Mistakes and chokes are bound to happen and can bring youth athletes down.
Jen Croneberger, a Mental Game Coach for the Women’s Professional Softball Team, has spent the last 10 years working with athletes, instilling confidence and building strength, both mentally and physically.
This is part 3 of our series of interviews with Coach Jen, in this video she shares with us Tips On How To Recover From Mistake Or Choke From Sports.
One of the first questions I ask, when a player replays the mistake or choke and it continues to be a pattern, is I ask them why. “Why do you think you focus on these things? What is it?” My job, as I see it, is to continue to peel those layers to get to that center reason.
Ninety percent of the time what I find when they get to that center of why am I doing this, it is because of expectation.They are not performing at the level they thought they should.
The problem then becomes, again as soon as I start replaying this doubt over and over, I get what I focus on — right? So I am going to continue to see the same results.
Instead what I like to do is help them rewrite that story.
We all have stories we tell ourselves. “I am not good at this. I am too slow. I am too this. I will never be able to do that. I can’t X, Y, Z.” The problem with that is as we have these self-limiting beliefs, we start to believe them.
We own them and they become who we are. Instead of being able to look at those things and say, “Wait a second! It doesn’t have to be that way. Because right now in this very second, I can rewrite the story and I can start right now.”
I can all of a sudden start to focus on all of the reasons that I have to be successful.
What I like to do is have athletes make a list of those reasons. That is one really good tangible way a coach has to be able to do to give their athletes the ability to be proactive with building confidence. Sit down and have them make a list.
Have them write down ten things. Ten reasons they have to be successful. “What are your strengths as an athlete?” Then a great way of bringing that all together as a team is to have your teammates fill out the rest of them.
I have seen teams walk away feeling so good after that exercise because all of a sudden they realize their teammate feels this way about them.
“Wow! That’s pretty neat!” That gives them the ability then to see some of the good in themselves that maybe they weren’t sure really existed.
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Jen Croneberger has been involved in sports since a very young age. She was the CEO/Founder of Excellence Training Camps, Inc. and is president of JLynne Consulting. She has held numerous coaching positions and was the Mental Game Coach for the (NPF) Women’s Professional Softball Team, a well as other the top travel softball teams in the eastern US.
Most of her last 10 years have been spent working with athletes, instilling confidence and building strength, both mentally and physically. To know more about Jen you can visit her website by clicking here.