RE-SIGNED North Warrnambool Eagles coach Adam Dowie says it's a caper where "you're always learning".
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Dowie's tenure will extend into a fifth season after the six-time Hampden league premiership-winning coach recommitted for the 2023 season.
Assistant coach Nathan Vardy - one of the competition's most dominant players - has also re-signed with the Bushfield-based club.
Dowie, 54, said there were a number of factors for his decision, such as his family's love for the club, his connection with the playing group and providing stability.
The Warrnambool College teacher and father-of-four said as "as you get older you put things in perspective a bit".
"When I was younger it would really consume you and I feel like now I have a better balance in terms of dealing with everything," he told The Standard.
"I don't like winning but I hate losing and the fear of losing was the thing that kept you going and in those years I thought I could do more than any other coach and be better prepared.
"I think now, as I get towards the end, it might not necessarily be true but I feel like I have a better balance.
"I know Noah has said 'dad, you have to relax a bit' and I feel like I am doing that better."
Dowie arrived at North Warrnambool in 2019 and took the club to within a whisker of its first senior premiership.
COVID-19 wiped out his second season and his third was cut short. "I am going into my fifth year but because of the COVID thing, it doesn't feel like that long," he said.
"We are in a pretty important transitional phase. We have your Matt Wines, Ben Mugavins, Tom Battens and even your Billie Smedts who are all nearing the end.
"And you've got a Dylan Parish and I think Vards is 30 now, so we're going to lose those players at some stage in the next couple of years and you have the going away to uni-factor too.
"For the club, they are pretty happy to have stability with my reappointment."
Dowie's re-signing follows Jarrod Holt (Portland), Hamish Waldron (Hamilton Kangaroos) and Dan Casey (Cobden) in recent weeks.
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