In coaching high school soccer, it’s a fact that similar to confidence; self-control too is a choice players need to make. In soccer coaching, self-control strategies are based on the relationship between thoughts and emotions. All of us know our mental state influences our passions that accordingly enhance our performance.
I’ll share with you a 12 step strategy to help players learn the ability and discipline of self-control. Still, it is better that players take up these steps only when they feel that it is going to be of value to them.
What’s more, the players should also be prepared to take full responsibility for the actions they take. The strategy has been given below in 12 steps for your reference.
1. Awareness: Help the players figure out their weak points during the course of coaching youth soccer. Help your players evaluate the reasons how, where and when they lost control on the ground in their past.
2. Understanding: Help the players acknowledge the feeling that changed their thinking and caused them to lose their emotional steadiness.
3. Differences: Allow them to go back in time and recall situations where they did not lose control and where they did. Let them gauge the difference in their attitudes, emotions, and behavior.
4. Problem: When it comes to coaching high school soccer, try to point out the real problem. For instance: It may be the guilty feeling in a player that he let the whole team down due to his acts.
5. Belief: Teach the players to raise their expectations for their own selves with self-control as one of the qualities. Support them so they can change.
6. Reinforcement: Reinforcement has the potential to accelerate a change in behavior. Therefore, you must not forget your duty as a coach to recognize and honor the improvements of players so that they stick to these.
7. Goals: To guide the players through skill upgradation process, set a series of small goals for them. Guide the players in understanding the correlation between way of thinking, thought process, and actions.
8. Techniques: Put together different behavioral action items to uphold the confidence level. For example: When a particular situation comes up, this is the path that the players must go by.
9. Plan: In football coaching, teach the players to pursue their goals in a planned and systematic way.
10. Progress: Tell them to be patient. Let them understand the principle of gradual improvement including the ups and downs.
11. Setbacks: Teach the players on how to live with the setbacks that are unavoidable. So, the best way is learn from them and become even stronger.
12. Remembrance: Last but not the least, help the players understand that there is a reason behind their attempts to change. The players must always know that why and what are they doing. What would the change mean to them for their future?
We all now that a soccer player who can act speedily with comfort is in a perfect performance state. It means possessing energy without tension.
Make no mistake about it. You must include relaxation techniques in coaching high school soccer and train the players on how to control the thought process so that they can keep themselves stress-free.
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Andre Botelho is a recognized authority in youth soccer coaching and has already helped thousands of youth coaches to dramatically improve their coaching skills. Learn how to explode your players’ skills and make training fun by downloading your free ebook at: Soccer Practice Drills.