The Athletics Hub

Let us be your guide. Four StepBack Sessions provided each month to simplify your prep time!

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: It is important to have an intentional mindset in all things we do, which may consist of having a long term perspective or finding ways to extract value from all circumstances. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Discuss the importance of mindset in work
    2. Find strategies to extract value and meaning from the work

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: The phrase “respect is earned, not given” is often accepted without question. But, if we examine it closely, it suggests that one person’s value is greater than another’s. In a team setting, where success relies on collaboration, mutual respect and recognizing the equal importance of every member are essential for optimal performance.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Challenge the idea that respect is earned not given
    • 2) Bring awareness to the importance of treating everyone equally

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: Conflict is often thought of as something to be avoided, but the right type of conflict can create a healthy tension that fosters growth. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Understand the conflict continuum and pros/cons of each side
    2. Bring awareness to what conflicts exist on your team and what is needed for more healthy tension

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: While stress is often viewed negatively and something to be avoided, there is a lot of benefit in approaching it head on and viewing it positively. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Bring awareness to our tendencies around stress
    2. Understand our stress coping ability and its impact on our team


 
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: A “team first” mindset is often discussed as important for team success, but it’s much harder to actually live out. Understanding what it looks like and what gets in the way is the first step to ensuring a successful adoption of a “team first” mindset. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Build understanding of a “team first” mindset
    2. Prompt actionable steps to encourage “team first” behaviors

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: There is a tendency to try to “perform better” when the stakes are higher. This can actually pull us out of character and away from what we do well. If our standards have been high, we should only need to mindfully do what we already do. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Reframe “difficult” situations
    2. Refocus our attention on what we already do well

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: While some may wait for the right time, enough information, conditions to act, others throw caution into the wind. Both can be helpful, but the importance lies in recognizing which is most helpful, not most typical. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Bring awareness to the benefits of quick decision making vs patience
    2. Practice the opposite action of what you typically do

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: A high competitive fire or tenacity is likely something every coach wants to see at one point or another. Whether a team has it or doesn’t is often revealed in last chance opportunities (final points, final minutes, close games). Every team and individual has a similar quality they need to bring to perform at their best.
  • Outcome: 
    1. Bring awareness to the need for your quality
    2. Discuss opportunities to train and reinforce your chosen quality


  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: Perfectionism can drive athletes to excel but also create stress, self-doubt, and burnout. In both sport and life, the pursuit of perfection often leads to unrealistic expectations and a focus on outcomes rather than growth.
  • Outcome: 
    1. Understand the pros and cons of perfection
    2. Shift from perfection towards striving for excellence

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: Principles, values, and nonnegotiables serve as guides in the decisions we make. As likely as we have these, it’s easier to forget them or even compromise on them to serve an immediate need. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Bring awareness to the easiness of exceptions
    2. Highlight weak spots where principles need to be reinforced

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: If the purpose is to “win”, whatever that may be, there can be fear or anxiety associated with failure. If the purpose is to improve, then failure becomes a requirement. We break this down into playing the infinite game versus the finite game. 
  • Outcome: 
    1. Bring awareness to how we view success and competition 
    2. Integrate strategies to view growth as a long-term process

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: It’s typical to measure success through wins or achievements. It’s atypical to measure success through failure. However, failure actually teaches us more than our “success” and is a better metric of where we stand.  
  • Outcome: 
    1. Reframe success and failure 
    2. Build awareness to our tendencies as a team and how we can support more “failing”

