September Volleyball Newsletter-- Unshakable

What is shaking your world right now? Fear, doubt, difficulty? When will you be able to play volleyball again? When you play volleyball, do you fear making a mistake? When you sleep, is it disrupted by anxious thoughts? This month NBC Volleyball wants to encourage you to be unshakable. When you sleep, sleep with peace. When you play, play with courage and confidence. When you live, operate from power, not fear.

How old do you think the word unshakable is? It’s over 1400 years old. Unshakable means unable to have your faith or beliefs toppled or your mind broken. Perhaps the word emerged to help define unshakable people like Joan of Arc who refused to back down on her convictions or the 13 and 15-year-old Japanese martyrs who were crucified for their Christian faith in the 1500s. The word unshakable is closely connected to the word steadfast which means firm and resolute.

Becoming unshakable requires a mindset that isn’t rigid and inflexible. When San Francisco builders constructed unshakable buildings to withstand the earthquakes, they built structures with the ability to be flexible and bend with the quaking, without being toppled. Buildings that were too rigid in their foundation crumbled. In this newsletter, we will explore ways to be unshakable by being flexible and steadfast.

Become Unshakable on the Volleyball Court

A number of frustrated coaches reported to us that their number one frustration is that their team gets flustered by mistakes, or give up if the point spread gets too wide. Being an unshakable player means that the points don’t discourage you, mistakes energize and inform you.

Here’s how to become that kind of player:

1. Mental toughness is a choice. Every thought isn’t a good thought. Just like you would not eat poisonous things, you should not let every thought into your mind. Learn to control what you think about. If you find you can’t control what you think about, get a mentor to help you build up stronger mental muscle.
2. Change the way you speak. Words are power. Speak aloud these words before games and get in a habit of willing yourself to speak and think this way: "I am ready to learn. I am brave enough to overcome this challenge. I can’t be shaken. My worth isn’t in what I do or in volleyball. God has a plan for my life and this difficulty can’t take that away. I learn quickly from my mistakes and become stronger from them."
3. Build your volleyball foundation on solid fundamentals, not on your feelings. Feelings are a faulty foundation, skills don’t lie. Do your work, put in the time and you can feel confident no matter what challenge you face.
4. Be flexible mentally to receive feedback and coaching. Many students are too closed off in their learning mindset because their confidence is too fragile. If you have an unshakable belief that your dreams are not in jeopardy, you can hear feedback without being shattered, and in fact, you will welcome it.
5. A coach's opinions is very important but coaches are not to be positioned as a god in your life. Listen and be ready to understand and apply what a coach is trying to help you improve. If a coach begins to foreclose on your future and your talent, don’t listen. No one really fully understands talent. The job of the coach is to help move you to become better, not rob you of your potential. Here are some examples of advice that may be tough to hear, but that a quality unshakable player receives and does not reject.

“Your serve will be more accurate if you master your toss. You need to be more assertive on defense and clearly communicate with your teammates. You need to block with strength and mirror the ball. You need to get in the weight room and get stronger. Your vertical needs improvement.”

You should reject any comments which are personally degrading to you, or that involve skills that cannot be improved, or that foreclose on or negate your ability to improve.

Become Unshakable in Life

Just like the skyscrapers in San Francisco, here are some key ways to be unshakable:

1. Have a strong foundation as the bedrock of your beliefs that will never falter. Base this faith on what you believe will never alter or change. People make mistakes by putting their faith in circumstances that can be changed in a moment—health, money, popularity, education, family.
2. Be flexible with your mindset. A growth mindset is alive and healthy – able to adapt and be influenced by wisdom and truth. Be a seeker of wisdom and truth.
3. Give to the shaking without toppling over. That means crying when you are in pain, questioning when you are in doubt, and resting when you are in crisis. Rigidity will result in brokenness. False emotions involve too much self-condemnation or too much condemnation of others. True emotions are important to understand and express appropriately. Living without emotion is living without passion.
4. Have quality mentors evaluate your life stability. Just like the experts in San Francisco, quality mentors can see fault lines in your life that make you susceptible to collapse. Don’t live life in isolation. Find mentors worthy of imitation to speak wisdom into your life.

For Coaches who Want to be Unshakable

If you want to be unshakable you have to clearly know your mission. You have to know your purpose for coaching, otherwise, your stability will be shaken if it is based on anything external. If your love for coaching is connected to winning, you won’t be able to handle the pressure of transforming a program or transforming your players. If your love for coaching is connected with the thrill of power, your players are in danger of tyranny.

Here are some ways to be unshakable as a coach:

1. Work hard to master the balance between love and power. Martin Luther Kind, Jr. said, “Love without power is anemic and weak. Power without love is reckless and abusive.” As a coach, work hard to know where you tend to err and get mentoring on how to move toward wisdom. Know your weaknesses because they will emerge in moments of stress and chaos. If you are down, you will tend to use the wrong tool to handle the problem. For example, you will get angry and use pressure to drive your belief into others, when listening and thoughtfulness would be a better choice. On the other hand, you might choose what you think is kindness to deal with a breach of conduct with your players when you should allow them to face the full consequences of their misdeeds.
2. Be prepared for difficulty. One reason why coaching becomes more difficult than we imagine over the course of a season is that difficulty is often unexpected or the challenge is greater than we originally thought it would be. One coach noticed as the seniors on his team graduated, he had no idea the junior class was so ill-prepared for leadership. He assumed the leadership of the older group would have mentored the younger but this was surprisingly not the case. He was struck by surprise and not prepared for this difficulty. This lack of mental preparation caused him to struggle more than if he had prepared to buckle down for an intense season. When difficulty strikes you unprepared, regroup and get more strategies in place. Struggles compound when we are unprepared.
3. Be balanced mentally, relationally, physically, and spiritually. Coaching is a draining job and during the season, coaches who are out of balance don’t take care of their well-being in these four crucial areas. They don’t work out, they don’t read, they shut out key relationships including time with family and God. During the season, schedule time for each category.

Unshakable Parenting

Parenting can be daunting and even frustrating because we can begin to question ourselves and lose hope in our ability to bring about the best in our children. Here are a few ways to become an unshakable parent:

1. This generation has traded the need for love from a father or mother for the need of love from peers. Therefore, the parental voice has become pointless for many young people and the peer’s voice all-powerful. Instead of seeking to obey and earn the admiration of the parent, a young person seeks to please and earn the admiration of their friends. Unless the child begins to love and value your opinion, their friends will take precedence over you. This cannot be changed through threats, punishment, or violence. Winning the heart of your child must begin from a place of sacrificial love (not gifts, but time), asking forgiveness and changing one’s own faults, and intentional listening.
2. Most parents feel frustrated and overwhelmed because they don’t have a clear and wise plan to navigate difficulty. They are continually surprised and angered by parenting challenges instead of resilient and ready. Work at parenting with the same hope and rigor you apply to the areas of success in your life. Being great at anything takes time and work.
3. Have energy for parenting. Sadly our kids often get the leftovers in our life. Don’t veg out with the TV or phone, and don’t quit giving the energy needed for good parenting. The reason why parents have children without passion is that parents are without passion for parenting. Gain a love for parenting—not the easy punitive forms of parenting but the creative, wise true ways of leading and loving. Life will return to the home when you step into true life.

About NBC Volleyball
NBC Volleyball began in 1979 with the mission to help young athletes develop rock-solid volleyball skills and techniques as well as life skills to help students navigate the complexities and difficulties of life with wisdom and peace. Online and in-person training is available in many different locations. Find a training program for you at nbcvolleyball.com