Mental Toughness and Resiliency
Tough times will hit at some time during your soccer career. If you are not mentally prepared to meet these challenges head on, your confidence will be at risk.
Many soccer players are not mentally prepared to deal with negative events that might strike throughout their career. These challenges are bigger than just a mistake on the field or a bad game.
There are challenges that have the potential to hurt your confidence, leave you feeling hopeless and cause you to question your role in sports.
A few profound challenges may include:
Serious injury – A ruptured tendon, concussion, torn ligament or other serious injury can feel insurmountable. Worries about the length of recovery or potential re-injury can consume a player, hurt their confidence and become a significant obstacle to overcome.
Reduced playing time – Being removed from the starting lineup for a prolonged period of time is a common challenge that faces many players.
This type of challenge can have such an adverse affect on a player’s confidence that they mentally “give up” and cease working hard to develop their skills, conditioning and work ethic.
With this type of reduced physical and mental effort, it is almost impossible to regain playing time, further reducing confidence.
Not being selected – Not being selected for a team can be one of the hardest challenges for a player to face. Many players take this as an indictment of their ability as a player.
The thought process is, “If I am not good enough to make this team, then I must not be a good player at all.”
This mentality can crush a player’s confidence without even taking into consideration the coach’s reason for not making the team such as, the style of play the coach has chosen, the number of players battling for that position or even the potential bias of the coach.
Lack of production – Not repeating personal statistics from the past can be perceived by some players as evidence of declining skills or a lack of potential.
This type of false evidence can be a significant blow to a player’s confidence even though the reason may be a role change or a new system implemented by the coach.
If you are not mentally prepared, these challenges can both destroy your confidence and prevent you from reaching your potential as a soccer player.
Mentally prepared for significant challenges is what helped USWNT right back Ali Krieger keep her confidence high and helped her to make the 2019 World Cup team for the US.
Krieger helped the US win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, starting every game and playing all but 10 minutes of the tournament. Surprisingly, Krieger was left off the USWNT from August 2017 through March 2019 after appearing in 98 games for the National team.
During that two-year layoff from the USWNT, it would have been easy for Krieger to doubt her abilities or question if she was too old to compete on the international stage.
Instead, Krieger stayed positive, worked hard and was rewarded by being selected as a member of the 2019 US World Cup squad at the age of 34.
Krieger was confident throughout her challenging two years hiatus from the USWNT.
KRIEGER: “I know how good I am, and I know my value, and I don’t think anyone’s going to tell me what my value is, because I already know that. I think I just needed to keep that in mind, keep training to my ability because no matter what, I’m always going to be who I am both on and off the field.”
“And that’s always taking the high road and busting my [butt] every single day. I had a very good season in the NWSL and felt very confident. I hired coaches in the off-season… and I really went every single day – and not many people saw, except the closest ones to me – and got up every single day and trained my [butt] off. Just wanted to stay ready.”
For Krieger, it wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ she was going to play on the USWNT but ‘when’ she was going to play for the National team again. That self-confidence helped Krieger push every day in practice, training and during games and it paid huge dividends in the end.
With high confidence, you reap rewards and will be mentally prepared to work through whatever challenges you face in your soccer career.
Maintaining Confidence during Tough Times:
Know your strengths – Having confidence is a matter of knowing your positive strengths, abilities and what you can become through hard work.
Use a notebook dedicated towards listing personal strengths, abilities and past successes.
Avoid living in the past and dwelling on past failures. Focus on what you have to do to improve for the future.
Be mindful of the subtle ways you might question you ability or doubt your skills and be ready to challenge your own doubts. No one knows you are doubting but yourself!
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