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Mental Skills Toolkit:

Want to Know How to Gain Confidence in Soccer? Try This, it Works.

Published: December 11, 2021
Updated: February 23, 2023
By: Jenn Ireland

Category: Confidence, Growth-Mindset, On the Soccer Field, Perfectionism, Performing under Pressure, Resilience

For many players, figuring out how to gain confidence in soccer can seem like a never-ending, unsuccessful quest. It’s not uncommon for a player’s lack of self-confidence to persist and negatively impact their game for months, or even years. IF YOU ARE THIS PLAYER, you know exactly how hard it can be to want to play with more confidence & belief in yourself, but have NO IDEA HOW to do that, or frankly, where to even start.

Why does it seem to take so long to get out of a low-confidence, self-doubt rut? It’s because growing your confidence is NOT EASY! No matter how many times a parent, coach or teammate says to you “you’re so great! you should be more confident!” it is not something that just happens. Confidence isn’t something you can snap your fingers and conjure up.

So, how do we do this then, how do we gain confidence on the soccer field? How to gain confidence in soccer is not just HOPING that our confidence will show up one day, it’s TAKING ACTION and working on the mental skills that will actually get you there. And that is exactly what we are here to talk about today.

Why do soccer players lack confidence?

Having confidence means having a positive view of yourself as a soccer player and a strong belief in your ability to perform, while also simultaneously being able to objectively see both your strengths and weaknesses. Figuring out how to gain confidence in soccer can be difficult as there is no one, guaranteed thing that works for everyone. Self-doubt shows up differently and wrecks havoc differently for each and every person, so how to gain confidence in soccer starts with understanding where you are at.

When it comes to growing confidence in soccer, there’s the usual suggestions: you can do this! or believe in yourself! both of which are decent pieces of encouragement, yes. But when you are living deep inside the low-confidence mindset this advice isn’t helpful or inspiring. In fact, it can be frustrating and annoying to hear because growing your confidence JUST ISN’T THAT SIMPLE.

Why do I doubt myself so much?

When you have good self-confidence on the soccer field, you trust in your ability to play well. You believe in yourself and know that you have what it takes to execute, even in high pressure situations.

Many things can contribute to low or inconsistent confidence. Some examples include returning to play after long injuries, dealing with toxic or unhealthy perfectionism in sports, fear of failure, pressure, nerves, a winning-is-the-only-thing-that-matters mentality, etc.

The amount of things that can impact a soccer player’s confidence levels are endless, but here we are going to focus on the one, BIGGEST thing that consistently negatively impacts soccer player’s confidence. And that is expectations. Specifically the unrealistic expectations that you have of yourself. You know, the ones that are so impossibly high that there’s no way you could ever meet them on a consistent basis? Ya, those ones.

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Expectations and how they relate to confidence

At Soccer Resilience’s 2021 Mental Fitness Summit (check out the 2022 speaker lineup here!) I listened to Mental Performance Coach & former NCAA head soccer coach Tim Bennett of Your Next Level Consulting, talking about the relationship between expectations & confidence. He had a lot of fantastic, insightful things to say that have really stuck with me in the area of building confidence – here’s how he defined expectations as they relate to soccer:

"Expectations are judgements and demands that you place on your performance pertaining to outcomes or results".

Tim Bennett, former NCAA women's soccer coach

Some examples of common demands that players place on themselves at soccer games are that they need to score a goal, win the game, not mess up, or not do anything dumb to let the team down. Etc. Another example illustrating this same concept, but not tied to a single game, is that many high school soccer players looking to get recruited think that it needs to be Division 1 or bust. Meaning that they feel they need to make the top division of college sports or else they have failed. This is a demand that they are playing on themselves pertaining to outcome. And these types of demands WRECK CONFIDENCE.

Having impossibly high standards & unrealistic expectations is often the source of lack of confidence. Why? Because when your expectations are crazy high, you are pretty much guaranteed to fall short of them at multiple points in time. And when you don’t live up to your (crazy high) expectations of yourself, you feel inadequate, you feel like a failure and you DON’T BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. Aka, no confidence.

The heavier the expectations, the more you feel pressure to perform. The expectations can be so big sometimes, that the pressure and anxiety just keeps building and compounding, and taking you further and further away from the confident soccer player that you want to be. This is when burnout happens. This is when players quit soccer.

Not being able to live up to your own standards of perfection on the soccer field also can cause detrimental thinking and negative self-talk, which further lowers confidence. Players are often their own worst enemy on the soccer field, they self-sabotage their performance by letting negative, detrimental thoughts run rogue in their head.

Here are some examples of self-defeating mentalities that can get in your way and hurt your game. Which of these do you experience?

Pursue self-improvement, NOT perfection

One of the main reasons soccer players lack the ability to play confidently, is that they have been conditioned to thing that success is only tied to outcomes. And then when they don’t achieve the specific outcome that they were demanding of themselves, they feed bad about themselves because they fell short of their expectation. This impacts confidence IMMENSELY.

