Ugly.

Gross.

Those are some of the words I used to say to myself when I looked in a mirror.

I was harsh & critical like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would because you do it too. I’d guess it’s pretty common for us humans to be the worst of critics to ourselves. It got so bad that for years I stopped looking in mirrors. It was easier to not look at myself than to go through the negative spiral multiple times a day.

And then, one day I decided to change.

It was 2022. I was coaching the women’s lacrosse team at Harford Community College at the time and was hearing a lot of negative self-talk in practice amongst the team. This team was special, so it surprised me to hear some of their comments. Comments like…

“I can’t do that.”

“I suck.”

Their body language was even worse. They didn’t give themselves a chance in practice to try before they started counting themselves out of the drill. As a coach, I found this very frustrating. Our practices weren’t as productive as they should be. And if we didn’t practice at a productive level, there’s no way we’d do it in games. Something had to change.

I thought about what we could do differently as a team. What I could do differently as a coach to get my players to be more productive on the field. I came to the realization that I could put together all the drills I wanted, but at the end of the day, what really needed to happen was that they needed to believe in themselves. And that got me thinking…

I started wondering if my team really knew how amazing they were.

I remember putting together a journal for them about self-worth. It was the first activity I put together to test this whole mindset concept. We sat on the field for the last 30 minutes of practice one night, under the lights, going through the pages of the journal. I didn’t know it at the time, but that activity would become the foundation for the road to winning a National Championship that season.

I’ve included some excerpts below…

It was in that moment that I realized that if I expected my team to change, I would need to change as well. Because if coaching has taught me one thing, it’s that…

We can’t expect the outside world to treat us any differently than how we treat ourselves inside.

So I made a choice. I started looking at myself in the mirror. Not to point out the bad but rather to highlight the good. Saying words like…

“You’ve got this.”

“I see you.”

“You’re beautiful.”

What we see is what we get. What we got that season was a National Championship. And what I got was the strength and belief in myself to walk away from a coaching job I had been in since 2011 and start this whole mindset business that same year, 2022.

Now I work with athletes, teams, coaches, and organizations to help them learn a different way of unlocking potential based on my own personal experiences over the decades as both a player and coach. The good. The bad. The ugly.

The other day I had an individual mindset session with a football player. He’s preparing for tryouts and asked for a check-in with me to get his head right going in. We leaned into the idea of having a mantra or affirmations to help him in the hard.

Because the thing about tryouts (and playing at high levels in general) is that they are hard. We can’t remove that aspect, and I challenge you to think about why you’d even want to.

Why not be so great in the hard that the coaches and teammates around you have no other choice than to see you as great?

Not just see you but SEEEEE you while on the road to greatness. It’s different here. Hard yes. But when you know your worth, when you know how good you can be, your energy carries differently. People see that. They feel it. But only if you truly believe it about yourself. It starts with you.

Mantras and Affirmations will help.

Everybody needs a mantra/affirmation. A word. A sentence or two that can be repeated on a loop to remind you of your greatness. I use them every day now. When I feel myself getting nervous or stressed about an upcoming event, I say to myself…

”I am strong.”

“I am kind.”

“I am unique.”

Repeating these 3 simple sentences on a loop allows my alarms (like nervousness and anxiety) to get quieter. And when I repeat those words while looking at myself in the mirror? It allows me to “play” a little freer. There’s POWER here that can unlock levels.

I’ve witnessed it. In both athletes, coaches, and well…myself.

I believe we have a choice. We can choose to avoid mirrors, hoping we don’t catch a glimpse of all the negative in ourselves. Or we can choose to look at ourselves any chance we can to hype us up.

There’s power in both of these spaces. Take advice from someone who’s done both and choose wisely.

Mindset is a muscle. The more we use it, the stronger it gets. Looking for the good is hard. But when we focus on good, that’s what we’ll find.

Good in ourselves. In our teammates. In our coaches. In tryouts. In hard.

Who do you see when you look in the mirror? And what do you say?

I hope that through the hard, you show up for yourself and remember..

You can do hard things.

You’ve got this.

You are beautiful.

Go 🐝 Great.

The Person In The Mirror: A Story of Self- Worth