Finding Order In Coaching
There is a phrase that gets thrown around constantly in coaching: work-life balance.
We hear it at coaching clinics, leadership conferences, and in conversations with other coaches who are trying to navigate the demands of their profession while maintaining healthy relationships at home. The idea sounds great, but the longer I coach, the more I question whether balance is actually what we should be pursuing.
In this conversation from the B3rd library with Coach Nedbalek, he challenges us to think more deeply about this subject. When I asked him about finding balance in coaching, his response was something I think every coach needs to consider.
He said, "I don't quite jive with that terminology because I don't think that's attainable."
His point was simple. If you want to pursue mastery in anything, whether that is coaching, playing the piano, or developing a particular skill, there will inevitably be some level of imbalance. Certain things will demand more of your time and energy than others. Coaching is no different. There are long days, late nights, travel schedules, practices, games, recruiting, and countless responsibilities that make it nearly impossible to divide our time equally between everything that matters.
But what if the goal was never balance in the first place?
What if the goal was order?
The Difference Between Balance and Order
One of the most important things Coach Nedbalek said during our conversation was that instead of trying to achieve balance, he focuses on being present.
"When you're home, be home."
That sounds simple enough, but I wonder how many of us actually live that way. How often do we sit at dinner with our families while mentally reviewing tomorrow's practice plan? How often are we physically present at home but emotionally and mentally still at the gym? How often do we allow the demands of coaching to consume the very relationships that should matter most?
Coach Nedbalek shared that his phone goes on Do Not Disturb around eight o'clock each evening. Not because there isn't more work to be done, but because he wants to be fully present with his wife. Even if that simply means eating dinner together or watching a television show, he wants her to have his attention.
I think there is a tremendous lesson here for coaches.
Being present is not about giving everything equal time. It is about giving the right things our full attention at the right time.
There will be seasons when coaching requires more of us. There will be late nights and weekends away from home. That is part of the profession, and our families often understand those demands. But the danger comes when we begin treating those demands as permission to neglect the people and responsibilities God has placed ahead of our profession.
We may never find perfect balance, but we can absolutely pursue proper order.
First Things Must Come First
During our conversation, I brought up one of my favorite books, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.
Lewis makes a powerful observation about the importance of keeping first things first. The principle is that when we put the most important things in their proper place, everything else begins to find its rightful place as well.
This is something I have come to believe deeply, not just in coaching, but in marriage, parenting, and my relationship with God.
If I want to love my wife the way I am called to love her, I must first love God. That might sound strange to someone who doesn't understand the Christian faith, but the reality is that my ability to love my wife well is strengthened by my relationship with Christ. When God is first, I begin to understand love less as something that serves my own desires and more as something that requires sacrifice, patience, humility, and service.
The same principle applies to coaching.
If my relationship with God is not in the proper place, eventually my coaching will suffer. I may still win games, develop talented athletes, and build a successful program, but I risk losing sight of the very purpose behind what I am doing.
For Christian coaches, our calling is not simply to become great coaches. Our calling is to become faithful followers of Christ who happen to coach.
That distinction matters.
When we put coaching ahead of God, we risk turning something good into something disordered. When we put coaching ahead of our spouse and children, we risk sacrificing relationships that have been entrusted to us for the sake of professional achievement.
God first. Family next. Coaching in its proper place.
This doesn't diminish the importance of coaching. It actually allows us to coach with greater freedom, purpose, and clarity.
You Cannot Pour Out What You Have Not Put In
Another part of our conversation that stood out to me was Coach Nedbalek's emphasis on taking care of himself spiritually, physically, and mentally before beginning the demands of the day.
He shared a piece of advice that has stayed with him: Don't begin working for your team or your program until you have first invested in yourself.
For him, that often means getting up early, spending time in Scripture, and praying before the day begins. He described using the acronym MEDS as a personal checklist: meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep. His meditation is often time spent in God's Word.
I loved this because it reinforces something I regularly challenge coaches to consider.
If you tell me that you pray at the end of the day, my challenge is simple: Why is God getting what is left over?
Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with ending your day in prayer. In fact, we should be praying throughout the day. But if we claim that God is first in our lives, shouldn't that priority be reflected in how we begin our day?
I want to encourage coaches to build the habit of starting their day with Christ, even if that means waking up a little earlier. Spend time in Scripture. Pray for your family, your athletes, and your fellow coaches. Ask God to help you see the people you encounter as He sees them.
Coach Nedbalek made an important observation about how this affects his coaching. When he enters the gym focused only on himself, he is more likely to respond to mistakes with anger and frustration. But when he has spent time reflecting on the patience and grace Christ continually extends to him, he becomes more capable of extending that same patience and grace to his athletes.
