Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #50: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Understanding Mental Resilience" Powered by Coach O

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#50: Gill1918 Presents Katie Follett "Understanding Mental Resilience" Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. Hi, my name is Katie Follett and
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  today I am going to be talking about mental resilience.
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  Who needs it? Why is it important?
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  What is it? I feel like sometimes it's a
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  buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, but it can be kind of an
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  ambiguous concept as to what it actually is.
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  I was a professional runner for 13 years with Brooks and
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  recently went back to grad school and got my master's in
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  counseling. And so now I'm kind of combining
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  MY2 passions together. And where this journey really
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  started for me was back in 20 and 15 and 2016.
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  I had some near misses in making the US team.
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  I missed making the Olympic team by one spot in 2016.
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  And I've had the opportunity to work with an incredible mentor
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  in Dan Paff. And at that time when I missed
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  making the team, he asked me one of the most impactful questions
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  of my life. He asked me why do you run?
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  And that was the kind of question that I call a fork in
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  the road question, fork in the road moment because it really
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  impacted the trajectory of my career and how I thought about
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  running and sport from that point forward.
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  So I started to answer Dan and 30 minutes into the
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  conversation, he stopped me and he goes, OK, stop.
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  You finally just said something that's a good reason for
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  running, and that was pretty embarrassing.
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  But what I just said was, well, I guess when I started running,
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  I felt like it was something that God made me good at, and I
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  just want to make the world a little bit of a better place
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  through running. And that's a huge part of my why
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  today. That's why I'm doing this.
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  At the time, it led to the creation of Kicking with Katy
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  Girls Camps, where I talked about the mental side of sport
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  with girls and how they could really embrace challenges.
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  You become the best version of themselves.
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  So I've been doing that for the last eight years or so and I'm
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  really passionate about this because I think mindset is a
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  really undervalued aspect of performance because sport at the
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  end of the day is really just a playground for life.
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  It's where we develop all of these skills that are going to
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  benefit us no matter where we go and what we do.
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  They benefited me, obviously, as a professional athlete, but now
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  I'm realizing how important they are more than ever because I'm
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  still using all of these skills that I developed now as a
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  counselor and now as a mom. And so I like to think of
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  resilience as a toolbox. You want to have the right
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  tools. You want to be able to pull out
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  what you need when a certain challenge or a certain obstacle
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  presents itself. I also think resilience is being
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  flexible. I think it's seeing failure as
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  feedback and as a springboard for success.
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  And I think resilience is really what allows you to bounce back
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  stronger when you didn't achieve a goal and focus on what are the
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  things that I can do to learn and grow from this and become
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  the best version of myself. I worked with an for a little
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  bit with an awesome sports psychologist, Jim Bauman, and he
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  used an example that I really love of a 2 by 4 in a phone
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  book. So imagine that you're standing
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  there and you have a 2 by 4 and you have a phone book.
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  Which of those is stronger? And oftentimes people will
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  answer, well, of course, the 2 by 4.
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  And so my next question would be which one is harder to break?
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  If you applied a large amount of force to the 2 by 4 and also to
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  the phone book, the 2 by 4 would break because it's rigid,
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  whereas the phone book would absorb the impact.
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  It'd be a lot harder to break. You want to be like that phone
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  book. You want things to go through
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  you and over you and really be able to just stay in the moment
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  and really quickly and easily come back to, OK, that happened.
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  How can I solve the problem in front of me and how can this
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  help me achieve the goals that I have for myself as a person and
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  who I'm becoming? So I think there's many
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  different facets to resilience. A good illustration of this is
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  if you think of a triangle at the bottom, the foundation of
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  the triangle would be basic needs, physical well-being.
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  And then right on top of that would be emotional support.
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  Because I really believe that these create the solid
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  foundation for mental health and are huge part of resilience.
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  Because I tell athletes, if your body is tired or unhealthy or
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  injured, you're just not going to perform optimally even if you
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  master the mental side of sport. So sleep, eat good food, trade,
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  if you're not training, you're not going to run well.
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  So that's the foundation. And then support, because good
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  information is just good information without trusted
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  people around you who are going to offer encouragement and
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  perspective and guidance and give the accountability to keep
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  going. And so that's why I think
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  coaches are in such a powerful position because you're with
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  these athletes day in and day out and you have an amazing
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  opportunity to speak into their lives and help shape who they're
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  going to become by asking good questions and encouraging them
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  to reflect, just like Coach Dan did for me when he asked me that
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  really impactful question. And I think these things are so
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  important because they support the lifestyle that's necessary
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  to support the change. So I like to think of this as a
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  garden support. And basic needs are the healthy
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  soil that support good gardening practices.
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  And this analogy kind of came from this quote by Bruce Lee,
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  and I love it. And so I'm just going to read it
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  really quick. The mind is a fertile garden.
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  It will grow anything you wish to plant beautiful flowers or
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  weeds. And it is with successful
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  healthy thoughts or negative ones that will, like weeds,
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  strangle and crowd with the others.
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  Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind, for they are
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  the weeds that strangle confidence.
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  So I always like to ask kids what would happen if you planted
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  a garden and then you just didn't go check in on it?
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  Well, it would die. You'd have a lot of weeds.
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  You wouldn't have any fruits and vegetables and flowers and all
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  the things that you wanted. And so mental skills are kind of
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  like that. You have, it's like daily
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  intentional practice, going out, pulling out the roots of the
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  things that are these negative beliefs that are strangling
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  confidence, and then also watering and flirt and
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  fertilizing and nourishing the plants that you, the things that
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  you do want to grow. So what are these good guardian
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  practices, the things you can do to help the good things like
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  confidence grow? And this is the facet of
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  resilience that I focus on, the mental facet.
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  But I would also argue that, like I said, physical health,
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  spiritual health, emotional health, they're all big elements
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  in addition to mental health. So I like to categorize these
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  into three big problem areas that I would find myself falling
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  into as an athlete. How well could I manage
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  distractions? How well could I get unstuck
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  from negative self talk, negative thinking spirals?
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  And what made it worth it to keep going when I did it hit my
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  performance goals or when I got injured?
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  Did I know why I ran apart from performance?
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  And so these are the kind of things that I'm really
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  passionate about digging into. And if you're interested as
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  well, I invite you to kind of follow along over the next
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  couple series of these because I'm going to dig a little bit
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  more into each of these and why I think they're so important.
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  I'm going to share some stories from my career, a few more of
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  those really impactful conversations that were these
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  fork in the road conversations that changed the way I thought
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  about things and share a few skills hopefully along the way.
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  So you have some good takeaways. So thank you so much for
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  listening along. You can find me on Instagram at
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  Fallout KB. I think my website is going to
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  be included in the show notes, so feel free to reach out.
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  I'm kind of taking everything that I've developed and putting
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  it together into a course. So if you have athletes who
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  would be interested in doing a little bit more one-on-one type
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  learning, that's a great resource too.
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  And I have lots of free resources to that I'd love to
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  give away. So I'd love to hear from you.
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  And finally, thanks to Go Athletics for creating this
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  podcast. It's just such an awesome
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  opportunity and I love the heart behind it and I'm really
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  thankful to be a part of it and I will catch you next time.
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  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
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  episode in the Youth and beginner series powered by Coach
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