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. We are all aware that our feelings influence our emotions and this consequently boosts our performance.
You can aid your players in learning the skill and discipline of self-control with the 12 step strategy that I’m going to share with you. 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. The 12 step strategy is explained in the following paragraphs.
1. Awareness: In coaching youth soccer, lend a helping hand to players in identifying their weak points. Help your players evaluate the reasons how, where and when they lost control on the ground in their past.
2. Understanding: Make the players realize why their thinking changed and how it caused them to lose their emotional balance.
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: When it comes to coaching high school soccer, try to point out the real problem. For example: Is it the guilt of letting the whole team down because of their performance?
5. Belief: The players should manage to raise their expectations from them including self-control as one of the behaviors. Give confidence to players to change themselves.
6. Reinforcement: Reinforcement has the potential to accelerate a change in behavior. Being a coach, you need to appreciate the good changes in the players to ensure that these remain forever.
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: Put together different behavioral action items to uphold the confidence level. For example: If a certain situation happens, this is the course that players must follow.
9. Plan: In football coaching, teach the players to pursue their goals in a planned and systematic way.
10. Progress: Teach them how to be patent. Let them know that improvement always comes in a series of ups and downs.
11. Setbacks: Help the players in accepting the setbacks, as these will continue to happen. Thus, utilize these to learn new things for improvement.
12. Remembrance: Finally another important point is making the players understand the importance of the reason for they are trying to change. The players must always know that why and what are they doing. What will their future be like, if they don’t change.
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.
You must not make any 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.
