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How to Be More Confident in Soccer: STOP Hyper-focusing on the Win

Published: January 30, 2022
Updated: February 20, 2023
By: Jenn Ireland

Category: Confidence, Performing under Pressure

Soccer players, many of you may not want to hear this, but here’s the unfortunate truth: results based expectations are DESTROYING your confidence on the soccer field.

What is a results based expectation? It is a judgement or a demand that you place on yourself, on your performance, that is focused on achieving a certain outcome or result. In other words, it is pressure to perform and to produce the ‘correct’ result in order to feel good about yourself and your play.

Going into a soccer game with the expectation that you WILL NOT make mistakes is a demand for perfection. Telling yourself that you HAVE to score today, that your team NEEDS to win, that you MUST stop the opponent from scoring – these are all demands and expectations, big ones.

What happens next is that you judge yourself based on your ability to meet these impossibly high standards and achieve the results that you demanded from yourself. When you DO meet the expectations and things go the way you want them to, you feel fantastic/happy/elated/etc. But when they don’t, you feel terrible about yourself and your inner critic has a field day. You become dependent on meeting your (results based) expectation in order to feel good.

The most unfortunate part about these demands you are placing on yourself is that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is something that is not fully within your control. Meaning that even if you do everything well at your game today, there’s still no guarantee that you will achieve any of these results. In fact, a lot of the time you won’t get close.

How heavy expectations lead to a lack of confidence on the soccer field

How exactly does focusing on outcome based expectations hurt your confidence in soccer? Well, when you have outcome based expectations (aka unrealistically high expectations), you are pretty much guaranteed to fall short some of the time. And if the only way you have confidence in yourself is by always meeting your expectations, well, you can see where this is going.

It’s really hard to be confident in soccer when the things that gives you confidence (aka having ‘success’) are not within your control. And outcomes & results such as winning, scoring, keeping a clean sheet are NEVER fully within your control. Why? Because there are other people involved (refs, opponents, coaches, teammates) and you can only control your actions and not theirs.

Redefining your expectations

If having faith in your ability to perform is how to be more confident in soccer, but your expectations are impossible to meet (because they contain elements of things that are out of your control), then the solution is simple: how to be more confident in soccer is that YOU NEED REDEFINE YOUR EXPECTATIONS – and what it means to have success.

To increase your confidence in soccer, you want to move away from results based expectations (scoring, winning, playing perfect, keeping a clean sheet) as measures of success and instead focusing on controllable objectives – small, specific actions you can take that are present moment focused, says Mental Performance Coach and former NCAA coach Tim Bennett. Objectives that are part of the PROCESS of the game, and not solely just the outcome of the game.

How to be more confident in soccer is to reframe your expectations, make them less heavy, make them MORE focused on the pursuit of improvement, not a demand for perfection.

When your expectation of yourself is that you score a goal every game, that’s a HEAVY expectation to live up to. A confidence-destroying expectation because you are guaranteed to fall short some of the time, probably more often than not. And if other people (coaches, parents, teammates) have this expectation of you as well, then the pressure is doubly heavy. And when you fall short, you feel doubly as terrible.

Control the controllable

Outcome based expectations come from all sorts of places. They come from yourself, your parents, your coaches and they can even seem to come from the world at large (societal expectations). Here’s the important thing to note though, while you can’t control the expectations that others have of you, you CAN control the expectations you choose to place on yourself.

You CAN control your own expectations, you CAN control your own demands, you CAN control your judgements of yourself. And you CAN use controllable objectives to redefine what success means.

If you want to become a better, more confident soccer player, you are going to have to make these changes. Because shifting from results based expectations to controllable objectives when it comes to measuring your success is HOW to be more confident in soccer.

What are controllable objectives?

Controllable objectives are things that you can use to gauge your success at a game. They are manageable, SPECIFIC actions that you have the power to do in a game, yourself, no matter what everyone else is doing. They are conscious choices that you can always make, and whether or not they happen is completely up to you.

Controllable objectives can be tailored specifically toward your position or whatever parts of your game that you are looking to improve at. Remember, they must be something that you can control all by yourself, actions that you can take in every game, regardless of the scoreline.

