Pond Hockey

First off. Thank you for being here today to read this because I am super excited about it <3

My friend I were chatting about coaching & having a safe place to process things going on in our lives without the outside influence of the people that are closest to us.

The people that we imagine the most expectations around.

The people that we don't want to disappoint.

From that, the analogy came up of playing pond hockey. When you are messing around on the pond with your buddies bold moves, trick shots, and practice is playful, fun, and it doesn't "count" right? No one is watching you or counting on you - sure there is still competition but it looks a little different the championship game. All that pressure. All those people expecting you to get it right. You expecting you to get it right. Holding onto your foundation hoping you don't mess up.

Big difference? Now I am not taking anything away from perfect practice and high performance when it comes to presentations and playing the big game. That is a part of the game of life.

I do want to bring some light to the value of pond hockey though. Having the space to be ourselves, explore, and have fun without pressure is part of how we learn. Can you imagine if when you were first learning how to ride a bicycle you had to do sprints before you could get on? Or you had to do 20 squats for conditioning if you fell off? How many of you would have gotten back on that bike and explored the balance that allowed you to experience freedom from your training wheels? Or gotten to that point where you could pop a wheelie?

Having a safe place to mess around means we have a safe place to find out what is possible. It means we can find out what we are capable of so we can then take it to practice, nail it, bring it to the big game with the certainty and confidence to perform. <3 That is kinda like coaching. You jump on a call with me and we play pond hockey. Yup, you're probably going to fall, and you're probably going to find some pretty killer trick moves to take to your next steps in life too. <3 I loved this analogy because this is so how I feel working with clients <3 We get to test things out, explore what went well, what can be improved, and how we are going to apply what we learned <3 And then go crush it in the real game called life <3