Becoming Self-Aware: The First 90 Days in Sports and Exercise Science

Starting a new job can be a tricky, daunting process and this is especially true when it comes to sports and exercise professions. 

Fortunately, we are here to help, sharing great advice for how you can make your mark in the first 90 days of your new role, and get things moving in the right direction. 

So, You’re Starting a New Role…  

If you are starting out in a new role, moved to another sport and exercise science department or are just about to start in your first experience in the world of sport science, this is the article for you. 

I will outline some of practical considerations and thought-provoking ideas that you must consider if you want to make an instant impact in your new position, helping you to better adapt to new processes and flourish in a complex, kaizen-style environment. 

Many of the ideas that I will put forward are aligned with the work of Michael D. Watkins and his international bestseller “The First 90 Days,” which provides proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter. 

After all, the first 90 days has been highlighted to be the most critical period in a job and how you can gain a positive influence over your colleagues or employees, before their belief in you is lost. Once we pass this point, it will become very difficult to win them back!

Preparing for Your First Day 

Before the first day of the new role, it is beneficial to think about your last placement and to reflect upon the relationship that you had with your co-workers. 

When doing this, take the people you had working underneath you into special consideration, contemplating how were your goals set and met, while also thinking about the reasons behind both your successes and your failures.  

Recently, I checked in with my “why”. I reminded myself why I study and work in this field. I came to the understanding that is it to help others - athletes or people who want to increase their physical activity - to get the best performance outcomes they can, while also fostering an environment that breeds enjoyment and success.

 If you take this time to reflect yourself, you will better realise influence you had on other people and that may help you to generate some new ideas that you hadn’t previously considered. 

 Four questions that may help with this reflection are: 

1.     Did you set yourself (and or others) goals and were they met or too un/realistic? 

2.     What measures did you use, and did they encourage or discourage desirable behaviours? 

3.     How did this sport science department perform previously? 

4.     Have you considered how your staff/co-workers think it has performed? 

Another great thing to really focus on here is to be clear on how you define success. If you work on the sport psychology side of things, then do you base it on the player’s happiness, as well as their ability to perform well and consistently?

This is one good example and another may be, if you work on the rehabilitation side or strength and conditioning, then do you base your success around keeping a low number of athletes visiting the treatment room? 

 When taking all this into account, you may want to take a look at your philosophy and beliefs around success or good performances. 

 Consider what has – in terms of culture, systems, structure and politics, for example - contributed to this success? 

 If performances haven’t lived up to expectations, what has happened and why? Can you take accountability for anything? 

Linking Your New Role to Previous Experiences  

When starting in your new role, you may notice many crossovers with your previous experience.

For example, in both experiences you will likely have a duty of care for your athlete. You may, therefore, want to think about how to end this care in an appropriate, ethical manner and make a successful transition. 

Why is this so important?

Well, some transitions can be messy, and you can get pressure from both parties to get things done and, in time, you will likely learn that it is best to always ask for help. 

At the new job they may have people to guide your through the process and if this isn’t the case then speak to HR about creating a plan for the 90-day transition period. 

Another way to help with this process is by creating some free time and use it to imagine yourself making the transition and consciously letting go of the old job. 

Think about the differences of the jobs and consider how you would embrace the new one. 

Use some time (not that you necessarily have that much), to see your friends, family and advisers to help. They may be able to help you gain some perspective and help relieve any pressure.  

With regards to the new position itself, there are many factors to consider in this time and it will also depend on the role you have in sport science. 

For a role within sports psychology, as an example, there are a number of other factors to consider. 

One of these could and should be to establish barriers with player confidentiality, considering how you approach the coaches with this.

It is recommended that, in addition, you investigate the previous approaches and expectations of the former employer in how you were expected to handle such situations. 

For a physiologist, inform yourself with the equipment available and the procedures are currently established.

 Planning the First Three Months 

 To plan your first three months, setting-up some milestones you’d like to accomplish can be a great way to start, looking at the smaller processes to reaching these milestones would be recommended. 

 In this working environment, most of the time, by the 90-day point, the heads of the organisation or department would expect to see some momentum or gains. 

 Therefore, to plan for this inevitable meeting, some targets would be beneficial. However, without knowing how this sport science department functions, you would need to educate yourself about this in order to hit the ground running. 

So, in your first few days at a new job, have a think about the culture, systems, structure and politics in place - but don’t fall into the trap of making assumptions beforehand. 

Another Dangerous Trap

One key element from the 90-day transition ideology is not to necessarily use your previous successful strategies in a new working environment.

