I have recently finished reading Mastery by Robert Greene. The fist chapter is titled, Discover Your Calling: The Life’s Task. He then goes into strategies for finding your life’s task. This got me thinking, “How did I end up choosing to coach?” and taking it back a step further, “Did I choose coaching or did coaching choose me?”.
As for the second question, the easy answer is a combination of both. Since I feel that is a cop out answer, I lean more towards “I chose coaching”. I say this because while many aspects of coaching come natural to me (love of sport and strategizing, eagerness to help others, and leadership ability) there are likewise many aspects that I need to work really hard at (namely, patience and finding creative ways to get through to athletes).
Discussing his mark with long jumper Melvin Echard Jr.
So, if I chose coaching as my life’s task, how did I end up at that choice?
Combined with the previously mentioned aspects of coaching that come naturally to me, there is one event in my life that sticks out. In my senior year of high school basketball I suffered a severe sprained ankle early in the season that forced me to miss a vast majority of the games. This meant that when I was not rehabbing my injury, I was on the sidelines coaching. Missing all those games deeply saddens me, but I believe there was a positive result of the injury hidden amongst all the negative. I found great joy in coaching from the sideline in spite of the circumstance. Even more profound than the internal joy, I was kindly complimented on my coaching abilities by my head coach, Caleb Miller.
The combination of my internal feelings and the external feedback from my coach had a profound effect, although I did not immediately realize it.
As I mentioned before, I have a natural drive to strategize and help others. As I began college, I was in pursuit of a career in financial advising. A life’s task that would satisfy two of my natural tendencies…or so I thought. Spending three years in an accounting office led me to realize the cubicle life was not for me. I then chose to trade my dreams of financial well-being for my passion of sport. I decided to pursue an Exercise Science degree and coach.
I could not be happier with my decision. I love going to work and I love the vision of my employer, the World Athletics Center. In chapter 1 of Mastery, Robert Greene wrote, “In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it.” I have the love and the connection, now it’s time to master the field!