# Reflective Practice in Coaching: A Practical Guide

Reflective practice is one of those terms that gets thrown around in coaching qualifications, education courses, and development workshops. It sounds academic. It sounds like something you should do but probably will not. And if you have ever sat through a presentation where someone put Gibbs' Reflective Cycle on a slide and expected you to be inspired, I completely understand why the phrase might make you want to switch off.

But here is the thing. Reflective practice, stripped of the jargon, is simply the habit of thinking carefully about what you do, learning from it, and adjusting your approach. Every good coach already does this to some extent. The difference between casual reflection and reflective practice is structure, consistency, and intention.

This guide is going to explain what reflective practice actually is, why it matters specifically for coaches, and how to do it in a way that fits into a real coaching life. No academic papers. No mandatory diagrams. Just practical tools you can use starting today.

Key Takeaways

Reflective practice is structured learning from your own experience, not just thinking about what happened
The academic models (Gibbs, Kolb) are useful frameworks but you do not need to memorise them to benefit
The biggest barrier is not time but the belief that reflection is optional rather than essential
Reflective practice is the difference between ten years of experience and one year of experience repeated ten times
Starting small and being consistent matters far more than following any particular model perfectly
Reflection is not the same as overthinking, and knowing the difference is crucial

What Reflective Practice Actually Is

At its core, reflective practice is a cycle with three parts:

Experience something (run a session, coach a match, have a conversation with a player)
Think about it deliberately (what happened, why, what does it mean)
Change something as a result (adjust your approach, try something different, reinforce what worked)

That is it. Everything else is detail.

The word "practice" matters. This is not something you do once after a particularly good or bad session. It is a practice, a regular, ongoing habit that becomes part of how you operate. Like practising a skill, it gets easier and more natural over time.

What It Is Not

It is not a diary. You are not recording events for posterity. You are analysing them for learning.
It is not self-criticism. Reflection includes what you did well, not just what went wrong.
It is not overthinking. There is a clear difference between structured reflection and anxious rumination, and we will cover that later.
It is not optional. Or at least, it should not be. Coaches who reflect develop faster. This is not an opinion. It is consistently observed across sports, education, and professional development research.

The Academic Models (Simplified)

You do not need to know these to practise reflection effectively. But understanding the basic frameworks can help you structure your thinking, especially when you are starting out.

Kolb's Learning Cycle

David Kolb described learning as a four-stage cycle:

Concrete Experience - You do something (coach a session)
Reflective Observation - You think about what happened
Abstract Conceptualisation - You draw conclusions and form theories
Active Experimentation - You try something different next time

Then the cycle repeats. The key insight is that experience alone does not produce learning. You have to process it, make sense of it, and apply what you have learned. Otherwise you are just accumulating hours, not developing.

In plain terms: Do it. Think about it. Figure out what it means. Try something new. Repeat.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

Graham Gibbs expanded on this with six stages:

Description - What happened?
Feelings - What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluation - What was good and bad about the experience?
Analysis - What sense can you make of the situation?
Conclusion - What else could you have done?
Action Plan - If it happened again, what would you do?

This is more detailed than Kolb and can be useful for deeper reflection on significant events. But for day-to-day coaching, it is often more than you need.

In plain terms: What happened? How did I feel? What was good and bad? Why? What else could I have done? What will I do next time?

Which Model Should You Use?

Honestly, neither one rigidly. Use them as loose guides. The important thing is that your reflection includes three elements:

What happened (observation)
Why it happened (analysis)
What you will do about it (action)

If your reflection includes all three, you are practising reflective practice regardless of which academic model you reference.

Why Reflective Practice Matters for Coaches

Experience Without Reflection Is Not Development

There is a well-known observation in coaching education: the difference between a coach with ten years of experience and a coach with one year of experience repeated ten times. The difference is reflection.

A coach who runs sessions, thinks about them, adjusts their approach, and continuously refines their practice will develop dramatically over ten years. A coach who runs sessions on autopilot, never questioning their methods or examining their impact, will be doing the same things in year ten that they did in year one.

This is not a judgement. It is a description of how learning works. Experience is the raw material. Reflection is the process that turns it into development.

Coaching Happens Fast

One of the unique challenges of coaching is that decisions happen in real time. During a session or a match, you are constantly making choices: when to intervene, what to say, which player to focus on, when to change the activity, how to manage behaviour. These decisions happen too quickly to analyse in the moment.

Reflection after the event is your opportunity to slow down, examine those decisions, and learn from them. It is the only time you can properly process what happened and why.

You Cannot See Your Own Blind Spots (Without Help)

Every coach has patterns they are unaware of. Maybe you consistently favour one side of the training area. Maybe your feedback is always positive but never specific. Maybe you ask closed questions when open questions would be more effective. Maybe you avoid addressing certain behaviours because the confrontation feels uncomfortable.

These blind spots are invisible by definition. You cannot see them while you are coaching. But they show up in reflection, especially when you write down your thoughts and review them over time. Patterns emerge that are impossible to spot in the moment.

It Builds Confidence

This one surprises people. You might assume that examining your coaching in detail would make you less confident, as you would find more things wrong. In practice, the opposite happens.

When you reflect consistently, you build a body of evidence about your coaching. You can see what you do well. You can see how you have improved. You can point to specific moments where your decisions made a positive difference. That evidence-based confidence is far more robust than the fragile confidence that comes from never examining your practice too closely.

Common Barriers (And How to Overcome Them)

"I do not have time"

This is the most common barrier, and it is legitimate. Coaches are busy. Many coach voluntarily alongside full-time jobs and family commitments. Adding another task feels impossible.

The answer is to make reflection so quick that "I do not have time" stops being true. Two minutes after a session. Three sentences. That is reflective practice. You do not need to write an essay. You do not need to set aside an hour. You need two minutes and a structure that makes those two minutes count.

