Karch Kiraly, Head Coach USA Volleyball Women's National Team (3 Time Gold Medalist)

Key Takeaways

• It's normal and important to feel uncomfortable if you're learning something new.
• The best in the world struggle while learning but have figured out how to embrace that discomfort.
• Some people say bad things to themselves, get small and act embarrassed when they make mistakes.
• Mistakes are just opportunities to improve and that can't happen unless you're patient with yourself.

Things to Think About

• How do you react when you make a mistake?
• How do you want to react when you make a mistake? What would that sound like in your head? What would it look like?
• What's something that you have an opportunity to improve on today?

Ways to Practice

• Choose a teammate and tell them something you're going to work on this week during training and something you're going to work on outside of your sport. Check in next time you meet.
• Try to catch yourself the next time you make a mistake. Are you treating it as an opportunity to improve? Are you reacting the way that you want to react?

Watch more content from Karch Kiraly on P/ATH Sports: Learning to Listen

 
P/ATH Sports, founded by Cassidy Lichtman, is a non-profit organization that believes that healing the divisions in our society in the long run depends on teaching young people new skills around empathy, equity and empowerment. P/ATH offers free content featuring some of the most successful athletes and coaches across sports using their experience to teach lessons around how to build mindset skills, develop great team culture, break out of the boxes we get put in and how the most valuable life lessons we learn in sports can transfer off the court or field.