A Vision Statement is vital for sustaining a successful team, especially in a long season with plenty of ups and downs.
Essentially a Team’s Vision Statement acts as the blueprint to a team’s success. It provides them day to day direction on what to do, how to do it, and why they are doing it.
A Team’s Vision Statement provides a solid foundation for a supportive environment, a predictable and safe environment for them to learn and perform in.
Below are two examples of Vision Statements. The first was created with a youth team, consisting of 7- to 9-year-old athletes. I requested the assistance of their parents to ask their children some questions so we could piece together a one-sentence Vision Statement. This is what we came up with:
“To be the best that we can be every day, through improvement, hard work, and good sportsmanship, so that we can have fun with each other.”
The next example came from a high school varsity team. About twenty players and five coaches got together on a Friday evening in the off season to discuss their experiences on the team thus far. We talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly. He continued the debate on the word choice and word order for the next week or two. This is the what we came up with:
“To pursue greatness in all that we do, through trust, perseverance and dedication for the growth and legacy of the team.”
As a reminder, a vision statement is not about the future. It is a statement that players are expected to live and breathe every day.
To sum up the importance of a Vision Statement… If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up nowhere. If you don’t know how you are going to get there, you’ll end up stuck at the fork. If you don’t know why, then you’ll end up quitting when a little adversity gets in the way.
-Jimmy Karam, CMPC
@recreationalcoaching