  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • It’s easy to see those in bigger roles as more important. But, having this mindset or treating others this way, can take away from the true strength of a team—everyone committing fully to their role and seeing it as important.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to how we perceive roles and importance.
    • 2) Reinforce the value of every member on the team.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Outcome: 
    • Telling the truth is uncomfortable, but necessary for high performing teams. Great teams find a way to embrace the discomfort of truth-telling, doing so with compassion, because they recognize the impact of tolerance.
  • Context: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to our natural response to telling the hard truth.
    • 2) Develop strategies to tell the hard truth from a place of compassion.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Accepting failure or approaching challenges is uncomfortable. To avoid the discomfort, we often make excuses to minimize the impact or deflect to protect ourselves. It’s important to minimize the excuses, embrace the discomfort, and address the reality of the failure or challenge.
  • Outcome:
    • 1) Bring awareness to our tendency to use excuses.
    • 2) Develop strategies to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Performers will often face high pressure situations. What separates high performers from poor performers is the ability to manage the pressure and control one’s own responses. This session highlights three key strategies to managing pressure.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to our reaction under pressure.
    • 2) Develop three strategies to manage pressure situations.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • High-performing teams are driven by individuals who have the desire to constantly improve and create a culture and environment where improvement is the norm.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Build awareness around what prevents complacency.
    • 2) Identify the balance between loose and serious and where the team needs to be to be at their best, striving towards improvement.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • As we get better, it’s hard to continue to get better. We may need to rethink our strategy and the qualities we bring into practice and competition. Do we need to improve, be more efficient, adjust, or be more adaptable?
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to what needs improvement and why it’s difficult.
    • 2) Identify one quality to put into practice to aid in improvement.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • The tyranny of the urgent always demands our attention and more from us. There are little if any moments of silence and presence. Expressing gratitude as a team can help to take control of the moment and put the sense of urgency into perspective.
  • Outcome:
    • 1) To bring awareness to the constant demands of our work/sport.
    • 2) To express gratitude as a team and bring perspective to the current sense of urgency.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Our perception shapes our reality. When we give too much attention to something we perceive as important, it shapes the way we act. Recognizing this, we can change both our perception and the attention we give to something, ultimately limiting its influence.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Build awareness of the power of perception.
    • 2) Recognize where our perception lends to distraction pressure. situations.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Everyone, in some shape or form, has expectations for how things will go or should go. In reality, there are a lot of unexpected outcomes along the way, good or bad. By being open to what happens along the way, good or bad, we may find greater growth.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to unexpected outcomes.
    • 2) Engage in a practice to intentionally be open to the unexpected.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Everyone, in some shape or form, has expectations for how things will go or should go. In reality, there are a lot of unexpected outcomes along the way, good or bad. By being open to what happens along the way, good or bad, we may find greater growth.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to unexpected outcomes.
    • 2) Engage in a practice to intentionally be open to the unexpected
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Our egos drive our sense of self-importance and self-esteem. This can be critical in terms of confidence in our ability, but detrimental when it comes at the expense of the mission and the team. This session dives into when we tend to let our ego drive our behavior to serve ourselves rather than others. Additionally, how we can set it to the side in order to prioritize the team.
  • Outcome:
    • 1) Recognize the importance of ego.
    • 2) Understand when it gets in the way of team success.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • When performing, there are two voices in our head: a thinking voice and a doing voice. Mental blocks happen when the thinking voice stops the doing voice from taking action.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to our internal dialogue.
    • 2) Designate the time and space for each voice.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • We can easily turn an otherwise simple sport into a complex process. And outside of sport, we can easily turn down small simple actions for what we believe to be, big, defining choices. In reality, the 100 simple small actions, are more indicative of who we are than 3 big decisions. If we attend to the 100, rather than relying on the 3, we can move closer to the goals we set for ourselves.
  • Outcome: 
    • Turn our attention to the small decisions we make and focus on redirecting them to be more helpful than hurtful.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • If you don’t really love what you do, or seeing yourself doing it for a long time, you may typically put in less % of your available potential. What is most important in this equation is the commitment to that % and not sitting on the fence of what you want. If you want it to be 100, then it has to be 100. You have to find out what is pulling you away from that potential.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Re-examine our commitment to what we do and find out what we need to add / subtract to achieve it.
    • 2) Create when/then statements as a contingency plan for when setbacks arise.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Events are believed to be inherently stressful or anxiety inducing. This is not entirely the case. Instead, stress and anxiety occurs from our perception of the event. If we know this, we can flip the script and reimagine anxiety and stress in a way that can serve us.
  • Outcome:
    • 1) Reimagine anxiety as something that is useful rather than hurtful.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • We can get in our own way when we equate success with winning. Instead, a more healthy perspective is to see success as constant improvement. We must trust in and commit to the winding and messy path; The Process. If we have clarity on this, our focus and energy shifts.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) To challenge the notion of clear progress and success and to be more aware and open to the uncertainty.
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • The goal of this Step Back is to bring awareness to the fact that there is no difference between nervousness and excitement. The physical feelings we feel are simply a response/activation towards taking action (think fight or flight). If we can understand this, we can better control/reframe away from nerves.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Build awareness to the difference between nerves and excitement
    • 2) Practice box breathing to slow down and reframe the physical feelings
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • When we chase a goal, we often focus on who we want to become or what we want to achieve. But we don’t have to wait. We can choose to be that person now.
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Bring awareness to the person we desire to become
    • 2) Implement the mindset and behaviors we need to be that person now
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • Great teams are not defined by each member, but the interaction of all members together. If these interactions are thwarted or neglected, the team will not function at its highest level. Psychological safety is one major contributor to positive team interactions, and ultimately, performance.
  • Outcome:
    • 1) Bring awareness to the behaviors of the team that support high performance
    • 2) revisit and affirm the uncomfortable but necessary behaviors
  • Once you click the link, hit “S” on your keyboard to pop-up presenter notes. 
  • Context: 
    • We all face pressure and most of us agree it’s necessary. But pressure isn’t just something to endure; it’s teaching us something. How often do we give ourselves the space to listen to what it’s trying to show us?
  • Outcome: 
    • 1) Reflect on how we experience pressure
    • 2) Shift our focus to learn what’s happening under pressure and embrace it

New Sessions Coming Soon!

We’re working on making these sessions available to you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to explore additional sessions in our Library.

Visit the Library

New Sessions Coming Soon!

We’re working on making these sessions available to you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to explore additional sessions in our Library.

Visit the Library

New Sessions Coming Soon!

We’re working on making these sessions available to you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to explore additional sessions in our Library.

Visit the Library

New Sessions Coming Soon!

We’re working on making these sessions available to you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to explore additional sessions in our Library.

Visit the Library

Additional Resources

Growth Mode

A 20-session pre-season to late-season progression designed to build momentum and drive continuous team growth.

Mental Toolkit

Practical tools to foster personal and team growth.

Guided Ascent

Stay inspired with our newsletter on individual and team development.