Reset, Refocus, and Reclaim Your Energy
Five simple strategies to help you beat stress
Eric is the Head Coach for a mid-sized team in the Northeast United States. He is also the CEO, operated by a parent board of directors. The members of the Board have been turning over a lot quicker in the past few elections, and fewer parents are willing to serve and serve for the right reasons.
It's a cold day at the beginning of February. Eric is sitting in his car outside of the pool, nursing his second cup of afternoon coffee. It's cold, and the light of day is fading, but it is quiet in his car and devoid of any scent of chlorine. Unfortunately, the silence is broken by the sound of his phone buzzing. Against his better judgment, he picks it up to see a text message from a parent telling him her son and another swimmer will need to miss dryland today. "Hmmh," Eric grunted. The same parent who insisted on a meeting two weeks ago when she was unhappy with the mid-season meet results. Eric came in on his off day to accommodate her and her husband's schedules.
"I guess my emphasis on his low practice attendance wasn't strong enough," Eric says out loud to himself.
Eric takes a second to categorize the rest of his day: It's 3:25 pm now, he has to run practice and dryland; then a quick meeting with the lead Developmental coach. Then he can head home. Should be able to get there in time to help put the kids to bed.
"Crap!" he suddenly thinks. That report the Board wants.
Eric was asked to complete a monthly time log report at the last board meeting. Essentially, they want to know all of the hours each coach is logging and what they are doing with that time. It wasn’t in his job description, and he’d never been asked to do it before.
Despite Eric asking the other members of the Board to review this idea and wait to implement it if deemed necessary, the Board decided to start it now, claiming they didn't want to act on anything, "just to see what data they are looking at."
"Feels a lot like busy work to me."
As he reaches for the door handle, he remembers that his assistant with the Senior group, Andi, is sick with the flu. She won't be there to help today.
Eric walks into the pool and up to his office. Heat doesn't get to that room, so a space heater is used on cold days. It will take a few minutes to make the room comfortable, right on time for him to walk on deck for practice. As he reaches for the heater, his phone pings again: an email this time. It's from Adam, one of the team captains, asking to meet with Eric before practice today to discuss something important. Adam rarely sounds alarm bells, and Eric wants to give him his full attention, so he will need to pull another coach off of a group to keep an eye on the senior swimmers during that time.
Rather than turn on the office heater, Eric drops his bag and keeps his coat on. He backs out of his office, heads down the stairs, across the pool deck, and through a door leading to the rear of the facility: no cars, no people, just stillness. Eric moves into the grass, still thick even in winter.
He bends over and removes his shoes and socks, allowing the cold grass to come into contact with his bare feet. He closes his eyes, puts his hand on his heart, and takes a few deep breaths.
Out here, there is no board of directors, no report due, and no meeting. Out here, for just a few minutes, there are no demands.
What Eric experienced isn't unique. It reflects a deeper pattern we're seeing across the coaching profession and beyond. It's the unsettling sense that you're stretched too thin, with no part of you left untouched.
When Demands Outweigh Resources
These moments—when the demands start to outweigh available resources—are familiar territory for anyone. In Leading Well from Within, Dr. Daniel Friedland describes this threshold as the moment when what's demanded externally begins to eclipse our inner reserves. It's not just the rush of a packed calendar; it's the steady erosion of your inner reserve through constant output without replenishment. Over time, that imbalance can lead to decision fatigue, detachment, and burnout.
Friedland's research reveals that our minds shift gears under sustained stress—from creative thinking to reactive survival mode. We get more guarded, less engaged, and struggle to stay grounded. The good news? With a few intentional shifts, it's possible to reset your nervous system, rediscover your center, and start leading with clarity and strength again.
Five Strategies for Coaches to Recenter and Balance
The good thing is that getting recentered doesn't take a lot of effort as long as you don't wait to address the issues. A few weeks ago, I wrote about resetting between seasons. But a full reset is not always possible. Here are five simple, research-based strategies that anyone can use to take back control, refuel, and come back to center without needing a sabbatical.
1) Connect With Nature - Direct contact with nature, in Eric's case walking barefoot in the grass, shifts the body from a sympathetic (fight-or-flight) to a parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state. This process, known as "grounding" or "earthing," is supported by studies indicating reduced cortisol levels, decreased inflammation, and improved heart rate variability.
