# 10 Questions to Ask Yourself After Every Training Session

The session is over. Players have gone home. You are packing away cones, collecting bibs, maybe replaying a moment or two in your head.

This is the most valuable five minutes of your coaching week, and most coaches waste it.

Not deliberately. You are tired. You are already thinking about the drive home, about tomorrow's schedule, about whether the session went well enough. The observations start to blur. By tomorrow morning, the detail is gone.

What if you had a simple set of questions that turned those five minutes into a genuine development tool? Not a long debrief. Not a formal evaluation. Just ten honest questions that force you to think clearly about what just happened.

I have been coaching for over twenty years. These are the questions I keep coming back to. They work whether you coach football, rugby, basketball, hockey, athletics, or any other sport. They work at grassroots and at performance level. And they take less time than scrolling through your phone on the way to the car.

Key Takeaways

Structured self-questioning after training is one of the fastest ways to improve as a coach
These ten questions cover session quality, player development, your own behaviour, and future planning
You do not need to answer all ten every time. Pick the three or four most relevant to today's session
Writing your answers down, even briefly, creates a record you can learn from over weeks and months
The goal is honest self-assessment, not self-criticism

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Why Self-Directed Questions Matter

There is an important difference between thinking about your session and reflecting on it. Thinking is passive. It drifts. You replay the highlights, skip over the uncomfortable bits, and arrive at a vague "it went okay" conclusion.

Reflection is active. It asks specific questions and demands honest answers. It surfaces things you would rather not confront. And it is where real growth happens.

In my experience, the coaches who improve fastest are not the ones attending the most courses or reading the most books. They are the ones who consistently ask themselves difficult questions after every session and act on the answers.

These ten questions are designed to do exactly that.

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The 10 Questions

1. Did every player get better today?

This is the question that matters most, and it is the hardest to answer honestly.

Not "did the session go smoothly?" or "did we get through the plan?" but did every single player leave that session having improved at something, even slightly?

If you cannot point to what each player gained, that is worth sitting with. It does not mean the session was bad. But it might mean your session design favoured certain players over others. It might mean some players were standing around waiting. It might mean the challenge level was wrong for part of your group.

What to do with the answer: If certain players did not improve, ask yourself why. Was the activity too easy for them? Too hard? Were they not involved enough? Use this to adjust your next session design.

2. What would I change if I ran this session again tomorrow?

This question cuts through the noise instantly. You are not evaluating whether the session was good or bad. You are identifying the specific adjustments you would make with the benefit of hindsight.

Maybe the playing area was too large. Maybe you would change the group sizes. Maybe you would introduce the constraint earlier. Maybe you would scrap one activity entirely and spend more time on another.

What to do with the answer: Write the adjustment down. Not in vague terms but specifically. "Make the area 20x15 instead of 25x20" is useful. "Make the area smaller" is less useful. When you revisit this session next month or next season, your future self will thank you.

3. Was I coaching the session or managing behaviour?

This one stings when the answer is honest. We have all had sessions where we spent more time getting players to listen, sorting out disagreements, or dealing with disruption than actually coaching the sport.

If you spent more than a quarter of your time managing behaviour, something needs to change. It might be the session design. Activities with too much standing around invite behaviour problems. It might be the environment. Are expectations clear? It might be a specific player who needs a different approach.

What to do with the answer: If behaviour management dominated, do not just blame the players. Ask whether the session design contributed. High-activity, game-based sessions with clear rules tend to reduce behaviour issues dramatically.

4. Did I talk too much?

I have found this to be one of the most common coaching problems, and I include myself in that. It is so tempting to over-explain. You want players to understand. You want to share your knowledge. You want to make sure they get it.

But players learn by doing, not by listening. If you talked for more than twenty seconds at any one time during the session, you probably talked too much. If players' eyes glazed over, you definitely did.

What to do with the answer: Time yourself next session. Literally. Set a target of keeping instructions under twenty seconds. Use demonstrations instead of explanations where possible. Let the activity teach the concept.

5. Which player do I know least about after today?

Every coach has blind spots. There are players you naturally notice, players who demand attention through talent or behaviour, and players who quietly get on with it in the background.

The quiet ones are often the ones you are failing. Not because you do not care, but because the louder signals drown them out.

What to do with the answer: Make a conscious decision to observe that player closely in your next session. Note something specific about them. Over time, build a picture of every player, not just the ones who stand out.

