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UK Coaching Participation Team
1,273
Self-care and development

How to Improve Coach Well-being: Connect with Others

Top tips to help you connect with others, including the people at your sessions. Positive relationships provide a great well-being boost

We know that that people who have strong and wide-ranging social relationships are happier and healthier and live longer. This is because having positive and close relationships provide a source of meaning and support and increase people’s feelings of self-worth. 

As a coach, we regularly connect and build a coaching relationship with the people in our sessions. We may also sometimes connect with other coaches, coach educators or people at our club or organisation.  

It can be easy to take these small connections for granted, but each and every connection is important for our overall well-being.  

Being part of a network or community like a sports club or regular group also brings a sense of belonging. Therefore, taking action to improve and deepen your relationships and build connections is essential for your own happiness as well as for the people you coach.

Ideas for building connections

  1. Engage with a mentor-mentee relationship. It can be a valuable experience for both mentor and mentee. 
  2. If you’re struggling, ask for help. ‘It’s OK to not be OK.’ Connecting with a trusted individual creates an opportunity for you to discuss challenges, concerns or worries. Many people find, when sharing, that realising that ‘not everything is OK’ is helpful. 
  3. Speak to someone new, such as an unfamiliar face at your club or at a CPD session. Talking to new people can help us see a different point of view as well as finding those unexpected connections to people in our broader coaching community.
  4. Try a technology-free evening and connect with family, friends and neighbours in a different way. You could actively choose to do another activity together; reconnect with a favourite game; have a walk and talk or make a meal together. Be as creative as you like in spending time with people and try to do something a bit different.
  1. Catch up with a friend. It can be easy in the middle of busy day-to-day activities to miss out on time for connecting with friends. Give yourself some time to catch up, listen and share news. 

Have a go

Make a list of three people who you would like to connect or reconnect with this week. Now go and connect with them. Call, WhatsApp, Zoom or text them.

 

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UK Coaching Participation Team