| I have long thought that self-awareness is a super power. A subset of self-awareness is honesty.
Honesty is the fertilizer for growth.
I don’t mean being honest with others, although that certainly is important. The honesty I am referring to is being honest with yourself.
A lack of honesty with yourself delays growth as long as you keep lying to yourself.
Seriously, I don’t think growth or improvement is possible with out being honest with yourself.
Last week I spent some time with a program. This program has had tons of success recently. They are in the middle of a tough stretch. In visiting with the staff, one thing stood out – they were honest with themselves about themselves.
They called a spade a spade.
The didn’t sugar coat it.
They were honest, authentic and transparent. This honesty will be a key reason why they will continue to grow and get better this year.
To help drive home this point, lets put it into the context of an athlete who is struggling. When you engage him/her, they have this false confidence. They respond to you with “No, I’m fine”… And you’re thinking “you’re not fine…you are simply lying to yourself…you are shooting 15% from 3 point range over the last four weeks.”
It would be so much better for this athlete to simply admit “Yeah, I am struggling. My confidence is shaken and I am not sure how to get out of this pit I am in.”
As a coach, you can work with that!
It will be almost impossible for that person to improve if they are not honest with themselves and others.
We coaches do the same thing. We hate to admit we are struggling, we hate to admit we need to make some changes, and we hate to admit we have not done a good enough job. We blame, shame and make excuses.
Be truthful with yourself!
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