Here are some examples:

pressuring quickly when defending, stepping to the ball immediately when you are closest
moving off the ball, looking around and making runs into space to support the ball carrier
talking and communicating with your teammates about what is happening around them
playing with intensity and putting in 100% effort to get to the ball before the opponent does
choosing your placement on the net before making contact with the ball when shooting
staying on your toes and being ready to move
scanning the field constantly and knowing where your teammates are
running forward of the ball, overlapping, underlapping
playing 1-touch passes when under pressure
sprinting to get on the end of passes that may have missed their mark a bit
reading the other team’s body positioning and stepping to anticipate and try to intercept passes
immediately recovering behind the ball upon a loss of possession

The best way to score is to forget about scoring

If a soccer player is overly focused on scoring a goal (basically if it’s the only thing on their mind), then their headspace is fully occupied by that mission, by that pressure to score. In their minds, they are thinking about the future, about that goal they are NEEDING to score. Because of this they aren’t fully present and can’t play their best.

Dr. Tiffany Jones, of X-Factor Performance, says that you can’t play your best because you need your mind’s FULL ATTENTION in order to access your training and play to your full potential. When you are feeling performance pressure you are often anxious and this causes a revert to bad habits. And on top of that, when you are not present, you can actually end up making MORE mistakes, further taking you away from achieving that results based expectation (scoring a goal).

When you are focused on things you NEED to do, HAVE to do, MUST do, or SHOULD have done – you are focused on outcome based expectations. Focusing on these things leads to negative self-talk and an array of self-defeating thoughts (overthinking, worrying, replaying mistakes and missed opportunities, etc.) that, again, further take you away from the present moment.

"I'm fond of telling players that the best way to score is to forget about scoring. Focusing too much on the end result - or focusing on anything that takes you out of the fullness of the present moment - is misplaced focus".

George Mumford, The Mindful Athlete

How to set new expectations

Next time you head into a soccer game, take some time beforehand to ask yourself what you expect from yourself this game. If you immediately go straight to ‘scoring’, ‘winning’ or making ‘no mistakes’, then you know you really need to work on this. Because if you truly want to grow and learn how to be more confident in soccer, you are going to have to learn to set new expectations – aka controllable, manageable objectives and actions.

Remember, setting & striving to meet controllable objectives increases your confidence on the soccer field because they are things that you CAN achieve no matter what the final score of the game is. You are setting yourself up for success because your self-confidence INCREASES when you know you can do something and you have faith in your ability to perform a certain task. So choose things you know you can do, and then go out there and do them.

Setting controllable objectives that ARE POSSIBLE to meet, regardless of the game outcome, leads to immediate changes in a players confidence because they are ACHIEVING what they set out to do in each game at a much higher rate than when they were solely focused on results.

Setting yourself up for success on game day

I’ve recently been reading the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by sister’s Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and its packed full of good information about how to redefine winning. I’ve borrowed their framework to create this game-day worksheet for soccer players. This worksheet is designed to help you refocus your expectations and definition of success BEFORE heading out to the field so that you can progress, improve and feel successful even if you don’t win the game.

Grow your confidence by
Redefining winning on game day

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Parents - here's where you come into the picture

Parents, you have a LOT of power here to help your player grow their confidence. What you choose to talk about before and after soccer games with your child has HUGE impact on how they view themselves and their performance. What your player thinks that you EXPECT of them makes a huge difference as well. (Notice I didn’t say what you expect of them, but what they THINK you expect of them – sometimes their interpretation is different than yours, so ask).

Even though you might think it to be motivating and encouraging, by placing so much emphasis on scoring goals and winning, you are hurting their growth and their confidence when these are the only things that you verbally encourage and reward.

When soccer players hyper-focus on these results based expectations, they DON’T focus on the present and the steps & smaller pieces of progression that they actually do need to do to get themselves closer to scoring or winning. So high expectations and pressure to perform actually contribute to keeping them further away from achieving these goals and feeling good about themselves.

How to help your soccer player gain confidence in soccer

Empower your player to own this process: the process of shifting towards controllable objectives as measures of success. Download the worksheet for them and go through it together. Make a commitment to them, a promise even, that you are going to do your very best to not hyper-focus on winning, not hyper-focus on scoring – and instead focus on their list of things that mean a successful day for themselves on the field.

After they’ve chosen their controllable objectives – the things they want to focus on in games – what you can do, is very diligently watch for these things in the game and then specifically POINT THEM OUT after the match. “Hey, I noticed at the end of the second half you had a fantastic overlapping run” or “I loved how you were really focused and engaged that entire game, the way you immediately got back and recovered every time your team lost possession was amazing”.

Try to center ALL of your pre and post game conversations around your players chosen goals/objectives. And really focus on looking for these things and building up your player when you see them happen. Not only will they appreciate that you were actively watching and invested in the game, they’ll also relax a bit (and probably start playing better) when they know you aren’t only concerned with them putting the ball in the back of the net.

"How did you play?" not "Did you win?"