Grounding first thing in the morning may help regulate your circadian rhythm by reducing cortisol levels and supporting the body's natural sleep-wake cycle. Morning exposure to natural surfaces has been associated with improved mood, reduced stress, and greater energy throughout the day, as it helps synchronize biological rhythms and calm an overactive sympathetic nervous system.
Action to take: For the next seven days, go outside and stand barefoot in the grass for 2-3 minutes within five minutes of waking up with no phone or other distractions.
2) Set Boundaries - If you want to manage demands, start by establishing the rules of play. These can be small points, like "I won't answer my phone, texts, or emails from the time I leave the pool at night until xx:xx am the next morning." They can be slightly bigger, such as taking days off after long weekends at a meet. Or they can be major "lines in the sand," such as renegotiating your contract to include yearly cost of living increases or paid time off.
Too many coaches get caught in a trap without a contract or with employers who try to change the rules and add duties not expressed in the employment contract. Many coaches will acquiesce for fear of losing their job. On the one hand, you might be surprised by the reaction when you stand up for yourself professionally. On the other hand, do you really want to work for an employer who doesn't show you respect?
The best thing you can do is have hard conversations about your professional boundaries before you become overloaded with stress.
Action to take: Go to a quiet place free from distraction with a pen and a sheet of paper, set a 15-minute timer, and write down your professional boundaries: what you're willing to give and where you draw the line. Next, schedule a meeting with your supervisor to go over these boundaries. Do all of this before May 1st. Reach out to a coaching friend to practice what you'll say and how you’ll say it to your supervisor.
3) Take Time Outs - My friend, Brent Perkins, gave this analogy and I thought it was too good not to share with you.
During any basketball game, either team will go on a "run" where they rack up several points quickly while the other team fails to score. The coach of the team on the receiving end of the run will call a timeout to give his team a chance to reset and refocus. NBA teams get SEVEN timeouts per game! That's seven opportunities for the coach to hit pause and allow his team to get a break.
If an NBA team can take seven timeouts per game, why can't you call a timeout for yourself when you start to feel overwhelmed? It is a timeout, not a long break. Just like the NBA, there are moments when a timeout is not warranted or not allowed, so you need to follow the rules of engagement here.
Action to take: Make a note of how you feel when you start to get upset or overwhelmed: where do you feel it in your body? What happens to your heart rate? How does it affect your body temperature?
Give yourself a timeout the next time these feelings come on. It doesn't matter if you are at work or home; think of your needs, take that quick break, and bring a better version of yourself back to the task.
4) Find a Hobby - "You need a hobby, something to take your mind off of work." Peter Clark gave me this advice, and it was a game changer. Coach Clark used himself as an example, telling me he used woodworking to take his mind off of the job. I've bounced around with hobbies myself: running, biking, and CrossFit, to name a few.
The idea is to find a productive distraction that allows you to clear your mind. Make it active and disconnected from electronics, so it can activate your mind in ways your job does not.
Action to take: Come up with a list of five affordable hobbies you might enjoy that will fit the criteria above. Next, think of the smallest step you can take to get started and do it within the next 24 hours.
5) Develop a Regular Gratitude Practice - This from a 2023 report from UCLA Health:
"Taking a moment to be thankful causes physiological changes in your body that initiate the parasympathetic nervous system — the part of your nervous system that helps you rest and digest. Gratitude and the response it causes help bring down your blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing to help with overall relaxation."
Expressing gratitude is difficult when stress peaks and your sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive. However, a daily gratitude practice is a pre-emptive action that adds more to your reserve, prolonging your ability to maintain positivity during trying times.
Action to take: Get a journal and keep it with a pen by your bed. For the next seven days, before you go to sleep each night, take five minutes to write down three things that happened that day that you are grateful for.
This is your life and your journal: there are no rules! Anything that happened over the past 24 hours is free game!
You may already be doing all or some of these steps. If you aren't, take the challenge for a week and see how it changes your mindset and ability to deal with stress.
The important thing to remember is that this is YOUR life. You deserve to be treated by employers and customers in a way that reflects your professionalism and how you treat others.
No more, "It's part of the job." No one deserves to be treated poorly time and again. No one should feel they have to push down stress until there is nowhere else for it to go, and they suffer as a result.
Some degree of stress comes with just about any job, but that doesn’t mean anyone should be expected to endure mistreatment or carry an endless emotional load. These five approaches are here to remind you: your well-being matters deeply. Prioritizing yourself isn’t indulgent, it’s necessary.