Let’s face it that like confidence, self-control in coaching high school soccer is an option that players can choose. In soccer coaching, the connection between emotions and thoughts establishes the self-control strategies. We are all aware that our feelings influence our emotions and this consequently boosts our performance.
I’ll share with you a 12 step strategy to help players learn the ability and discipline of self-control. Nevertheless, it’s imperative that players agree to these steps after that are sure that it holds a lot of importance for them.
Besides this, they must also assume total responsibility for their actions. These are the 12 steps for your information.
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: Let the players find out and admit the reason that influenced their thoughts and resulted in them losing their emotional poise.
3. Differences: Give them time to recollect situations when they did lose control and when they did not. Let them gauge the difference in their attitudes, emotions, and behavior.
4. Problem: In coaching high school soccer, try to find out the exact 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. Persuade them that they can change.
6. Reinforcement: Behavior change is accelerated by reinforcement. 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 improve the skills of the players, you must start with several small goals. Help the players understand the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions.
8. Techniques: To maintain the confidence level, employ a set of behavioral practices. For example: Players must know which path to follow in a certain situation.
9. Plan: In football coaching, train the players to systematically and considerably follow their goals.
10. Progress: Help them being patient. Let them know that improvement always comes in a series of ups and downs.
11. Setbacks: Let the players understand that setbacks are there to stay. Thus, utilize these to learn new things for improvement.
12. Remembrance: Last but not the least, help the players understand that there is a reason behind their attempts to change. They must understand the importance of what they are doing. What would the change mean to them for their future?
We all agree that a perfect performance state for a soccer player is that of a relaxed promptness. This simply means use of full energy without stress.
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.