Life Is About Choice

If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m particularly compelled by coaches who never played their sport professionally.

Partially, my interest stems from the fact that I see myself represented in them. I got agonizingly close to my dream of playing professional Aussie Rules, but fell at the final hurdle.

Mostly, though, I admire coaches who never played professionally because they are evidence of what you can achieve through sheer desire, willpower, and dedication to your craft.

It cannot go understated how difficult it is to carve out a career for yourself when, every year, a new gaggle of former athletes move into the coaching field and ‘jump ahead’ of you in the pecking order.

This is one of the reasons Valorie Kondos Field’s story is so remarkable. Not only did she never compete as a professional, she was never even a gymnast.

Her website describes it this way: “Former ballerina Valorie Kondos Field has never tumbled, flipped, or even played any type of organized sports, and yet she has been able to craft a legendary coaching career through curiosity, creativity, attention to detail, and unwavering care for the overall well-being of her athletes”.

With Kondos Field at the helm the UCLA gymnastics program became a juggernaut, winning 7 national championships and 18 conference championships.

Underpinning her coaching philosophy was the notion that success comes not from winning or losing, but choreographing your life and owning the choices you make.

In her autobiography, Kondos Field writes a riveting chapter about how she taught her athletes to own the ramifications of their behaviour.

Own your energy

“If there is one single truth I want my athletes to learn it’s that Life is about Choice, which starts with our thoughts,” Kondos Field writes. She says that if you asked any of the recent graduates of her program, they would all be able to recite this saying: “Life is about Choice, and the choices I make will dictate the life I lead.”

In short, this is Kondos Field’s variation of ‘our thoughts drive our emotions, which drive our actions’.

Here’s how she describes it:

This topic feels particularly poignant at the moment because — as a society — we seem to have lost touch with the notion of accountability and personal responsibility.

We’ve become overly litigious. We think we get to do and say as we please under the guise of 'authenticity’. Everything is someone else’s fault: the news cycle, social media, politicians.

However, those too are choices.

As this social dilemma reverberates into the sporting arena, I believe as coaches we now have a choice. We can choose to grumble and groan about how ‘kids these days’ don’t immediately know how to take responsibility or accountability.

Or, we can choose to teach it to them as a central part of our program.

Cody’s Notes

• It can be helpful to identify landmarks to prompt you to check your energy. One literal way to do this is to use a door as a reason to pause for 10 seconds and choose how you’re about to enter the next room.

• ‘Contagion Theory’ is one of the most under-appreciated concepts in team building.

• If you don’t believe me, watch this video.

• You can help your players understand the consequences of their actions by guiding them through how a particular decision might play out in advance. “And if you take that course of action, what do you anticipate might happen?” is a good question to start with.

• One of my favourite quotes about taking responsibility is from Jerry Colonna: “How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?”

• What else in your life could be choreographed to make it better?