Think about how powerful that is.
Our spiritual preparation directly influences how we respond to the young people entrusted to our care.
We spend countless hours preparing practice plans, scouting opponents, and developing strategies. Yet how much time do we spend preparing our hearts to lead?
Maybe one of the most important things we can do to become better coaches is to become more intentional about our relationship with God.
The Danger of Coaching's Grind Culture
There is another challenge that coaches need to wrestle with, and that is the culture of constant work that has become so celebrated in our profession.
For years, young coaches have been told that success requires being the first person in the office and the last person to leave. We celebrate coaches who sleep in their offices, sacrifice weekends, and seemingly give every waking moment to their programs.
We call it commitment. We call it sacrifice. We call it paying our dues.
But I think we need to ask a more important question.
Is every sacrifice we make actually a sacrifice God is asking us to make?
Coach Nedbalek challenged this idea during our conversation. He questioned whether Jesus would truly be glorified by a coach spending nineteen or twenty hours a day in the office while leaving a spouse and family at home wondering when they will receive that same level of attention.
I think that is a question worth sitting with.
There is absolutely a place for hard work. I believe deeply in pursuing excellence, and I don't think we should use our faith as an excuse for laziness or mediocrity. Coaching requires commitment, preparation, and sacrifice. But we need to recognize that working harder and working longer are not always the same as being faithful to our calling.
Sometimes the most difficult act of discipline for a coach is not staying at the office another two hours.
Sometimes it is having the humility to close the laptop, put the phone away, and go home.
Sometimes the greatest sacrifice is choosing to be present with our family when our minds want to remain consumed with our teams.
And sometimes putting God first means trusting that the success of our program does not depend entirely upon our ability to control every detail.
That requires faith.
Proper Order Makes Us Better Coaches
One of the things I have learned over the years is that coaching has a unique ability to consume our identity. We invest so much of ourselves into our athletes, teams, and programs that it becomes difficult to separate who we are from what we do.
But when coaching becomes our identity instead of our vocation, we begin placing expectations on the profession that it was never designed to fulfill.
We expect winning to bring satisfaction. We expect professional advancement to provide significance. We expect our athletes and programs to validate the sacrifices we have made.
And eventually, we discover that none of those things can provide what we are ultimately searching for.
This is why order matters.
When I know that my identity is rooted in being a child of God, I am free to pursue excellence without allowing the results to define my worth. When I understand that my marriage and family are responsibilities entrusted to me by God, I can approach coaching without allowing it to consume every part of my life.
And when I understand that my athletes are people I have been called to serve rather than individuals responsible for my personal success, I become a healthier and more effective leader.
I have spent enough years in coaching to know that the relationships we build with our athletes and fellow coaches are incredibly meaningful. Many of those relationships become lifelong friendships, and in many ways, the people we coach become an extension of our family.
That is a beautiful part of this profession.
But those relationships become even healthier when we keep everything in its proper order. We don't have to love coaching less. We simply have to make sure we are loving the right things first.
Finding Order Instead of Chasing Balance
As I reflect on this conversation with Coach Nedbalek, I think the greatest takeaway is that we need to stop measuring our lives by whether we have achieved some perfect distribution of time and start evaluating whether we are living according to the right priorities.
There will always be another practice to plan, another opponent to scout, another email to answer, and another problem to solve. The work of coaching is never truly finished.
But that cannot become an excuse for failing to be present in the moments that matter most.
For me, this is what Becoming 3rd is all about. God first, others second, and myself third. It is a daily challenge to put things in their proper order and resist the temptation to make everything about my own ambitions, desires, or achievements.
When God is first, He changes how I love my wife, how I parent my children, how I lead my athletes, and how I pursue excellence in coaching.
The goal isn't to become less committed to our profession. The goal is to become more intentional about the order in which we live.
So maybe the question we should be asking ourselves isn't, "How do I find better work-life balance?"
Maybe the better questions are: Am I putting God first? Am I fully present with the people who matter most? Am I giving my family the best of who I am, or simply what is left after coaching? And am I pursuing excellence in a way that honors the responsibilities God has entrusted to me?
Because at the end of the day, the goal isn't to give everything equal time. The goal is to give everything its proper place.
And when we find that order, I believe we become not only better coaches, but better husbands, fathers, leaders, and followers of Christ.
Questions for Coaches to Reflect On
When you are home with your family, are you truly present, or are you still mentally and emotionally at work?
Does the way you begin your day reflect your belief that God comes first?
Have you ever justified neglecting an important relationship by telling yourself that you were sacrificing for your team?
Are you pursuing excellence in coaching in a way that strengthens or weakens your other responsibilities?
What is one practical change you can make this week to bring greater order to your life?
Author:
Coach Field
