Meeting Your Goals: Concentration & Self-Evaluation

If you have a desire to play the best you can, you have to train your mind as well as your body. With patience, a little hard work and consistent practice, you can develop the mind of a champion. Mental strength takes practice.

First on Concentration from Playing Out of Your Mind:

Concentration is one of the key mental skills responsible for athletic excellence. A mentally tough player is someone who knows HOW to concentrate and can do it under pressure. "Head cases" are those players who can not control their focus of concentration when it counts... Show me a player who chokes or frequently gets psyched out and I will show you someone whose focus DIRECTLY causes her problems.

Concentration is a TWO PART SKILL:

#1 - YOU MUST CATCH YOURSELF WHEN YOU ARE MENTALLY LOSING YOUR FOCUS OR DRIFTING OFF.

#2 - YOU MUST QUICKLY AND GENTLY BRING YOURSELF BACK TO THE RIGHT FOCUS.

CONCENTRATION IS A PARADOXICAL SKILL. You learn to concentrate by catching yourself when you are NOT concentrating and then bringing yourself back.

CONCENTRATION is a Passive, let-it-happen skill. You concentrate with "effortless effort". When you are concentrating well, you are NOT thinking about it, you are just doing it.

To that I would add the HERE & NOW Rule: You want to do what you are doing mentally while you are doing it physically. Not looking BACK at a mistake you made, or an incident that happened with your best friend the night before. And not looking into the future thinking and worrying about what will happen, "what if we let another goal in". Play the game. Be in the NOW! Do what your doing - nothing else and enjoy doing it.

This mentality starts when you show up to trainings or to a game.

Self-Evaluation & Coaching:

To give yourself a clearer picture of who you are as a player and what you want to get out of the game (Comp Soccer Player, High School Starter, earning a college scholarship, National Team Member) you need to ask yourself some questions.

1. What am I doing to improve my game?
2. What do I need to work on?
3. How can I get better?
4. Am I doing everything to help me become a better player/teammate?
5. Do I give everything, every time I train?
6. Is my attitude right?
7. Do I eat the foods that will help me perform at my peak?
8. Am I mentally tough enough?
9. Am I brave enough to really look at my weaknesses and willing to work on them?