Supporting Athlete Emotional Well-Being: A Sample Script

Once you feel comfortable supporting your athlete’s emotional well-being using the Positive Coaching Alliance Principle of Filling Emotional Tanks, you can begin to share the concept with your team. Doing so will give athletes the tools to identify and provide the support their teammates may need. Following are the four key elements of an E-Tank conversation with your team.

Define Emotional Tank

E-tanks gauge how we are feeling. Compare it to the battery on a cell phone. When the battery is full it works at full capacity. When the battery is drained, it lacks the energy to function at its fullest. When our e-tanks are full we are excited to participate, more focused, and ready to learn and perform. When our e-tanks are drained we may struggle to focus, give our best effort, or lack the energy to support our teammates.

Start with Connection

When we take some time to get to know our teammates, we’ll be able to better understand when they may have a full or empty e-tank. We can also find out the type of support they prefer to help fill their e-tank. Not all of us will be motivated the same way, so it’s important to connect with each teammate to see how they’d like to be supported.

Recognize Context

We all arrive to practice or games within the context of our days and lives. At the beginning of practice we can check-in with our teammates to see how they are doing. It’s important to be aware that things outside of practice or outside of their control can drain their e-tank. By listening to understand a teammate’s perspective and validating how they are showing up, we can start to fill their e-tank.

Provide Encouragement

After we identify a teammate with a low e-tank, we can strive to help fill it by listening to them, telling them when we see them doing something well, recognizing their improvement and making them feel valued. As a team, we’ll gather at the end of practice to celebrate things we appreciate about our teammates and their actions.