that I could do it, how we focus our coaching, what would other people see? If you're training, step out.
What would somebody else see you do? How would they help you focus more? How would they help you put that skill right? We can utilise that understanding, that processing, that filtration system. If they're an internally-referenced person, Okay, look inside. What do you see? How do you process this? What's the next steps? How does that make you feel? So we still use that, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? But it's delivered in a way that's internal. Good question. Number nine is, how are you know when you've achieved it? Now, they turn around and say, I want to be an Olympic champion. That's pretty easy. When you stand on top of that dice and they put that medal around your neck and you become that Olympic champion, then, okay, cool, it's job done. What if it is, I want to be one of the best athletes that's ever been. I want to change the way people see the sport. I want to influence and motivate the young athletes coming up. That's a little bit more difficult. That's a little bit more difficult to quantify. By asking the athlete, How will you know when you reach it?
One helps them clarify that final step that, When I do this, I've got it. When we understand that, we understand that big picture, we can utilise that same strategy for the next step. What's this next skill you got to learn? How are you know you've got that skill? How will you know when you own that skill? They might turn around and say, When I've done it five times, or Or, You know what? When I've competed it, or, When I've done it internationally in a routine. When you know that, you can turn and say, You've done it now. You own that. Next. We can keep that traction and momentum moving forward. The last of the top 10 questions, what's your next step? Often, athletes will go, Oh, I don't know. I don't know what my next step is because I've looked at all the big picture thing. I know what's all the way out there. And often, the first step to take is the hardest step because there's a heap of expectations on that. If I don't take the first step right, then it's going to take me down a path that's way off track. Often an athlete will say, I'm not going to take any step because I don't know what the next step is.
We talk about using the decision matrix and we work backwards so that we alleviate that anxiety, that stress around the first step. If we work backwards all the way back to the now, then we know the path. We know if we take this step, it's going to lead down that track. It takes all that anxiety, that pressure, that expectation away from, but I don't want to take the first step in case it's a wrong step. What is their next step? Help them make the first step. That's going to create momentum. We'll never, ever achieve anything if we don't move. We need to take action. We need to create a path, momentum, momentum, traction, and utilise all of that to keep moving. It's okay to deviate from our path and get back on track or to change our mind, but there's no point in changing our mind if we haven't gone anywhere because we're still in the same spot. What are those top 10 questions? Number one, what is it specifically that you want? What's your big end objective? What's your emotional buy-in? Number two, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel when you stop, close your eyes and you think about that?
That's going to give us visual, auditory, kinesenic. Number three, what are you prepared to do to achieve it? Getting that athlete bought in. Number four, who do you want and who do you need on your team? What's your entourage? What's the role? When do they need to be involved? Right from the start all the way through, halfway in at the end? Where do they play that role? Number five, how do you want to be coached and why? Getting that athlete to understand, You know what? This is what works for me, and I can communicate that. I can ask you to coach me this way. You as a coach, you can understand that and go, Right, okay. I'll give you my utmost coaching skills, and I'll try and deliver it in a way that works best for you. What motivates you and what demotivates you? What gives you propellent forwards and what pulls up that handbrake? Number eight, what will it give you when you achieve it? What's the next step after your achievement? How do we not pull up at the end of that cliff face and go, There's nothing after this. We want to create that momentum and keep that momentum flowing.
Number nine, how you know you've achieved it. What is that final step you've got to take to go, Got it. Whether it be your big end objective or the next skill. Number 10, what is your next step? Get that athlete bought into taking action. Got to do something. Standing here having all these great ideas is great. But if we don't use them, they're just great ideas. Get them to take action. What is that step? Hope these 10 questions have given you a different perspective on how you interact with your athletes, how you build a plan going forward, whether that be a state competition, a national competition, going for World Championships or Olympics, has been selected or learning a skill. It doesn't matter. If you keep these top 10 questions in your mind as a coach, you'll get the athlete more bought in and you work better as a team. If you have any feedback about these questions or you want to ask more detail on some of these questions, by all means, feel free to drop me a line. I'll answer you in person and I'll give you as much detail and information as you require.
Until the next episode of Brain in the Game, Train Smart, Enjoy the Ride. My name is Dave Diggle, and I'm a Performance Mind Coach.