6. What was the energy like, and did I influence it?

The energy of a session matters enormously. High energy does not always mean good. Low energy does not always mean bad. But as the coach, you set the tone.

Did your energy match what the session needed? If players were flat, did you lift the tempo? If they were too hyped up, did you bring focus? Or did you let the energy drift without adjusting?

What to do with the answer: Start noticing the connection between your own energy and the group's. In my experience, when a session feels flat, I am often the cause. My body language, my voice, my enthusiasm (or lack of it) sets the ceiling for the group.

7. Did the session match the players I actually had today, or the players I planned for?

You plan a session for your full squad. Six players do not turn up. Now your numbers are wrong, your group sizes do not work, and the competitive element is off.

Did you adapt on the spot, or did you bulldoze through the plan regardless?

The ability to adapt in real time is one of the most underrated coaching skills. Your session plan is a starting point, not a contract. The players in front of you are the reality.

What to do with the answer: If you struggled to adapt, spend five minutes before your next session thinking about "what if?" scenarios. What if I only have ten players? What if I have twenty? What if the weather is awful? Having a plan B in your back pocket reduces panic and improves delivery.

8. What did I avoid today?

This is the uncomfortable question. Every coach has things they avoid. Maybe you avoid 1v1 defending because you are not confident coaching it. Maybe you avoid difficult conversations with a particular player. Maybe you avoid challenging your strongest players because they are already ahead of the group.

Avoidance is a signal. It points to areas where you need to develop, either in your coaching knowledge or your confidence.

What to do with the answer: You do not have to fix it immediately. But name it. Write it down. Awareness is the first step. Then seek out resources, mentors, or courses that address the gap.

9. If a player's parent watched the whole session, what would they have seen?

This is a useful perspective shift. Parents see things differently from coaches. They notice whether their child was included. They notice whether you spoke to every player or just a few. They notice whether their child was standing around or active.

This is not about performing for parents. It is about checking whether the experience you think you delivered matches what an observer would actually see.

What to do with the answer: If the honest answer is "they would have seen their child standing around for half the session," that is a design problem. If they would have seen you shouting at a player, that is a behaviour problem. Use the external perspective to check your internal narrative.

10. What am I most looking forward to coaching next time?

End on this one. It is forward-looking and positive.

If you cannot think of anything you are excited about for next session, that is worth paying attention to. Burnout, staleness, and going through the motions are real risks for coaches at every level.

But if something sparks, even a small idea you want to try, that is fuel. That is what keeps coaching rewarding across years and decades.

What to do with the answer: Build your next session around whatever excites you. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Players feel it. The best sessions are often the ones where the coach is genuinely eager to see what happens.

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How to Use These Questions

You do not need to answer all ten after every session. That would turn reflection into a chore, which defeats the purpose.

Instead, try this approach:

Pick three or four that feel most relevant to today's session
Answer honestly in a few sentences each
Write them down rather than just thinking about them
Review weekly to spot patterns across sessions

The writing part matters. I have found that the act of putting words down forces clarity that mental reflection alone does not. You cannot hide behind vague feelings when you have to articulate them.

Over weeks and months, your answers create a record. You start to see patterns. Maybe you notice you mention talking too much repeatedly. Maybe you realise you always avoid the same topic. Maybe you see your energy dipping at certain times of the season.

These patterns are gold. They tell you exactly where to focus your development.

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The Difference This Makes

I have spoken to coaches who have used structured self-questioning for a full season and every one of them says the same thing: they cannot believe they coached for years without doing it.

The sessions improve. The self-awareness deepens. The relationship with players changes because you start noticing things you previously missed.

And it takes five minutes. That is it. Five minutes of honest questioning after every session.

The question is not whether you have time. It is whether you are willing to be honest with yourself.

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Start Asking Better Questions

These ten questions are a starting point. Over time, you will develop your own. You will find the questions that consistently surface the most useful insights for your coaching context.

The important thing is to ask something. To move from passive "that went okay" thinking to active, directed reflection. That shift, more than any course or qualification, is what separates coaches who plateau from coaches who keep improving.

Pick three questions. Answer them after your next session. See what happens.

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Coach Reflection gives you guided post-session prompts and tracks your answers over time, so patterns in your coaching become visible across weeks and months. Try it free at [coachreflection.com](https://coachreflection.com).

10 Questions to Ask Yourself After Every Training Session