Last Updated on Wednesday, 08 July 2015 15:46
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Are you journaling? If you are not, it is one of the very first things I suggest you consider as you begin your new season of self-improvement and development.
Journals serve at least two purposes. One, they can serve as a “blueprint” for your plan going forward. Second, they serve as your personal history book, recording your thoughts and actions over time. And of course, we study history to learn about what works and what does not.
I have worked with groups of athletes at several different age and skill levels in the past few weeks and it has been interesting for me to see where they each are at emotionally and physically. I try and get my groups journaling as soon as I can. I learn much about what they think about, how they view things and how I might help them as a coach.
I try and assist them in what kinds of things they can learn through their journals. As an example, I ask each of my students to record their overall performance each day in either practice or games. I ask them simply to rate themselves 1-10. Then I ask them to break that down by their emotional excitement and commitment to be there each day (1-10) and their physical energy (1-10).
Then the key is to dig deeper. How well had they slept the previous 48 hours (1-10), how well nutritiously speaking did they eat the past 48 hours (1-10). Have they handled the stress in their life positively the past 48 hours (1-10) and so on.
I ask them to think about what other factors might be important to them and record those as well. This becomes a record of their own personal history from which they can learn much about what makes them successful and not so successful.
To learn more about them, I often give them homework assignments. With the group of high school girls I work with, I like to know what their long-term, medium-term and short-term goals are. This helps me help them individually.
But I also want to know their perspectives on success, winning and losing, as well as a number of other things. I ask them to begin to develop a personal mission statement which is important for life both inside and outside of hockey.
I have very much enjoyed the White Bear Lake girls’ team in particular. Thus far, these young women are proving to be insightful on a number of levels. For example, one of my favorite journal recordings thus far was articulated by a soon-to-be high school sophomore. In her contemplation of where winning fits into society, she shared with our group after several sentences about why winning was important: “But I also think losing is important because losing teaches you things that you can’t teach yourself.” That is an awesome observation for a young person to make.
We can journal for school, for social efforts and for work. In all cases we can learn from our history. We can review our own thoughts and processes, what is good for each of us and what is not. We can actually put a record to our own efforts and develop future blueprints for success.
As hockey players we can record what works and what does not. What off-ice patterns work best. We can record reminders of what we need to recall for certain rinks or certain opponents, both individually and collectively.
In the end, journaling allows each of us to develop a better understanding of our own thoughts through reflection and outright record keeping. It can only help each of us in our effort for self-improvement.
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
