ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Why do smart, capable people still make mistakes?
That's one of the questions Joseph T. Hallinan explores in Why We Make Mistakes.
And one of the biggest things I took from the book is this:
Mistakes aren't always the result of laziness, carelessness, or a lack of effort.
Sometimes they're simply part of being human.
We miss things.
We remember things incorrectly.
We focus on the wrong information.
We make assumptions.
And sometimes we don't even realize we've made a mistake until someone points it out.
That made me think a lot about coaching and leadership.
When an athlete makes a mistake, our first response can be:
“Pay attention.”
“Focus.”
“I already told you this.”
But what if we became more curious about why the mistake happened?
Was the instruction clear?
Were we asking the person to focus on too many things?
Was fatigue involved?
Is there something about the environment or process that keeps producing the same mistake?
And this applies to coaches too.
Sometimes the program doesn't work.
Sometimes we make the wrong decision.
Sometimes something we were absolutely convinced about turns out to be wrong.
The question isn't whether we're going to make mistakes.
We are.
The question is what we do with them.
In this episode of MAS Performance: Quick Thoughts, I talk about attention, learning from errors, and why good coaches and leaders should build systems that expect human beings to occasionally get things wrong.
Don't waste the mistake by only getting frustrated about it.
Study it.
Learn from it.
Change something.
Then try again.
Because a mistake becomes valuable when it changes what you do next.
Purpose Drives Intent.
MAS Performance Podcast
Conversations on strength & conditioning, sports performance, coaching, and the people pushing the industry forward.
Hosted by Martin Adame, MS, CSCS, RSCC
Follow @masperformancetraining for more training, coaching, and performance content.
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Purpose Drives Intent.
