Welcome back to my weekly recap of our "Girls on the Run" practices and lessons.
As a reminder, my hope is to: 1) better communicate the depth and power of this GOTR program/curriculum, 2) help parents raise bolder, braver girls/kids, by sharing ways to reinforce these lessons through weekly challenges and 3) serve as a resource that can inspire & support other youth coaches.
What we did this week, besides running:
Session 5: All about "Self-Talk" - creating awareness of the power of this inner voice
[This practice was about how to recognize negative and positive self talk, notice how it makes us feel, and learn how to challenge negative self-talk and re-write it into positive self-talk.]
Practice Activity: We incorporated positive self-talk and getting to know each other into a sprints workout... The girls lined up opposite each other and then sprinted to meet a partner at the mid-field to exchange their 'positive self-talk' answers. Each time they ran to the middle, we challenged them to find a new partner. We did it 5x with 5 different statements and partners:
- I am most happy when...
- I like myself because...
- Something I do well is...
- My friends would tell you that I am...
- I like the way I feel about myself when... or Create your own...
I could see using this in a warm up for most sports and it would be a great way to help teammates get to know each other and could use different ice breaker statements if these don't feel right to you.
- Ask your daughter: What is negative/positive self-talk? Is there anything you say to yourself that you notice is negative? Did you come up with a way to turn it around?
- Bonus Activity: Share an example of negative self-talk with your child and ask them to help you turn it around!
- Here's my own recent example: I was in a bit of a negative self-talk spiral on the way to coach my first GOTR practice. I was beating myself up about running late because I'd let my last work meeting run over, forgot I had to stop home first to pick up running clothes for my girls and promised I'd grab one of the girls from aftercare... I'd signed up for too much and hadn't left enough time. I was in my head: "I should have run a tighter meeting, I should have left earlier; I'm letting the kids down; I'm a bad manager/coach/mom because I'm late." The kids were fine, there are other coaches, and I was 5 minutes late. It was not a helpful thought loop and I realized it. When I'm in that loop, I've realized things continue to go down hill because I'm distracted and focusing on the wrong things. The first thing to do is interrupt it. The girls practiced with using a sound like an annoying buzzer when we heard negative self-talk. I interrupted my negative self-talk loop by texting a friend. When I'm forced to write/type it/say it out loud, I can almost hear it anew like someone else is telling me 'the thing' and I realize that someone (me) is being too hard on her(my)self. It's embarrassing how overly critical the phrases were in my head when I get them out. My friend texted back quickly, "I do that too... it's hard to walk away sometimes when you care about your job and people and have so much on our minds." It was the helpful release I needed to hear. Thank you Sanika Kulkarni
. It allowed me to stop the loop in my own head and then I could re-write it. "I care about my people and invest deeply, I am optimistic about how much I can get done, I invest in my kids and community. AND, I can do even better next time because I'm always learning." I moved my calendar block to allow for more commute time next Thursday. :)anager/coach/mom because I'm late." The kids were fine, there are other coaches, and I was 5 minutes late. It was not a helpful thought loop and I realized it. When I'm in that loop, I've realized things continue to go down hill because I'm distracted and focusing on the wrong things. The first thing to do is interrupt it. The girls practiced with using a sound like an annoying buzzer when we heard negative self-talk. I interrupted my negative self-talk loop by texting a friend. When I'm forced to write/type it/say it out loud, I can almost hear it anew like someone else is telling me 'the thing' and I realize that someone (me) is being too hard on her(my)self. It's embarrassing how overly critical the phrases were in my head when I get them out. My friend texted back quickly, "I do that too... it's hard to walk away sometimes when you care about your job and people and have so much on our minds." It was the helpful release I needed to hear. Thank you
Sanika Kulkarni
. It allowed me to stop the loop in my own head and then I could re-write it. "I care about my people and invest deeply, I am optimistic about how much I can get done, I invest in my kids and community. AND, I can do even better next time because I'm always learning." I moved my calendar block to allow for more commute time next Thursday. :)
Please share if you have any of these conversations with your daughters or teams, and please share feedback!
GIRLS ON THE RUN, LET’S HAVE FUN,
Director of Communications at San Francisco General Hospital Foundation
7 个月So much of coaching for me was getting to say to my team what I wished someone had said to me - especially this lesson!
Sales Leader | Coach
7 个月Great article Megan, important reminders and how lucky are these girls are to be recipients of this early in their lives. Sometimes as adults we don’t recognize the negative self talk until we stop and say it out loud, or share with a friend. I find the “release valve” of sharing is one great way to check in with yourself on how you’re doing. Shout out to Kalsang Tanzin who has inspired our leadership team to use that release valve when needed - whether a talk with a friend, a walk outdoors or a pause.