I'm Still Learning

This isn't my best blog post but it's an excerpt from my journaling tonight. I'm finally finding some clarity in the confusion and realizing the chaos can be beautiful.

I talked to my advanced team about empathy today. It's something I want to work on as a coach and something I want my swimmers to work on. I want our team to put themselves in the shoes of the other athletes they work with and compete against. I feel like I really got through to them and I also told them I would start calling them out when they weren't empathetic towards others.

With my age group team we talked about giving 100% and regret. It was challenging talking to them about the things I've regretted in my life. There are three things I don't want to ever regret: being brave, being kind, and working hard. I told them about middle school where I regret bullying a girl. I still remember to this day sticking gum in her hair and making her cry. As I told my swimmers this my eyes teared up. 12 years later I'm still living with that regret of hurting her. I told them about being brave and how I wanted to live my life facing my fears. My biggest fear is rejection and I'm so glad I faced that fear last week. I didn't tell them the story since it's more personal but I did bring up an example. And then I told them about the regret I had about my own swimming career. I didn't think I'd ever tell my kids about that. I thought telling them I didn't think I worked hard enough during my swimming career would make them lose my respect, but I think it had the complete opposite effect on them. I sat there and told them the regret I had about not working as hard as I could. That I still look back and wonder if I could have made it to college as an athlete and if I could have been a more knowledgable coach if I had swam in college. I think it worked. So after practice I got them out of the water and asked them this question: Did you give 100% today? I didn't let them answer me aloud. It had to be to themselves. I wanted their answers to be completely honest without having to try and impress me.

I walked away from that practice asking myself the same question. Did you give 100% today? And I was able to answer yes. I felt like as a coach I really touched on some important topics, I let my guard down to my kids and told them something I never thought would leave my mouth, I gave them my undivided attention, I comforted a male swimmer and let him cry without judging him for it, I stayed calm and empathetic during my practices. I felt really good about myself and my coaching after tonight. I think I felt that way because I gave 100%. I'm pretty sure when I ask my swimmers that after every practice from now on, I'm going to answer the question myself.

And one more thing before I go to bed. I've been confused about much of my life for the past few months and I've been trying to figure it all out. But as I was reading I came across this point. "You don't need to have it all figured out to move forward." I don't. God will show me the path as long as I keep walking. And not to mention, I'm starting to like not having it all figured out.