The Three Essential Components of a Performance Coaching Program that Generates Tangible Results

There are three essential components to an efficient performance coaching program, they are:

• Fast and accurate assessment
• Fast and permanent elimination of the athlete’s Performance-Drains
• Goal orientation of the coaching (Directionality)

Fast and Accurate Assessment

Let me start by explaining what I mean by “accurate” assessment.  For an assessment to be considered accurate, it must tap into the athlete’s unconscious to reveal the sources of the performance problems he or she is experiencing.  It must reveal the “root cause,” not just rehash the symptoms.  Symptoms are what the athlete is experiencing on a daily basis, such as lack of consistency, anger, difficulty on certain courses or type of events, etc.  Symptoms are “conscious” and are most of the time explained in “conscious” terms, and, most of the time, these explanations are symptoms themselves. 

The root causes give life to this multitude of symptoms. They are mostly unconscious, and once permanently eliminated, they eliminate with them the symptoms they were giving life to.

“Fast” assessment means to be able to get to the “root causes” in a matter of hours.  Traditional assessments can take years to get to the root causes.  The problem with these approaches is that athletes, just like business executives, don’t have the luxury to be able to wait for one or two years to get to the root cause of their performance challenges. 

So, a fast and accurate assessment is an assessment methodology that gets to the root cause of the athlete’s performance challenges in a matter of hours, instead of years.

Fast and permanent elimination of the athlete’s Performance-Drains

A Performance-Drain is another word used to describe the “root cause” of an athlete’s performance challenges.  Performance-Drains trigger compulsions and automatic thoughts and reactions that in turn destroy an athlete’s performance and consistency of performance.  The word “compulsions” here is very important, because it means that the athlete has NO conscious control over these reactions.  At best the athlete realizes that he or she is in reaction, and spends a lot of effort and energy trying to contain the compulsive reaction.  At worst, the athlete is completely oblivious to the fact that he or she is in reaction and controlled by a compulsion.  The result of both of these situations is a rupture in performance—a missed gate, a disappointing position, or missing a spot on the Olympic team, etc.  

Permanently eliminating a Performance-Drain means to render it completely inactive. It means that it is not there anymore to trigger unwanted compulsions, reactions and thoughts.  Permanently eliminating a Performance-Drain is sometimes very easy, and sometimes harder.  It can take a matter of minutes to eliminate a “simple” Performance-Drain, or weeks or months to completely eliminate a complex Performance-Drain.  Traditional transformation methodologies such as cognitive and behavioral approaches take months if not years to take effect, for both simple and complex Performance-Drains.  Moreover, cognitive and behavioral approaches demand a lot of energy from the part of the athlete (for monitoring, correction and reinforcement), until the new thought process or behavior becomes natural.

So, a fast and permanent elimination of the athlete’s Performance-Drains means that the root cause that triggers compulsions and unwanted thoughts and behavioral patterns, is completely dismantled in a matter of hours or weeks (sometimes months if the root cause is very complex).  It also means that every time some work is done on a complex Performance-Drain, the athlete is changed, and the root cause is weakened.  A weakened root cause triggers less compulsions and unwanted reactions. 

• A “simple” Performance-Drain can be completely dismantled in a matter of minutes
• A simple Performance-Drain has a single psychological contributor—an easy example of a simple, not sport related, issue is the fear of snakes
• A “complex” Performance-Drain will gradually be dismantled over a longer period of time, from hours to months
• A complex Performance-Drain has multiple psychological contributors—an easy example of a complex, not sport related, issue is the fear of flying
• The fear of flying can be composed of the fear of heights, the fear of being in an enclosed space, the fear of being crammed-up in a small space with a lot of people, the fear of germs that can be transmitted in an enclosed space, etc.
• Every time a complex Performance-Drain is worked on, it is weakened, and the athlete is transformed.  The Performance-Drain is still active, but it is triggering less and less compulsions and unwanted thoughts and behaviors
• The weakened Performance-Drain makes the compulsions and unwanted thoughts and behaviors easier to control by the athlete, and have less and less influence on the athlete’s performance

Goal orientation of the coaching (Directionality)

The goal orientation of the performance coaching program means that the transformation work is prioritized, based on the level of influence of the Performance-Drain on the athlete’s performance and goals.  Many approaches to performance coaching and therapy are “non-directional.”  This means that the performance coach and the athlete will work on the issue (very often a symptom) that is currently acting out, without consideration of how it will help the overall performance of the athlete.  This leads to multiple, “all over the place,” healings. 

A simple analogy for this is the digging of a field.  Let’s imagine that the field is the athlete’s mind, the digging is the removal of Performance-Drains (or root causes, or even symptoms), and the vein of gold is the state of “freedom to perform” for the athlete.  This means that the goal of the coaching program is to find the location of the vein of gold as fast as possible (Accurate Assessment), and dig as efficiently as possible to reach the vein of gold (Fast and permanent elimination of the performance drains), and finally, ensuring that every time we are digging, we are digging in the place that will get the athlete closer to the vein of gold in the fastest way possible (Goal orientation of the coaching)

The non-directive performance coaching programs leads the athlete and the performance coach to dig everywhere in the field.  This means that the field will be covered with shallow holes.  In performance terms for the athlete, the athlete will NOT really feel the difference in performance, and will tend to want to quit the program (which is understandable). By digging all over the field, it will take years to reach the vein of gold.

The goal orientation of a performance coaching program leads the athlete and the performance coach to always (and systematically) dig in the place that will create the most movement and momentum in the realization of the athlete’s objectives.  This means that there will be one big and deep hole in the middle of the field and the vein of gold will be visible. In performance terms for the athlete, the athlete will feel the difference in performance after each one of the digs.  The athlete will be encouraged and freed to perform better with each transformation activity (or digs).  This will lead the athlete to increase his or her psychological work, and thus create an upward spiral in of increased performance and self-esteem.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, every time you or your children get into a performance coaching program, either for sport performance, executive performance, or simply for well being, make sure that the program includes the three vital components.  This will ensure that the changes that take place are at the root cause-level, that changes are consistently experienced and are permanent, and that the changes that are happening create measurable movement in the direction of the goals.