25 Jul Are you a Tribal athlete?

We understand that sometimes looking from the outside in. Joining our community can appear daunting, it is the purpose of this article to set out who it is that we specialise in coaching.

With goals ranging from professional sports competition to being able to walk upstairs or carry without pain, our athletes are a broad spectrum of awesome individuals who whilst aspiring to different goals, share commonalities in outlook, mindset and personality.

We choose to cultivate positive athlete-centric relationships, you are the athlete, it is our belief that whether you are training for the sport of life, or for competition, each of you are faced with challenges that when faced with an athlete’s mindset become more attainable.

An athlete’s mindset?

This is a significant blog on its own, but, as professional coaches, the process of developing an athlete-centric relationship is greatly improved when both sides of the relationship come with a level of openness and a generous helping of these traits.

1. Persistence
2. Responsibility
3. Perception
4. Humility and Vulnerability
5. Gratitude

The role of the coach is to facilitate the growth of the athlete in each of these traits to bring about great individual decisions that bring your goals closer rather than further away.

Tribal Athletes are categorised into 4 sub groups:

Everyday Athletes:

A quick note, I did not create this term. It is a belief I have held for years, but, the term was originated by Strength Matters.

9 out of 10 of the population would fit into this group with us at Tribal, and everyday athletes total more than 50% of our total membership. Being an everyday athlete is about living with purpose, making the most of what you have and taking part in life, nothing short of what we expect of our own coaches.

A huge part of an Everyday Athletes intervention is about cultivating physical activity. Integration and enjoyment of an active lifestyle defines you as an everyday athlete. Via greater personal responsibility and perception of your reality, personal development is a primary driver to goal attainment. You’ll make choices that motivate and inspire family and friends to do something motivating and inspiring in their own lives.

Our priority is life experience, in turn, our perception expands and results in even more opportunities to have a broader range of life experiences.

Success as an everyday athlete depends upon an open heart and mind, seek challenge and continue to ask the question of how am I really feeling? Your growth is dependent upon adequate challenge that expands your comfort zone. Anything you do that limits your ability to experience the breadth of life reduces your ability to live life to the fullest.

If the point of living life to the fullest is to maximize your capacity for taking advantage of what life has to offer you, then this involves maximizing the length of your life as well.

Everyday athletes understand and take responsibility for the cornerstones of health that effect their personal growth. They aspire to experience everything that life has to offer.

Everyday athletes embrace it all, from easy to intense, from hiking to strength training, from swimming to pilates. They’re prepared for anything that life throws their way. They embrace challenge.

Via their own development of perception. They seek substance, truth and clarity. Everyday athletes seek performance, but not at the sacrifice of health and longevity.

Everyday athletes know their development is long term.

Health comes first for all Tribal Athletes. No short cuts, no quick fixes. Everyday athletes work hard, knowing they will reap the rewards in the long run.

While living life to the fullest, everyday athletes are all about collecting experiences. They don’t simply believe in knocking items off a bucket list, and it isn’t a competition to “do the most things before death.”

For everyday athletes, it is about acquiring strength and wisdom from the challenges one has overcome and having experiences that alter how one perceives the world.

And from these challenges, they use their experience and wisdom to lift others. They help others raise their standards so they too can join our great community.

For an everyday athlete, if you really want to live life to the fullest, you must make a habit of always reaching for new experiences that push you to grow, and when you’re busy growing, your growth is having a positive influence on others. That’s when you’ll know you’re truly maximising your life as an everyday athlete.

For the following three sub groups, all will eventually, at some point become everyday athletes. There are some changes in focus for each of these groups, but, moving away from the foundations of the everyday athlete and the athlete mindset, ultimately, will never serve you long term. Here’s the mild differences in focus:

Challenge Athletes:

As a challenge athlete, you aspire to the life of an everyday athlete, but, you punctuate your life experience with structured challenges and events that both expand your comfort zone and provide a more specific focus to your training. At Tribal, we specialise in coaching endurance athletics, specifically:

• Triathlon
• Running
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Rowing

Youth Athletes:

As always, it’s a two-way street with our athlete-centric approach. Our Youth Athletes provide energy and exuberance for the Tribal community whilst we provide wholesome and balanced long-term friendship and guidance.

Tribal aims to cultivate a long-term approach to an athlete’s mindset and a well-rounded athletic development, minimising early specialisation, burnout and dropout. The ultimate goal for our Youth Athletes is a cultivation of a balanced young person with a lifelong love for an active lifestyle whilst maximising their chances of success in their chosen sport or activity.

Elite Athletes:

It really doesn’t matter how accomplished an athlete becomes, the athlete-centred coaching approach of positive regard, empathy and congruence consistently creates a positive relationship that can drive development and success. Often, an Elite Athlete requires the same human first, health first paradigm that taps into their unique biology to bring about massive results.

This group is such a small part of our community, less than 5% total, but their role is critical. You see, for every athlete, everything meaningful is created twice, firstly, change is created with a comprehension, thought or desire, then follows physical action.

Without outstanding Elite Athletes around the community, often it is hard for the Everyday, Challenge and Youth Athletes to even comprehend what’s possible, your only ceiling is what you allow yourself to dream.

The contribution of our Elite Athletes to the community is inspiration, an encouragement of anything is possible.

Everything is created twice. First in the mind and then second in the physical manifestation of the initial thought, you have to comprehend something before you create it.