POSITIVE COACHING SCOTLAND THE VALUE OF CHALLENGE AND STRUGGLE Often coaches and young athletes see struggle as a bad thing, it highlights a weakness and is something they are not good at, but why is this a bad thing? A mastery coach sees this as a positive - an opportunity for improvement. It often seems struggling shouldn’t be talked about, this is usually linked to the possibility of criticism or blame, yet as humans everyone knows that mistakes are a regular occurrence - this is when learning happens! Mastery coaches aim to create a culture where mistakes are openly used as learning opportunities and failure is part of the improvement process – if there is no struggle there can be no progress. KEY ELEMENTS TO UNDERSTAND CHALLENGE AND STRUGGLE Learning through mistakes Perseverance and resilience Problem solving through different strategies Responding positively to mistakes Encouraging challenge out with comfort zone Enjoyment of challenge and struggle