Is vulnerability a key to personal growth?

Take home message

Putting yourself out there is a key to finding your limits and areas of growth

For Coaches

Be willing to let your guard down and take the help.

For Athletes

You can’t expect everyone to know everything.

It has been eight months since the shift in work being across two teams to just the Kookaburras.  It has probably been in the last two months that I have felt more closer to the coaching and playing group.  That will sound obvious as I am not running from session to session, but that’s not the main reason.  I think it is a result of being able to be immersed in the program and drilling down into detail, and in doing so I have reached my limitations.  Being stretched across two teams, I was never able to strive for detail and thus never reached my limitations.  With so many demands, I was frequently reacting and covered the basics as best as I could.  My limitation was my time not my ability.  Now with more time, I am the limitation.  Now, with more time, more is expected (from me and by me) and I have been exposed.  And my growth has been fantastic.  To the point where I have actually noticed it.  By that, I mean that often growth is so slow that you do not notice the change until it is quite obvious.  As a coach by reaching my limitations and displaying a vulnerability I feel I have developed quicker.

What has been the source of vulnerability?  A willingness to have the players help me.  For example, I may have seen an opportunity in a movement, or play, or physicality, and know I want to help, to intervene, but have not been sure of how.  By expressing it just like that to the players and/or coaches, our relationships have grown and we have solved the problems together and I have learnt.  Thus, by expressing my limitations, by being vulnerable to looking inadequate, I have had help in developing. 

But being vulnerable requires a high level of trust and respect.  I trust that the coaches and players will support me.  They are not going to ridicule me or lose faith in my ability because I do not know the answer.  There’s respect for what I have bought to the program so far and what I am trying to achieve which has made my willingness to say, “I’m not sure here” strengthen trust, not erode confidence. 

We all have our limitations. My growth of late has come from putting my weaknesses on display, as opposed to hiding them and relying on my strengths. Imagine how much better I could have been had I had the confidence to do this earlier.