Why Even Coaches Need a Coach
“We’re going to start with a two-mile warm-up, followed by three miles at tempo pace. Finish at the track and we’ll go right into 6x200 with full recovery.”
I’m in my second year coaching track and all of the runners know exactly what this workout means. All of them except the new guy who just showed up with a blank stare on his face. I pull him aside and translate what I just said to the rest of the team in terms that he can understand.
As coaches, part of our job is ensuring our athletes know what’s expected of them.
As Christians, we need to know what’s expected of us, too.
Our biblical mandates from God are to grow as disciples of Christ (2 Peter 3:18, John 15:16, Romans 8:29), and out of an overflow of that growth, disciple others (Matthew 28:18-20). This is not news to many of us. We know that God desires us to grow more and more into His likeness (that’s discipleship!) and He wants us to invest our lives into others (also…discipleship).
For the Christian who is also a coach, the natural space where we invest in others is within the context of our team. And while many of us wrestle with how to do this well, we understand there is some level of expectation for us—at the very least—to model Christ-like behavior to the athletes under our leadership. But what does it look like for us to grow in our walk with the Lord?
There is another lane of discipleship for coaches to consider besides the more obvious answers to our spiritual growth (i.e.Bible reading, prayer, Church involvement). This is encouragement that you, too, need a coach. You need someone who is committed to discipling you in the same way that you are committed to helping train and equip your team.
Coach, you need to be discipled too.
What follows are four reasons you could benefit from having someone else invest in your life—and three suggestions for who that could be. Before we get to the lists, let’s define what “discipleship” might look like for a coach.
Defining Discipleship
The type of discipleship I am imagining for coaches is a relationship with another person where there is an expectation that:
We will meet regularly (weekly or monthly)
We will be open about our lives (the good, the bad, and the ugly)
We will be open to them challenging and encouraging us through their life experience and in alignment with the Word of God
Yes, for friendship, but ultimately, to grow closer to Christ
*I am well aware that discipleship can look different than this—and often does. What I outlined takes into consideration the life of a coach and their need for scheduled blocks of time.
Why should coaches consider finding a discipler? Let’s get to the list.
The need for other people
There is immense wisdom in inviting someone into our lives. Proverbs, the book of wisdom, tells us that success often comes from surrounding ourselves with trusted advisors (Proverbs 11:14, 15:22,19:20). And the Proverb we are all familiar with, Proverbs 27:17, drives this home as well: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Coach, if we value a growth mindset, we need the humility to realize that God created us to need other people.
Again, we know the iron sharpens iron verse—and maybe we’ve even used it with our team trying to encourage them. But how many of us are functionally living by a different proverb, like:
As iron sharpens iron so one man is sharpened by the next great book.
As iron sharpens iron so one man is sharpened by habits of discipline.
As iron sharpens iron so one man is sharpened by podcasts.
As iron sharpens iron so one man is sharpened by cold showers and cold tubs.
At the end of the day, yes, those are all helpful. But there is a reason the Bible continually points us toward other people. We need each other.
The need for people who aren’t impressed with us
We need people in our lives who aren’t impressed with us. If that sentence triggers memories of a parent or former coach who never gave us the approval we desperately needed, that was not the intention. The point is that we need people in our lives who see us as people first—and coaches as a distant second, third, or tenth.
These types of people are rare. Connection to a coach means status. It comes with social credibility. And people who care most about being seen with us can’t be trusted to know the real us. This isn’t to knock those who love getting to shake our hands or to be seen with us in public—sports culture has created this power structure where coaches are looked up to by others.
Whether or not we are deserving of being called impressive, it is still impressed upon us by most people.
People who are not impressed with your position as a coach don’t have skin in the game. That is, they are more invested in you than they are in the team that you coach. You could quit tomorrow and these kinds of people would still care deeply about you.
That’s why it’s so important that we have people who can see past our branded apparel and title—and into our hearts. People who are not impressed with us will:
Ask us the hard questions that nobody else dares to ask
Care deeply about how our life is going outside of sport
Attend games just to support us with their presence
Keep our conversations together private
Prefer to spend time with us in a secluded location
Coach, the people who are not impressed that you are the coach of ________ are the people you can trust with the intimate details of your life.
The need for people who are a few stages ahead of us in life
We need “been there, done that” types of people in our lives. We need wisdom from the real-life experience of faithful followers of Jesus. This is not perfection. Quite the opposite. It’s people with scars, who’ve traveled the path before us and can both empathize with where we are at and challenge us on how to move forward.
We need people spiritually ahead of us, reminding us that the journey of faith is a long obedience in the same direction.
We need people vocationally ahead of us, encouraging us that the grass is not always greener on the other side.
We need people generationally ahead of us, challenging us to practice gratitude in the present as time is one resource we can’t get back.
We need people relationally ahead of us, showing us the value of prioritizing family even when our schedules increasingly demand more attention.
People who are ahead offer us the perspective we need in the present to become the man or woman we want to be in the future.
The need for people who can see behind the curtain and still love us
Our positional status as a coach often comes with an unrealistic expectation that we have it all together. At the very least, it often means keeping the “personal stuff” compartmentalized when we get to the office. And sometimes there is wisdom in what we share and who we share it with. It’s certainly not wise to dump all our issues on whoever is willing to listen.
While we should not share our full self with everyone (again, many cannot be trusted with that), there must be a select few that we let under the hood and invite into the lesser-known compartments of our lives.
Why? Because we need people who will model the Gospel to us. We need people who can see the real us and still say:
I’m still here
I’m not going anywhere
I love you
I am in your corner
We need people. We need people who are not impressed with us. We need people who are a few stages ahead of us. And we need people who see behind the curtain and still choose to love us. Where do we find people like this? Put another way, where do we find someone to coach (or disciple) us?
Where to Recruit Your Coach
Ask your pastor
The Church exists to teach, equip, and encourage people in community together to follow Jesus by living out their faith in their everyday lives. In an article for Lifeway Research, Anthony Svajda boldly says that “Discipleship is what has defined the church” and “A church that does not make disciples has lost its identity.” Coach, the Church is dedicated to doing exactly what we’ve described in this post. At the same time, it’s increasingly rare for someone to walk up to you and ask “Can I disciple you?”
We need to make the first move.
If you are serious about another person investing in your life, a great first step is asking your pastor if they are willing to step into that role—or if there is someone else within the church that they would recommend.
Ask another coach
Another option is finding a coach who is a few life stages ahead of you. An actual coach to coach you makes sense. They get your world. They understand the tension points and what’s being asked of you daily. And you’d want someone who navigated those waters while living faithfully for Christ.
Who comes to mind? Who has a few years on you that you trust is walking faithfully with Jesus? What’s stopping you from shooting them a text or an email and asking their willingness to start connecting weekly so you can learn from them?This could even be something done over Zoom which opens up the possibility for more potential coaches.
Ask a life coach
This last one will cost you some money. But it’s often worth every penny. The benefit of a life coach is that they are trained to do exactly what you would want them to do. Skilled life coaches help you self-discover by asking the right questions, listening for the right cues from you, and helping you process deeper into situations than you could go on your own.
They don’t have skin in the game which could limit their perspective to see areas that may require growth in your life. A great coach keeps you on track and helps you overcome sabotaging habits that stunt your hopes and dreams. And yes, there are plenty of Christian life coaches who offer biblically informed guidance as part of their practice.
If you want to grow through the discipleship of another person, are willing to get vulnerable, but still want to keep some boundaries between you and your community (church and coaching world), hiring a life coach might be a good solution.
