How Coaches Can Use Self-Reflection to Develop Emotional Intelligence
Assigning self-reflection homework is a wonderful tool to help athletes develop emotional intelligence. As I wrote a few days ago, emotional intelligence is one of the first skills coaches should invest in developing within their athletes. Without it, everything else suffers.
It’s important to realize emotional intelligence is not something athletes are just born with. Most, if not all athletes must make behavior changes over time to to improve their emotional intelligence. Furthermore, self-reflection is one of the most important aspects of behavior change.
Assigning athletes self-reflection homework is perfect for this. For example, homework could be an athlete writing about their behavior with respect to the behavior of someone else. This someone else could be a teammate, role model or character in a movie. If writing is not an option, the coach could host group discussions on this or similar topics outside of practice.
Either way, practice schedules are tight and coaches must get a lot done with little time and resources. As a result, assigning homework is the best way to develop emotional intelligence without disrupting the normal practice routine.