Soccer players, could you ever imagine CHOOSING to mess up, WANTING to mess up, SEEKING OUT every opportunity you can, TO MESS UP?!
This is EXACTLY how to get better at soccer. (I did warn you, this isn’t what you think). I know that this sounds like a wild thing to claim, but hear me out. Listen to this idea first before you take off:
What if, every time we went out to practice or learn a new skill, we took on a different attitude towards errors and completely reframed them? What if we purposefully CHOSE to operate in the mistake zone? What if we chose to practice RIGHT ON THE EDGE of our current ability so that struggle occurred and errors were made?
Well, I’ll tell you what. You’d get a lot better at soccer in a very short amount of time. How to get better at soccer is to accelerate your learning with error-focused, growth-minded action. Let’s dive in and talk about what the heck this means WHY IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM.
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Switch up how you train
This concept is from Daniel Coyle’s ‘The Talent Code’ where he studies HOW people practice effectively and grow their skill quickly. Essentially how they ‘get’ talented. This is a good way of describing what he discovers when observing people that are improving fast:
“They are purposely operating at the edges of their ability, so they will screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better.”
Training on the edge of your ability basically means practicing new, hard skills and technique that are challenging for you. Stuff that you can kinda do, but not all the time and not with consistency. It means not just practicing the things you already know how to do, but instead taking something on that is difficult or new for you.
But it’s not just training right at the edge that makes the magic happen, it’s got a second very important part. A part where you DON’T IGNORE errors but instead stop and address them as they come up. This is ERROR-FOCUSED training – but not in a self-critical way, in a growth minded way.
How to do this, how to get better at soccer, is to purposely put yourself into situations that you haven’t mastered so that you’ll make errors. When an error occurs, you have a plan. You immediately STOP, reflect on the error, break the skill down into small pieces and figure out where the mistake occurred. Then you go back and repeat that piece of the skill until you’ve puzzled it out and fixed the error. And then you move forward.
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A growth-minded attitude and curiosity
Is it really possible to have this attitude towards training and to reframe mistakes and errors in this way? As the way forward? As the necessary component to accelerated learning? Yes, it is. It just requires extreme growth-mindedness, an attitude of accountability and a deep curiosity and interest in the process and in the small pieces of the game.
Because truthfully, the only way you are ever going to get better at soccer is to make mistakes, learn from them, correct them and try again. That happens to everyone, whether you like it or not. This error-focused, on-the-edge, style of training is basically taking things into your own hands and accelerating the process. FORCING the errors by pushing yourself to the edge of your abilities, and then breaking things down and focusing in on exactly what went wrong and figuring out how you can fix it.
According to Coyle in ‘The Talent Code‘, the BEST thing about practicing soccer this way is that you can cover WEEKS of work in JUST HOURS. This is because you are going straight to the source of learning (the errors) and bypassing all that wasted time that you usually spend trying to avoid them.
Training this way, looking at errors non-judgmentally and instead as a guiding light, is how you get better at soccer. It’s how you get WAY better at soccer and WAY quicker than everyone else who’s NOT practicing this way.
How to use this method of training
Here is a step by step guide for how to get better at soccer using this error-focused method of training. Whether you are trying to learn to control the ball from the air, proper shooting technique, how to finish a cross or trying to bring a new 1v1 move into your game, this is a method that WORKS. You can do this with or without video as well, the video just helps you objectively see what is going on better.
- Set up your phone or device to record your training session.
- After each rep or set of reps, immediately look at your video and figure out where where there is space to tighten things up, to improve the execution.
- Break things down into steps and identify at which step your technique went wrong.
- Think about how to fix it, use your soccer knowledge to sort out what happened.
- Once you know what you need to do, go back and work on that piece until you start having success.
- Keep repeating that process (practice + video, review/reflect, try again) until you have mastered the part that was giving you trouble.
- Move forward to whatever is next and keep repeating the process.
soccer Is 90% Mental
So what are you doing to train that part of your game?
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How to get better at soccer: do hard things
If you can appreciate this concept and truly learn to embrace and love the struggle, then you are without a doubt going to expand your game and improve your performance. Progression and learning happens when you do hard things, when you challenge yourself to THINK and solve problems, when you STRUGGLE.
Another idea from ‘The Talent Code‘ is that effortless performance may SEEM desirable, but it’s really a terrible place to learn. Example: winning every single game in your league and annihilating the other team with ease may SEEM like where you want to be, but if you actually want to learn and grow, that is the LAST place you want to be. This is the complete opposite of loving the struggle. And the opposite of growth and progression.
Some people may say yes, this ‘error-focused method’ is great for practice and training, but not in the game environment. Games are only for winning. I disagree. Unless you are playing professionally and getting paid to do this as your job, you are a developmental player. And developmental players are ALWAYS PRACTICING and games are the perfect place to operate at the edge of your ability and mess up in the name of growth.
Yes, winning isn’t everything in youth soccer. When you are 18 trying to get recruited for college soccer, nobody is going to care how many times your U14 team dominated, all they care about is what type of player you are RIGHT NOW and what you can do on the field RIGHT NOW. And if you’ve had it easy your whole soccer career because you’ve never pushed yourself, because you’ve never operated at that EDGE, you’re going to get a rude awakening when you get passed up for someone who has.
Thinking errors are 'bad' is a limiting belief
Limiting beliefs are things that hold us back. They are things that we believe deep down; things that restrict our ability to maximize our potential and reach the top of our game. Believing that errors and mistakes are the worst thing that can happen on the soccer field is a limiting belief.
Real world example. At tryouts or college showcase events, what are coaches and scouts looking for? Players that don’t mess up? NO. They are looking for players that push themselves and push the boundaries of their game.
They are looking for players that when the mistakes DO (inevitably) happen (which they definitely will if you are pushing yourself to your edge) – they recover, hustle, play with urgency and put everything they have into figuring out what needs to happen next and then they DO IT. They are looking for players that know how to max out their hustle and reach peak performance, and that goes hand in hand with making errors sometimes and having to problem solve your way out. It’s not about ELIMINATING ERRORS, its about CONQUERING them when they happen
Players that are focused on not messing up and play games with the sole intention of not making mistakes are absolutely 100% HOLDING THEMSELVES BACK from maximizing their potential and playing their best soccer. They are impeding their own growth by running from anything & anything that isn’t perfection. They are letting a limiting belief LIMIT THEM.
When players EMBRACE error-focused development and cultivate this type of mentality, they will soon find that they have struck gold. Because this way of thinking and operating at the edge of your ability is how to get better at soccer, grow your talent and LEVEL UP.
If you want to BE GREAT, if you want super-sized talent, you can create it for yourself through growth-minded, error-focused practice that pushes the boundaries of your soccer abilities.
THAT is how to get better at soccer. It’s how what you thought it was right?
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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I have never been so much talented, but always wanted to improve, like Ronaldo. It is mentality that can up your game by a lot.
If you keep working on weak points, and stick to training plan, you will get better, no doubt. You can improve almost every aspect nowadays, tons of training materials.
It is very simple to be honest, just find your plan and stick to it. When it gets easy, move on to next one.