Analogies are very useful in coaching at a number of levels. (And if you want to really get into why, pick up The Language of Coaching)
One I have used recently is “building sandcastles”, to help some of the young cricketers I coach get to grips with how they approach training. Many of them have learned training is about error identification compared to the perfect model. This can lead to a mindset where anything less than perfection is seen as failure.
If I see this frustration, I’ll ask them to imagine being a kid playing sandcastles in a sandpit.
When you played in the sandpit you didn’t care about errors. You just made something and played around with how it looked. If it wasn’t working out you didn’t get frustrated with the lack of perfection, you just started again.
This is a reframing analogy. Thinking of training as playing in the sandpit and building castles means you stop worrying about comparing yourself to a model of perfection. Instead you enjoy the process of exploring.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather coach people who were having as much fun as they do at the beach.