Teaching Athletes to Value Process over Outcomes
A winning mindset starts with prioritizing process over outcomes. However, parents and coaches often make the mistake of over emphasizing outcomes with rewards and punishments. In addition, parents and coaches also tend to inadvertently show more love when athletes have winning outcomes and show little to no emotion when athletes are winning with process.
There are three things parents and coaches can do to address this. The first thing to remember is that everything starts with goals. Therefore, the first step is to make sure for every one outcome goal an athlete sets, they set multiple related process goals.
Secondly, change how feedback is provided. Provide very little feedback on competition days. Write down the feedback, keep it to yourself, and use that feedback to make changes to the process. Then direct all other related feedback to the athlete being on or off track with that process.
Lastly, go over and beyond to show them you value who they are, NOT what they do. Learn more about what your athlete enjoys outside of sports, then spend time with them on the process of just enjoying that activity for the sake of doing that activity, not on mastery.
In conclusion, outcomes matter but process matters more. Teach a young athlete this lesson and all other mindset lessons will be easy for them to learn.