How to gain confidence in soccer is to SHIFT YOUR EXPECTATIONS to focus onto something that you can fully control. How to gain confidence in soccer is to choose to attach your confidence to the process of self-improvement and create new expectations for yourself that have to do with learning and growing instead of the result or outcome.

"Expectations need to be the pursuit of improvement, not the demand for perfection."

Tim Bennett, former NCAA women's soccer coach

You do NOT have to score a goal every match in order to be successful that game. There’s a million other things you can do on the pitch (tasks you can execute, runs you can make, opportunities you can create, details you can focus on, THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL) that would be immensely impactful to the game and helpful to your teammates.

These things absolutely MAKE A DIFFERENCE on the field and positively impact the game. Focusing on these things that you can control, instead of on the outcome that you CAN’T, not only helps you improve as a player, but it is how to gain confidence in soccer.

Focusing on the process of improvement is how you do good things for yourself and your development. And when you do good things for yourself and your development, you FEEL GOOD. And when you feel good about yourself and your game, you have more confidence.

Extra practice doesn't always guarantee confidence

As a youth soccer coach, I talk with my players A LOT about how preparedness breeds confidence. Basically meaning that being PHYSICALLY prepared (technically, tactically, fitness, etc) is how to gain confidence in soccer. This holds true because a player will always have more faith in their ability to execute after they’ve already done it hundreds of times before. You already know you can do it – you’ve seen it and experienced it.

When your expectations of yourself are impossibly high though, this doesn’t work. Even if you do put in the extra time to individually train and fine tune your skills, if you set unrealistic expectations of yourself on game day, you will still fall short of your demands of yourself. And that is because your expectations (to score, to win, to not make mistakes) include elements that you cannot control.

No matter how much extra training you do, you cannot control the referees, the opponents, your teammates, your coach, etc. Things that all impact your ability to meet the expectations of scoring, winning, not making mistakes. They impact it because they can get in the way, they can make decisions that change things for you, THEY ARE THEIR OWN PERSON and you cannot dictate how they behave.

You could take the best shot of your life and the goalkeeper might just also be having the best game of THEIR life and make the save. Does that mean your shot wasn’t good? Absolutely not. It just means you didn’t score. You can be disappointed that it didn’t go in, but letting your self-worth be impacted by something that is outside of your control is dangerous territory.

Mistakes are part of the flow; adjust and keep going

All the preparing in the world won’t do you any good if your expectation of yourself is to ‘make zero mistakes’. It’s simply not possible to play a soccer game perfectly. Even the professionals and the super stars make mistakes in EVERY match, even in games where they are playing REALLY REALLY well.

Confident players are players that still make mistakes. The reason it doesn’t impact their confidence as much is because they don’t have the expectations of themselves to play perfectly and not make errors. They DO have the expectation of themselves to work their hardest and push themselves to the edges of their ability. By nature, playing this way WILL RESULT IN MISTAKES. These players understand though, that it is part of the flow of the game, and when errors do happen, they simply adjust and keep going. Whether they passed the ball a little too short, didn’t connect with their teammate on that cross, or misread their tackle, they get up and keep going.

How to gain confidence in soccer is to shift your expectations away from perfection and away from winning every match. AWAY from the outcome and ONTO the process. Away from the things you CAN’T control and onto the things you CAN.

Grow your confidence through preparedness.

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3 steps for how to gain confidence in soccer

Confidence issues are so deeply engrained in our psyche that we need to approach them with an actual, tangible plan, we can’t just wish them away. Like we said at the beginning, intention PLUS action. In this case action means reflecting on, analyzing and consciously making changes to the way we are currently doing things.

To work towards gaining more confidence in soccer, try this easy 3-step plan to begin reworking how you approach and think about games.

STEP 1: Reframe your expectations

If you are looking for how to gain confidence in soccer, the first thing you want to do is start reworking what you expect and demand of yourself on game day. You want to reflect on your old expectations, and then start to set new expectations that are growth-minded and focus on self-improvement, NOT tied to outcomes or results.

This self-reflection work requires an extreme amount of self-awareness, honesty and self-compassion. Yes, it’s going to be hard, but YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS. Here’s an example of how we can use self-reflection and reframing to help us work towards gaining more confidence in soccer:

Old-expectation – Today I need to score a goal we we need to win. I am only going to be able to feel good today if I do these things and do not make mistakes.

New expectation – Today I expect myself to give 100% effort and play with intensity and urgency, especially on transition. No matter the outcome of the game, I can achieve these things because they are within my control.

STEP 2: Set manageable game day objectives

After reframing your expectations, the next step is to set game day objectives. Controllable ones.