If you aren’t able to make a game, try this – instead of asking your player “did you win?” ask them “how did you play?”. The results of the game will usually always come out when you’re talking, but start the conversation focused on the process, on the self-improvement, on the CONTROLLABLE objectives. Make it the first priority, the more important thing. Do this for awhile and your child will start to shift their mindset towards this as well.

Soccer players can come to fear competition and fear the outcome of the game when they believe that their worth is wrapped up in their ability to produce ‘the right’ result.

As a soccer parent, if you want to help your player cultivate more self-confidence, this is how you do it: change what winning looks like in your household. Redefine winning to be the pursuit of improvement and growth, and not just as a W on the scoreboard.

Redefining winning (is how to be more confident in soccer)

Now, everyone loves winning games, tournaments, state cups and national showcases. I know that and I get it – I prefer winning myself. But there is definitely a time and a place when winning REALLY matters and a time when it doesn’t.

The time when it matters is when you are playing professionally. When you are getting paid to win as a part of your JOB. At that point, the game is no longer development focused, it’s 100% outcome based. And that’s okay because everyone wants to do their job well, and in a professional soccer player’s world, doing their job well means WINNING games.

But ‘winning’ in the youth game isn’t the same. You are NOT playing soccer as your job right now, you are playing it for many other reasons: among them development. American culture’s hyper-focus on winning needs to do a better job of understanding the difference between the goal of youth sports and the goal of professional sports.

This gets confusing when we see quotes like “winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” from Vince Lombardi, or “the person that said winning isn’t everything, never won anything” from soccer great Mia Hamm. The thing is here, both of these are talking about the professional, elite game. NOT the youth game. Because the youth game is where you need to lose, you need to struggle, and you need to have obstacles to overcome if you want to GET to that professional level. Struggle is a prerequisite for achieving greatness.

In the youth game, if you focus on winning, you’ll lose in the long run. The focus needs to be on self-improvement NOW so that you can win LATER.

If you are focused on playing collegiately or going pro, you want to be the BEST player when you are 18, not the player who won the most games! When you’re 18, nobody is going to care that you lost that tournament final in 9th grade – they are only going to care about WHAT TYPE OF A PLAYER YOU ARE RIGHT NOW. If you only focus on winning during your youth soccer career, you are doing yourself a major disservice.

So, STOP hyper-focusing on winning is how to be more confident in soccer. Setting manageable and controllable game day objectives is how to be more confident in soccer. Pursuing improvement and growth and not demanding perfection from yourself is how to be more confident in soccer.

Caring enough about yourself enough to really internalize this and start making some hard changes is how to be more confident in soccer. You’ve got this.

Hi everyone! I’m Jenn and I create content to help female soccer players and coaches maximize individual and team potential by developing healthy mindset skills. Join other subscribers and sign up for the newsletter for all my best tips and advice!

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Shannon Standfield

1 year ago

Great article! I love the idea of controllable objectives. As a parent, “I love watching you play” is always my first go to. I think providing feedback on my daughter’s objectives would be beneficial to her in a positive way to help her boost her confidence in her skill set. Thanks!!

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Jenn Ireland

1 year ago

Reply to Shannon Standfield

Thanks Shannon! You are spot on, parents providing direct feedback on controllable aspects of the game, controllable objectives, is a HUGE confidence booster for players. When they come off that field and the first thing you say to them is “I saw you do __________ and I know you’ve been working on that and it was awesome to see you try it!” their entire perspective changes and they begin to see value in those small pieces of the game. Small pieces which actually are HUGE pieces because it’s THOSE pieces of the process that help players level up their game.

As a parent, the experience is 100% different and more enjoyable when you instead focus on watching for, and praising, the controllable things that your player is doing during games (effort, communication, leadership, picking their head, up positively impacting plays, urgency to recover, etc.). You also get to watch your player gain confidence right in front of your eyes when you tell them how much you enjoyed watching them do THESE THINGS. When players think that goals and winning are the only things that matter, and the things that others (coaches, teammates, parents, etc.) are expecting them to do, then when they don’t meet those expectations they walk away feeling inadequate and like a failure. And that’s whey then stop enjoying the game.

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Hi everyone!

I'm Jenn, a USSF C-licensed youth soccer coach, mental skills coach & founder here at Expand Your Game. I created this site because it is the site I needed when I was a soccer player.

About me: I am a former newspaper photojournalist who loves downtempo electronic music, guacamole and books of every sort. And of course soccer! On days off you can find me researching tiny farms in Portugal , tossing a frisbee for my dog, or tending to my growing collection of indoor plants.