Stop Telling, Start Asking: How to Talk So Your Athlete Owns It

The short answer. It is not your job to tell them. It is your job to ask, so that they tell themselves. An athlete who decides the what, the how and the why owns the work. An athlete who is told, at best, complies.

Why telling stops working

Self-determination is one of the biggest factors in athletic success, and the word that matters is self. Not parent determination. The athlete has to decide what they are working on, how, and why, or the work never has any power behind it.

This is hard to hear when you know the sport, you can see exactly what they need to do, and you are usually right. Being right is not the problem. The problem is that a plan handed to a teenager is your plan.

A question I asked a dad

I once asked a father whether he believed in his daughter. He said yes, immediately.

It feels like you are imparting your knowledge. Most of the time, though, that compelled feeling is coming from a place of fear. Fear that they will fail if you don’t tell them.

When you take the wheel

When you take the wheel, that is your confidence on display. Not theirs. They need to drive their own bus. Their confidence is built by driving, including the stretches where they drive it badly.

The control you feel the urge to take, right before a competition or right after a bad one, usually comes from that same fear. It looks like help. Your athlete tends to experience it as a vote of no confidence.

What asking sounds like

Before a practice or a competition:

“How’s today going to go? Walk me through it.”
“What are you going to work on?”
“What do you need from me?”

Then listen to the answer, and resist grading it. If you want a structure for the conversation before a big competition, this is the one we teach.

When they are telling you about their world, the job is to understand it first. Not “you’re wrong.” Not “you’re right.” Not opinions. Just perspective, theirs.

The exception is simple: if they explicitly ask for your opinion, give it. That is not the same thing as withholding it forever. It is waiting to be asked.

(One exception: in the 24 hours after a competition, even an asked-for opinion waits until tomorrow.)

You will take the wheel again

You’re human. You are going to take the wheel again, and in that moment you will get in the way of their chance to build their own self-determination.

It is okay to mess it up. Accept it, come back, and recommit to what right looks like. It is the same thing we ask of the athlete: recognize it, reset, go again.

And here is how you will know it is working. The day they come to you with a question is the day you know it worked.