Ensuring good mental health and well-being remain a top priority has never been more important than during COVID-19. For more insight, West Coast Fever Sports Psychologist Jodii Maguire spoke to Head Coach Stacey Marinkovich about her challenges in maintaining the athletes’ mental well-being, focus, and motivation during isolation.
Jodii Maguire, West Coast Fever Sport Psychologist
Stacey Marinkovich, West Coast Fever Head Coach
When you heard what was going on [COVID-19] and that the season might not go ahead and we would have to stop training. What was your biggest fear? What were your fears for the girls and the team especially around well-being and mental health?
We had a huge review at the end of last season - putting plans in place for us to really have structured goals, changing our schedules up - and we are just started to get into the playing mode and ready to perform mentally. When all this started to happen – one minute you are training and the next minute it was pretty much stop – I don’t know what is going to happen.
My greatest fear was we were doing such a good job in the areas that we want to improve on and then all of sudden you are unable to test that out, so how are we going to get that feeling back? A team is all about connection and building culture, how can you do that when you are in isolation? How am I keep this group together? How do we train? How to get ready for a season with an endpoint that you never know how that’s going to look like.
One of the important things in sport is predictability. We work a lot to a routine and schedule. What have you done to try managing a routine with the team and how do you structure your connection with them?
That is the difficulty in terms of mental health. You are surrounded by people who are driven and orientated around goals and timelines, and then all of sudden you take that away – that was the part that was tricky. What we have to really focus on now, is it’s not a cookie cutter approach. Different people interact differently, we have different relationships across the group, some are really close friends and socialise outside netball.
The netball environment is what brings others in that close proximity in terms of a relationship. We had to cater to all of them and it is an open discussion. What do we need? How much contact or was it enough contact this time, particularly when we don’t have a start date? How many meetings? When do we start looking at our opposition? I think we can get the right balance and people still prepare to play, but we are not overloading them physically or mentally. When the time does come, we are still fresh to not just play but we are also ready to perform.
It’s a really important conversation to have for individuals, treating it as an individual approach not a blanket approach. Let’s talk about what you need as an individual - a lesson that we can all learn from this situation.
The biggest thing this whole situation really highlighted is that we are people first, and then athlete or coaches or whatever your occupation is. I think the way in which we had to put our focus towards family life, being able to interact with our friends, really does highlight different directions in terms of well-being. We talk about work-life balance, and it has taught me that you have to have balance in your life, but this balance can be shifted and shaped depending on what’s happening around you at the same time.
It’s a really good point that you make! Well-being is not a place you land and stay there forever, it’s a moving piece. What happened in one week may change and shift to the following. If you can reflect on this session, and carry one thing forward if we do go into a future season, what have you learnt? What change will you make that you didn’t know prior to all of this?
For me with the team, individual preparation could be just as powerful as bringing the group together as well. The girls have been inspired by each other and create a lot of confidence from me, then are able to do their own physical activity and remain committed. They are setting themselves little challenges all the time, they share sessions they have been doing on their bikes, what weights they are doing, yoga sessions, etc. You don’t have to be together to be successful, and I think that has built trust, and the level of communication now is so much better than it’s ever been.
You talked about communication and you made the point that it’s been better than ever. What has been the biggest shift? Do you think communication has been more purposeful?
Definitely, there is a purpose behind it, because you don’t have those little conversations. When you are interacting you’re really talking about things that you’re really feeling and experiencing in the moment.
The other part, because of this lack of contact and being able to see people, now people are really realising when you do see someone it is face-to-face and personalised. That is why our team meeting is more effective when using Zoom rather than just being on the other end of the phone. The buy-in is people really shar meaningful information with each other and compare their experiences and what everyone is doing and that is really genuine.
You’ve got people in a team sport that are used to being around 10 to 15 people every time they turn up to a training session. All of sudden you are sitting at home, you’ve got a roommate, or a partner – but to have everyone together, the conversation is very entertaining and everyone is really cherishing those moments rather than taking it for granted and just as a part of everyday life.
One of the benefits for you, doing the one-on-one with athletes and having one-on-one interactions, is you were able to talk to every individual on their own and really found out about them. Has that been good for you? What have you learnt?