If you genuinely do not have two minutes after a session, record a voice note on your drive home. Thirty seconds of spoken reflection is better than nothing.

"I do not see the point"

The point is usually invisible for the first few weeks. Individual reflections feel unremarkable. It is only when you look back across weeks and months that the value becomes clear. Patterns emerge. Progress becomes visible. Recurring challenges get identified and addressed.

I would suggest committing to four weeks of consistent reflection before judging whether it is worthwhile. If after four weeks you genuinely see no value, adjust your approach. But most coaches who make it to four weeks never stop.

"I already think about my sessions"

Thinking about your sessions is not the same as reflecting on them. Thinking is unstructured, selective, and often biased towards whatever felt most emotionally significant. You replay the mistake. You feel good about the drill that worked. But you do not systematically examine the full picture.

Structured reflection asks specific questions that cover areas your natural thinking would skip. It also creates a record, which is essential for spotting patterns that unfold over weeks rather than single sessions.

"It feels self-indulgent"

In some coaching cultures, there is a perception that spending time on self-reflection is naval-gazing when you should be out on the pitch doing the work. I have found the opposite to be true. Reflection makes your time on the pitch more effective. Every minute spent reflecting saves multiple minutes of repeating mistakes, running ineffective sessions, or solving problems you have already solved but forgotten about.

It is not self-indulgent to maintain and sharpen your most important coaching tool, which is yourself.

"I do not know what to reflect on"

This is a format problem, not a motivation problem. If you have a blank page and no structure, of course you do not know where to start. Use a template with specific questions. When you know exactly what to answer, getting started is straightforward. The template in our [free coaching reflection template post](/blog/free-coaching-reflection-template) provides a simple five-question structure that works across any sport.

Reflection vs Overthinking: Knowing the Difference

This distinction is important because reflection and overthinking can feel similar, but they lead to very different outcomes.

Reflection

Is structured and time-limited
Focuses on specific events and decisions
Includes both positives and negatives
Leads to actionable conclusions
Ends with a clear forward plan
Leaves you feeling clearer and more confident

Overthinking

Is unstructured and open-ended
Spirals from one worry to another
Focuses disproportionately on negatives
Leads to self-doubt without resolution
Has no clear stopping point
Leaves you feeling anxious and uncertain

The practical difference is boundaries. Reflection happens in a defined space (five minutes, five questions) and ends with an action. Overthinking has no boundaries and no resolution.

If you find yourself lying awake replaying a session for the third night in a row, that is not reflection. That is rumination, and the solution is to do a structured reflection during the day that gives your brain permission to let go. Once you have written down what happened, what you learned, and what you will do differently, there is nothing left for your brain to process at two in the morning.

How to Start: A Four-Week Plan

Week 1: Build the Habit

After every session, answer one question: "What is the one thing I want to remember about today's session?"

That is it. One question. One sentence. The goal is not insight. The goal is consistency. By the end of week one, you should have reflected after every session, even if each reflection is a single line.

Week 2: Add Structure

Expand to three questions:

What worked well?
What would I change?
What am I focusing on next time?

Still keep each answer to one or two sentences. You are building the muscle of structured thinking, not writing a report.

Week 3: Add Depth

Use the full five-question template:

What was the objective, and was it achieved?
What worked well, and why?
What would I do differently?
How were the players?
What is my focus for next session?

Allow yourself a bit more time on each answer. Push for specificity. "The warm-up worked because..." rather than "the warm-up worked."

Week 4: Review and Adjust

At the end of week four, read back through all your reflections. Look for:

Recurring themes (what keeps coming up?)
Progress (what has improved since week one?)
Blind spots (what are you never mentioning?)
Patterns (do certain conditions consistently produce better or worse sessions?)

Based on what you find, adjust your approach. Maybe you need to add a question about your emotional state. Maybe you want to track specific players. Maybe the template is working perfectly and you just need to keep going.

The Long-Term Impact

Coaches who practise reflection consistently for six months or more typically report several significant changes:

Their session planning improves because each session builds on the last rather than starting from scratch. The thread between sessions becomes intentional rather than accidental.

Their self-awareness increases dramatically. They become conscious of habits, biases, and patterns that were previously invisible. This awareness alone leads to better coaching.

Their communication with players improves because they start noticing how their words and tone affect the group. Reflection makes you a better observer of your own behaviour.

Their confidence becomes more robust because it is based on evidence rather than feeling. They can point to specific improvements and explain why certain approaches work for them.

Their enjoyment of coaching increases. This one is less obvious but consistently reported. When you can see yourself improving, coaching becomes more rewarding. The sense of stagnation that leads to burnout is replaced by a sense of growth.

Making Reflective Practice Sustainable

The coaches who maintain reflective practice long-term share a few common traits:

They keep it short. Five minutes maximum.
They have a consistent trigger. Same time, same place, same routine after every session.
They review regularly. Weekly glances, monthly reviews.
They adjust the format when it stops feeling useful. The template serves them, not the other way around.
They see reflection as part of coaching, not an addition to it.

If you are looking for a tool that makes reflective practice as easy as possible, [Coach Reflection](https://coachreflection.com) is designed specifically for coaches who want to reflect consistently without building the system from scratch. It provides guided prompts, tracks your entries, and analyses patterns over time so you can focus on the thinking rather than the logistics.

But the tool matters less than the practice. Whether you use an app, a notebook, or voice notes on your phone, the important thing is that you start. Reflective practice is the simplest, most accessible development tool available to any coach. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and compounds into something genuinely transformative over time.

The only question is whether you will start this week or keep putting it off until next season.

Reflective Practice in Coaching: A Practical Guide