Positive vs Negative Response

Which one is truly tough?

Attitude: The typical response a person has to a person or situation

We choose how to respond to situations in our life. How we do this over time becomes our Attitude as we show our average response. It takes a while to change someone's viewpoint of your attitude especially if they knew/ you for a time. But our attitude reflects our choice of response in every situation. We can choose to respond in one of two ways: Positively or Negatively. These two response work with both cases and people. We can choose to respond in a positive way or choose to respond in a negative way. Both of them have power in their response to actions. 

A negative response is where you attack just the person instead of the issue. The method here is not constructive but destructive. When you attack the person, the problem becomes secondary in the focus of the response. As a coach, this is pictured by just yelling “Catch the Ball” without offering any coaching on the concept. We were yelling at the player in the sense that they did not want to catch the ball when every player likes it. As a teammate, when we try to talk to a teammate about missing workouts and call them lazy, unmotivated, a bad teammate, etc. These may be true statements and work to motivate some people, but they will not work for all. Some people will shrink and get pushed away for attacking them. This is not them being soft, and yelling for no reason does not make them tough. There are many kids who may have outside reasons they were not able to make workouts and they are very real. Attacking the person and not the problem is the biggest component of a negative response. 

A positive response is when we attack the problem and not the person. The method here is constructive and not destructive. This method can still be tough because sometimes the issue can be helping a teammate to be more motivated and disciplined. Sometimes, a player breaks a rule and needs to be disciplined. A positive confrontation does not mean letting things slide for people. I believe that positive responses are the tougher responses to situations and people. For most people, dealing with the actual problem is uncomfortable. It is a lot easier to attack the person and not the problem. As a coach, this is giving pointers for catching such as “attack the ball” or “create the diamond.” As a player, it is first asking why the teammate is missing workouts. That will allow you to combat the exact problem instead of assuming they are just lazy. At the end of the day, positive responses are truly “Tough” responses.