The mental aspect of the game is hugely crucial that often overlooked, especially when moving a new team. You could have the best tricks and skills, fast and strong physicality but it won’t show unless you have a strong mindset. Football is a team game. It requires you to play in a team and in front of a crowd sometimes, where there could be agents, scouts, or coach watching. Having said that, it is important to have a strong mentality which could have a positive impact on your confidence and eventually your performance of the field. This week I had a chance to train/have a trial with one of the higher level team in my region. So, I thought it might beneficial for you guys if I could share my mentality and mindset approaching this situation.
Preparation = Your Training
What I mean by this is you have to prepare yourself even though you might not have any upcoming trials or opportunity. But this literally helps me to gain confidence knowing that I already prepared and ready for any opportunity arises. It is like the saying:
By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.
Benjamin Franklin
This is very true and I’m experiencing this myself. It is more a long-term mindset that you have to install in your head. It won’t help you the most if you train a day or two days before the trial you won’t get that instant boost of dribbling like Messi or the touch of Zidane. Trust me you might be surprised with the outcome you got if you put the work in beforehand.
Self Talk
Although I already prepare myself with my training, sometimes I still got nervous and think about it too much. It is normal human nature when you put more value to something then it should be. How I tackle this problem is I constantly talk to myself saying that
- This is just a normal football that I’ve played since I was a kid and it doesn’t change
- I’m just as good as them if not better because I come prepared
- I’ve been in this situation before
It might seem crazy, but these thoughts actually help me to boost my confidence and believe in myself. Of course, you are still going to make mistakes, it is a normal thing that happens in a game. Even pros make mistakes as well, but the difference is how they react to it. They don’t dwell on their mistakes, instead they keep focusing on the next moves.
Going Out of Your Comfort Zone
I would think this would be the most useful when it comes to taking your confidence to the next level. As a player myself, sometimes I get too comfortable with situations I’m in and it becomes one of my regret of not doing it when I was a kid. I tend to stay in one team for pretty a long time then move to another one, which is not very good at developing a growth mindset. But that’s another story, so essentially you want to constantly push yourself make yourself uncomfortable because it will build your character and mindset that will be useful not only in football but in life in general. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, which eventually train your brain not to put too much value on something beyond their actual value.
Examples could be moving to another team with players that are better than you, moving to another country, go out and talk to the coach about an opportunity, etc. Sometimes it is not going to be smooth like the way we wanted, sometimes you have to deal with rejections and failures and it is very hard to accept. That’s the beauty of it, you learn to overcome them and it is going to be worth it in the long run.
I hope it gives you something valuable from this blog. If so, I would really appreciate it if you share this with one of your teammates so that he can overcome their mental doubt. But other then that, I wish you are healthy and safe in this uncertain time. Make sure you keep ballin’!
