<Peak Level> The Skill of Identifying The Key Moments That Matter Most
What are key moments and why do they matter?
Hello Team,
Key moments are situations or events that have the greatest effect on our success.
As part of our process as a squad in preparations for an up and coming International, is showing game film.
The film could be from our previous game or looking at our opposition.
I would play a particular segment of footage, and players would take notes in micro groups. Summarise the information and then share their findings with the larger group.
We would be looking for the key moments that had made the biggest difference to our performance.
What I found is that the group could get caught up in trying to fix everything all at once.
My role was to help the players find those key moments that give us the best chance of success.
I love this part of my work, problem solving and being creative in thinking of ways to find and win these key moments.
When we focus on those key moments we can accelerate progress, performance and profound change.
I use the same process when working with individuals.
Here is an example;
Working with a goal kicker (put the ball through the uprights, the big H on the playing field of rugby).
Now this is the type of player with high confidence.
He has a kicking percentage of 90% success in Internationals.
He would call for the kicking tee before the referee even signalled for a penalty.
Waiting for the opportunity to win the game for his team.
The team was training and I noticed he wasn’t his normal self.
Kicking percentage in training was around 60%, and his presence on the field was low.
I observed for the rest of training, and at the end said I would like to speak to him back at the hotel.
He shared with me that his confidence has gone and his whole game was off.
His game wasn’t off, but that’s how he was viewing it.
I asked him what would make the greatest impact to his performance?
My kicking, when that’s going well it lifts my whole game, even off the field.
We now had the situation we could delve deeper to what was going on?
The key moment was the referee blowing their whistle for a penalty.
Key moment found.
We made the change, he got to work, and in one more training session the swagger was back.
He Kicked the points and scored an outstanding try under the posts to seal the win.
Getting to those key moments is the difference that can make the difference.
Here’s to you finding your key moments…
I would love to know how you are showing up with swagger at your best, or not.
In your corner
Coach Damo
Thankyou for this Damo.