The 5C’s are a range of psychological and social skills that all great champions seem to possess, and it has led to organisations such as they Football Association developing these skills in training sessions for coaches and players alike.
We have developed Young Champions with this in mind, and our holistic programme will aid in the development of these values, but more importantly, through self-reflection we will highlight these with your children so that they are aware of them and can master them…. But what are they?
Our programme focuses on:
- Reward players efforts through a star system.
- Continually monitoring performance and displaying progress.
- Support with goal setting tasks.
- Encourage self-reflection
Through these methods our Young Champions will take ownership of their own learning and as such will adopt an unconditionally strong work ethic.
We ensure that our Young Champions have individual programmes to ensure that they progressively build towards achieving their personal bests. We also clearly explain the true journey of progress ensuring that our Young Champions feel safe trying new things and are not afraid to make mistakes, creating a confident, driven athlete.
By focusing on the up’s and down’s of training players can embrace the positive and negative feelings. As stated with confidence, mistakes and setbacks will happen, but by taking ownership of their own progression, children will find controlling emotions will become second nature, they will develop resilience skills which are essential. Every athlete suffers setbacks, there is a famous Michael Jordan quote:
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”
This is from the greatest basketballer of all time, he had an ability to bounce-back after a setback.
Communication is vital if you want to reach the very top (in all areas of your life), we encourage children to play together, to reflect on their performance and to share their goals with others, including their coaches or teachers, by developing communication skills, it allows clearer information to be spoken, or understood which is a huge part of their development. It also makes individuals coachable, those children that are willing to listen, and take on information, will be the ones to develop their skills.
Control, as we spoke about earlier, is a little more complex than just being able to control emotions and bounce-back. Nerves are part of everyday life, including sport. Some athletes can control these nerves, and use them as a motivator to succeed, whereas others may crumble under the pressure.
This can be down to stress, anxiety and/or arousal. These emotions are not only a part of sport, but a part of everyday life. We educate Young Athletes on what these emotions are, and how to cope with them, giving them the best possible opportunity to succeed.
We have a really useful blog on this, should you wish to read more!
Finally, we believe that there is a by-product to the psychology of champions, and that is the development of leadership skills as part of that constant pursuit of greatness. Encouraging our Young Champions to take ownership of their own development will only support this further.