Controllable objectives are in-play goals 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, no matter what everyone else is doing. They are conscious choices that you can always make and whether or not they happen is up to you. They are focused on the PROCESS of self-improvement, not on the outcome of the game or on eliminating mistakes

Your objectives should be specific things that are challenging, but achievable, no matter the scoreline. Start by asking yourself what ACTIONS could you perform this game that would leave you feeling good about your performance afterwards?

Example of controllable game objectives:

make runs off the ball, create space for teammates to play into
pressure the ball immediately to take away opponent’s time and space
on every throw-in, use that brief pause to scan and gather information
take my first look forward and take space on a dribble if I have it
try a 1v1 move at least 1x each half

Grow your confidence by
Redefining winning on game day

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STEP 3: Use instructional self-talk

When you have confidence in yourself, when you believe in yourself, you play better. Simple as that. If you want to know how to gain confidence in soccer, the answer is to set yourself up for success by giving yourself achievable and manageable objectives and then using instructional self-talk to keep you focused on making them happen.

Controllable game objectives are the bridge between overarching expectations and tangible real action on the field. Once we have set our goals for the game, it’s time to turn them into pieces of instructional self-talk that we can use on the field, in the moment.

What is instructional self-talk? It is essentially giving yourself directions, on repeat, about what to do or what to look for on the soccer field. Instructional self-talk can also be used to refocus your attention on the game in front of you if you get swept up in self-defeating thoughts after a mistake or a missed opportunity.

Instructional self-talk is non-judgmental thoughts that you tell yourself. Instructional self-talk doesn’t have a positive or a negative implication, it’s simply a set of instructions to help trigger you to take action and DO your controllable objectives.

Instructional self-talk focuses on what you SHOULD be doing, not what you SHOULD-NOT be doing. Telling yourself what not to do on the field actually makes it way more likely to happen. This is EXACTLY why you telling yourself what TO do works! Your body follows the most dominant thought in your mind, so help it out by giving it a helpful thought to think. Aka instructional self-talk.

Additional benefits of instructional self-talk, beyond being the path to how to gain confidence in soccer, include:

giving your brain something to focus on that is good, useful and constructive
helps keep the self-defeating thoughts at bay during run of play
helps keeps you in the present moment and focused on the game

A confidence exercise: Self-talk in action

Here is an easy confidence exercise for you to try at your next soccer game: take a line of instructional self-talk from the list below and put it on repeat in your head throughout the game.

Say it over and over, especially as you find yourself getting distracted by emotions, feelings of pressure or anxiety, or missed opportunities and mistakes. Use instructional self-talk like a mantra, something to center you and bring you back to the present moment.

Use some of these lines, all of them, add to them, change them. Anything you want! You can repeat these as statements like they are written (ex: break lines) or you can ask them to yourself as questions (Where can I break lines right now?) Regardless, make sure you choose and plan your instructional self-talk BEFORE the game. And only choose 1, too many and you’ll overwhelm yourself and won’t get any of the benefits.

Goalkeepers (#1) –

Defending: stay on my toes, keep my hands up

Attacking: play away from pressure, find space to play the ball

Center backs (#4 and #5) –

Defending: defend goal side, run opponents wide

Attacking: keep it simple, make strong passes

Wing backs/outside backs (#2 and #3) –

Defending: mark tight, watch for runners

Attacking: overlap, get forward

Defensive center midfielders (#6) –

Defending: get behind the ball, delay forward progression

Attacking: take space, break lines

Attacking center midfielders (#10) –

Defending: win the ball back immediately, eliminate time and space

Attacking: provide good angles, demand the ball

Strikers (#9) –

Defending: press high, prevent long balls out

Attacking: get in behind, throw defenders off

Wingers (#7 and #11) –

Defending: recover, slow down the attack

Attacking: interchange with teammates, attack rebounds

Using instructional self-talk in this way is how to gain confidence in soccer.

Which MENTAL SKILL is Your Strongest?!

Accountability?
Resilience?
Confidence?
Situational Awareness?
Self-regulation?

How to gain confidence in soccer

To become a self-confident soccer player, you want to:

Reflect + reframe: become aware of what unrealistic expectations you have of yourself and work to set new ones based on controllable pieces of the process
Set game day goals: set controllable objectives that are achievable no matter the outcome, then go out and DO THEM (because remember, you are fully in charge of whether they happen or not)
Use self-talk to help execute: use instructional messages to yourself to help you succeed in those objectives and stay focused on the task at hand

Many, many soccer players have struggled with confidence issues in soccer at some point in their life. Most players have the INTENTION to grow their confidence, but never take ACTION and get invested in finding ways to change things. If you are looking to finally move past your confidence issues and expand your game, the key is to start taking things into your own hands. And we are here to help you do that.

Growing confidence in soccer is something that takes time and requires a lot of patience to pursue. Start by taking these actionable steps now. They will start to add up before you know it. You are already showing a great amount of investment in yourself and your development by seeking out solutions and reading this post. You are standing up for yourself and starting to believe in yourself. You are already on your way to becoming more confident in soccer.

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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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.