The Team GB cycling coach is there talking about the philosophy behind creating awesome cyclist. How they looked at how to make someone the best they could be, then applied that to the cycle track, exploring how to make them the best clclist they could be.

The presenter asked, could you apply this to other sports, and he replies, yes you can apply it to anything, because at the heart of it, it’s about making the person the best they can be, then taking that to the sport or the job.

And that’s how youth coaching works, we look at the young person, and explore how they can be the best at being themselves, then look into how this ripples into their world.

Sport has always been a place where young people are able to understand the dedication and focus it takes to be the best, perhaps as youth coaches we need to take some of that focus and dedication and apply it to coaching and mentoring. Breaking down the skill sets needed to be the best, looking at whether the young person is a sprinter or along distance runner. Taking personality types and relating them to sports…at the moment it’s a thought, perhaps there is someone out there already doing this, and I would love to hear from them.

But right now, everyone is ready for the museum, so I’d better publish this post, and while I’m out and about today the thoughts of youth coaching, sports and performance will float around and perhaps a new model will emerge or an old model revamped.

I’d love to hear your thoughts as I’ve seen a few posts about the Olympics and motivation, and youth.

If they could see that setting goals in the first place, was one of the first steps on the journey to achieving them and the work you put into achieving them was the second. That goals are an important part of life, being able to know what you want and move towards it, knowing what you are aiming for, able to put the hard work in and be supported in the process.

Like the sports men and women, supported by your coach, trainer, physio, family, and all the people that are in the background, enabling you to make it happen.

And I wonder how many young people feel this support around them? From school, friends, and family. How many of them have a Youth Coach to work with them, a Mentor to share their knowledge and experience.

Some schools are doing a fabulous job of supporting their young people, other schools are doing the best they can. As a Youth Coach, I want everybody, every young person to have that support, that guidance, to be in a position where they are able to see the opportunities and possibilities of the life before them, able to see the positive changes and contributions they can make.

Working with young people can be challenging, I know this to be true, however when you get past that, get to where they are, their start point and work with them. The rewards are amazing and something to be proud of, both for you and them.

I listened to the athlete, the long jumper who is now an Olympic gold medalist, Greg Rutherford, talk about nearly giving it all up, and with the help of the team behind him was able to continue. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be part of that team for young people, as teachers, coaches and mentors. Working with them to achieve their own golds, their own goals.

I work in schools, youth clubs, summer schools and on projects to be part of making this happen. Let me know where and how you work with young people to facilitate their goals and dreams, perhaps we can find ways to work together.

This blog post is from Robert Stephenson on our new youth coaching blog at http://dynamicyouthcoaching.com

Recently I have been working for Mousetrap Theatre Project, with a group of young people based in Southall. The young people are all taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, and at the end they have to do a presentation. This group is made up of young people who haven’t had lots of positive experience in making presentations, in putting themselves out there, in talking to large groups of people about their achievements.

With this in mind I was asked to help the group develop their confidence, which is something I come across quite often when working with young people. They often put up this front of ‘I’m ok’ and ‘I don’t care about anything’. However in my experience this is not always the case, in fact there are a lot of young people who do care and are will to work with you to develop their skills and confidence, so that they are able to make the best of their lives. With this particular group, we spent lots of time exploring what confidence meant to them, who they saw as having it, what it looked liked, getting all our ideas down.

After a while I asked; ‘How would you feel if I asked you to stand up and make up a story in front of the whole group?‘ The question was meet with silence and blank faces. After a while they began to tell me all the reasons why they wouldn’t be able to do this. Now I know all you coaches out there will be thinking about reframing, turning the negative statements around and exploring what they would need in order to tell the stories, one of the things being confidence.

On another sheet of paper we explored what might be in a story; beginning, middle, end, characters, locations, etc, and with their help I demonstrated how it might be done. Then, one by one, the young people stood up and had a go at telling a story. The first thing they did was to look at the sheet of paper with the ideas about confidence on it, they read them out to themselves, then stood on it, taking on all the attributes and told their story. Each one amazed that they were able to do it, and proud of each other for taking part. Each young persons story was met with lots of positive support and enjoyment, from myself and the group, giving each one the experience of stepping out of their comfort zone, being confident and presenting in front of an audience successfully.

At the end, they all spoke about how they would hold onto this experience, and how they would use it when presenting the story of their achievements for their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. The exercise was simple, and similar to the NLP Circle of Excellence. Now I’m not saying that the process was simple or easy, it took time to develop the trust, to engage each young person, to talk ideas through and develop their levels of participation. But we got there in the end and they left the room standing taller than when they came in. This for me is one of the reasons I do what I do. The opportunity to make a difference in the life of a young person, enabling them to move forward and be the best they can be.