Although these strategies may have been successful previously, it would be naïve to think they would work in the same fashion with new co-workers and systems. 

To be hired in the first place, you must be a skilled and knowledgeable employee and you may have come to lead a new department with your own ideas about how you’d like things to proceed. 

These ideas may be focused around how the environment and culture should appear, from your eyes. You may however disregard the current systems in place which then ultimately could cause problems within the team’s dynamic. 

 For example, they could be running tests and systems already that have taken them a long time to prepare and then you come in with a new idea and upset the rhythm and status quo. This could have a negative impact and not the desired effect you would like to have had. 

 For a sport psychology example, you would like to initiate a new culture based on previous success, rather than updating the current one, which could just need to be tweaked, as it may have a strong history within the club and department. Maybe they may have even previously tried your idea and it didn’t work well. 

 The bottom line here is that you don’t want to fall into the trap of coming up with “the” answer and jump too quickly to conclusions with regards to the problems and solutions. 

 Therefore, educating yourself on the current functions and creating self-awareness around this system is very important. But how can you do this? 

 Creating Self-Awareness

One way to do this is to understand the department and club’s vision, its process and to see if they are in pursuit of it. 

If it isn’t working, then why isn’t it working? Ask and think about your employee’s views on the matter.  

 When working with your new co-workers, you will get an understanding of their levels of capability, trustworthiness and who are the stronger influencers. 

 With this, you will be able to delegate and create a challenging rather than a threatening environment for your employees. 

 If possible, can you predict any lingering surprises that could come to light and how would you deal or be proactive in your efforts to prevent them? 

 Take the example of an athlete looking to get back to competing after recovering from an injury, and the coach, would like them back for a competition in two weeks’ time. But, you and your department don’t think rushing the player is best advised.

 How would your opinion make the athlete feel? This has the potential to be a very tricky situation, so how could you approach this? 

The key focus, within your first 90 days to help prevent troublesome scenarios like this occurring in the future, would be getting a few early wins. This is in terms of people, relationships and targets to increase confidence with yourself, the group and the club. 

If your athlete has reason to believe in the value of your opinion early, you can build and positive relationship that is based on solid foundations. 

Don’t Get Carried Away by Early Success

 There are some key areas to pay special attention to, as you look to avoid getting yourself into sticky situations. 

 In previous experiences, you probably have learned through trial and error and have been willing to try things and make mistakes, which – at the time - worked well for you. 

Now you think you have found something that has proven successful for you in your current environment, but as previously highlighted, this may not be what the new role requires. 

Try to avoid feeling the need to take action straight away. If you do this and try too hard early on, by stamping your authority, that could mean that you are too busy to learn about your new environment. This could lead to bad decision making, which could create a barrier and prevent your colleagues from listening to your future initiatives. 

In line with this, you could try to do too much and run with multiple ideas in different directions, in the hope that something will work, and believe you’ll reap the rewards of an early victory. 

However, one way to create momentum would be to set realistic expectations. 

If they are unrealistic and lack clarity you may lose the engagement of your colleagues and then ultimately your boss and key members of the club. 

When engaging with your employees/co-workers, you can learn about their belief systems and can gain greater understanding of goal clarity and expectations. 

 Just think about this in your current role in the department; are you in danger of getting yourself caught up in this or do you need to take a step back and re-evaluate your plans? 

 Bear this in mind when you start the job and use this as a reminder to safeguard your initial plans with a new club. 

Why Is This all so Important?

When looking more long term and the challenges, opportunities and barriers you will face, it is essential to start planning now and what can be done to be greater prepared for them. 

 In the sport science world, in the majority of clubs, when the team isn’t performing well, the managers and their staff, including you, may be relieved of your duties. 

 Unfortunately, clubs want to see tangible results quickly and you may not be given a second chance, which emphasises the importance of the 90-day transition. 

Yet, once have hit the ground running, it doesn’t mean it is all plain sailing from there. It means you will have to think about which further capabilities and higher quality resources need to be developed and acquired, as well as the rationale behind using them. 

Final Thoughts

 As a final note, let’s just remember that sport and exercise science it is a continuously developing area. 

 It is, therefore, important to continuously reflect on your work, look at new research in the area and consider innovative ways to keep developing your athletes, your co-workers/employees and the surrounding environment. 

 These reflection questions are generic and can be readjusted and used in any sport science field to help with the transition process, while improving your self-awareness of your own behaviours. 

Good luck!