Sport has evolved so much and the role of the Head Coach is not just with the players and what happens on the court, but there is a commercial side to it, there is the media, there is my admin, there are so many different things that you need to be doing.
At times, you can spread yourself too thinly across different areas. I would normally catch up with the players, but definitely not so much on one-on-one basis, and I think this has been a perfect opportunity because I got to know the players more intimately and I got to understand what is important to them particularly in the time like this. We’ve got Jhanielle Fowler from Jamaica - her daughter is in Jamaica and it is tough to be apart from someone that you love so dearly. To be able to help support the athletes during this time in any way that I can, it is a fulfilling role to have at the moment.
We have always been a club that said they are people first. If you want to live that value, then you need to have that interaction. This one-on-one conversation or one-on-one training session, whatever that might be, is really opening that door. Certainly, it’s made me realise that when you target and put some time into that, the response that you can get back is going to be so much more valuable down the track. So, balancing what you do within your job is really important and something I’ve found when it’s all chaos, is that you do still need to connect with people.
We know that feeling connected and feeling a part of something and having a good conversation is very important for well-being and mental health. I think that is again a good clue for general workplaces. How do you manage that balance and pressure to connect one-on-one with everybody, as well as doing the group work?
I think it is actually looking at the schedule and setting aside time to connect with the athletes and even our staff to be able to have those conversations - just making it a priority. You can always find time if you value work and find it important. It’s something that I have to communicate with the club to make sure that I can continue to do my role holistically and meet the demands that are outside the netball court. I am also getting the gains by having those interactions and building the relationships, because the connection that we will have as a team is going to be so much more poignant, particularly when you are in a tough situation and trying to win a game.
Motivation and goal setting is a big part of what we do and probably really critical in this period of isolation and distancing. What have you been doing in terms of goals with the girls to help give them a sense of achievement, purpose and meaning, because that has been challenging?
Actually finding things that they are not able to do, putting a different type of skill set towards them and challenging them. I think that is something important and bringing some fun challenges to the table is a bit different to me. I am quite serious in some parts; I like to think everything that we do has a purpose but you can have a different type of purpose by bringing enjoyment and fun. You can still get some skill elements out of it, but you get the enjoyment factor. One of the ball work sessions we have given the girls this week across five different sports, is to make them think differently but also creating a competitive environment among them to see who can do it best and breaking out of the monotony that we all are experiencing at the moment.
What do you believe sport could teach business and commerce that we do really well coming out of all this?
I think one would be adaptability, sport is ever evolving in the current environment. Our competition structure and the dynamic of our squads might change, we might have to relocate to be able to play out a session, and how you train is very different in isolation, either in small groups or in a full training session. It’s being able to be fluid in those movements, like in the game plan setting in half time and making the structure switch on the game plan.
Planning more than one different tactic is what sport does really well. Business needs adaptability but then you need buy-in, so you need to create that environment where there is a clear communication where everyone is on a same page, going with the same enthusiasm and focus to be able to achieve something. You won’t get results straight away, but the gains across that journey are really important.
Do we need to modify our standards/expectations right now, especially as we start to see a few more restrictions lifted? Thinking differently to how we might have thought pre-COVID and post-isolation.
It’s been an interesting experience for me in self-reflection. You are not alone – we are all experiencing the hardship. Well-being is living in the moment. Take the moment to be here, not anywhere else. I think something that we can learn through this experience is that those opportunities can be taken away - sport or business - but you have family so embrace that, and when you get other opportunities then embrace that too.
What’s your advice on managing well-being and mental health, given that we see lots of mindfulness around sleeping, eating, journaling and more. What personally works - your ‘golden nugget’ - during this time?
Focus on what I can control and put some energy into being really happy and be satisfied with what I have achieved during the day. I also think the connection with people and making that effort. I just created my own routine – still get up at the same time, and I am not walking in my pajamas all day. I started doing some cooking, that I didn’t have the time or energy for before. The biggest lesson is focus on the thing that you can control. It is very easy to think I wish the season would go ahead, etc. Keep in perspective as other people suffer, take the time to have a break and recognise you are going to be OK. It’s a tough grind!
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