Betsy Butterick's Friday Field Notes Cards: My Top 3
Betsy Butterick Friday Field Notes Cards
I’ve been a fan of Betsy’s work for years. It’s been so long that I cannot remember exactly the first time her work was presented to me and since then she’s come into quite a few of the coaching development circles I follow and take part. Most recently she presented at the 2024 National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Convention as the keynote speaker. Her work in providing coaches with communication tools to better relay our messages to those we coach has been extremely influential in my life. One of the earliest changes I made in my language was asking “What questions do you have?” instead of “Do you have any questions?” The former normalizes questions and creates a safer space for those with questions to feel more comfortable asking compared to the latter. Throughout the years, I’ve actually turned some of her language recommendations into my own coaching cards because I’m a fan of creating tools to better integrate what I learn (aka nerd who cares). So naturally, when Becky announced she was publishing this deck of cards with tools, I immediately purchased them without a second thought!
Choosing just 3 cards from the pack turned out to be extremely difficult in this short amount of time since they arrived. So, I took a picture of my top 6. However, I will narrow it down to my top 3 and share more about each one below.
Small Shifts-This one was an early favorite as it is one of my core memories of Becky’s work. These “small shifts” in language reduce resistance, as Becky mentions on the card, but also normalizes the topic and creates a safer space for responding. Keeping this card nearby encourages me to consider how I can shift my language to reduce resistance and normalize a potentially vulnerable feeling, especially with my independent toddler!!
Redefining Success-This is huge. Managing internal expectations of success and uniting a team around a core vision of success for a season or even just a single drill or repetition is extremely important. So often each of us are carrying different expectations and sometimes unrealistic visions of “success”. Through discussing and identifying success in each drill, we can establish a clear picture and better communicate expectations and roles in order to empower each person with confidence moving forward. Clarity is kindness! Clarify what success looks like and the results will pleasantly surprise you (or not since you identified success earlier…haha).
Beware of Your Ghosts-As Ted Lasso’s coaching philosophy includes, “Be curious, Not judgmental”, this card encourages us as coaches to do so with different language. So often we take problems personally as coaches resulting in placing blame on ourselves or someone and/or limiting our perceptions of potential outcomes in a certain situation. This card encourages us to question ourselves about what biases or filters based on past events that may be limiting our ability to see the situation for what it is. Recognizing the factors informing our perspective is key to seeing our situation more clearly and determining our next steps. Stepping into the problem with curiosity and asking, “what’s behind this?” or “what can I learn in this situation”, have helped me to take things less personally and be ready to learn and act to move forward.
Link to Betsy’s Substack. Link to purchase Betsy’s Deck of Cards.
Thank you for sharing, Danielle! Your words echo the "why" behind my work and I'm grateful that some of the shifts I've shared have created a positive impact in your world :)