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Mental Skills Toolkit:

Feeling Soccer Burnout Approaching? Read This Book NOW

  • Updated: February 23, 2023
I do book reviews a little differently around here: I take books that aren’t necessarily written with soccer in mind and relate the information to the game and explain how it can help soccer players.

The latest non-soccer book that I read was Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by sisters Emily & Amelia Nagoski – and let me tell you, it’s a game changer. It is hands down one of the best books I have ever read on the topic of burnout, mental health and dealing with pressure and self-worth tied to results, all topics which are extremely relatable for female soccer players. And the best part is that is written for women specifically: the authors just UNDERSTAND what it’s like to struggle with female specific issues in 2022. 

Burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. Feeling soccer burnout approaching? You need to read this now
Soccer players – reading this book will give you a better sense of how to monitor your mental health and manage anxiety before it turns into full on soccer burnout. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle focuses on stress and societal expectations felt by females in todays’ world. It takes a deep dive into the common factors that cause stress and anxiety among women of all ages, how to deal with the stress and anxiety when it comes up, and how to change the factors and life situations that are causing the stress in the first place so that you don’t reach burnout.
This is a science-filled book (with a 25-page reference section, yes) but to be completely honest, the authors do a fantastic job of bringing everything down to normal-people-speak and bringing in humor and good storytelling moments that make the book very readable. This book talks about a lot of advanced topics so I would recommend it for high school ages on up, and also for all parents who have a daughter playing soccer, as it’ll give you a 10,000 foot view of the pressures (internal, societal, etc.) that females face growing up with today and help you better understand what your player might be feeling and experiencing on a daily basis. 

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Burnout is a great tool for you if you are feeling overwhelmed or wondering whether you should carry on or quit soccer, as it contains some guided self-exploration that can help you gain clarity on the situation and better understand WHY this is happening. If you are experiencing soccer burnout and thinking about quitting soccer, pick up a copy of this book. If you aren’t experiencing soccer burnout, STILL PICK UP A COPY OF THIS BOOK. Be proactive.

Here are my key takeaways from Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle as they relate to being a female soccer player in the world today:

How soccer burnout happens

When burnout starts to take hold and your mental health is feeling quite low, you feel emotional & physical exhaustion, you start to care less and you have a “decreased sense of accomplishment, feeling that nothing you do makes any difference”. These three components combine to form the definition of burnout as described by Hebert Freudenberger in 1975 when he coined burnout as an official term during his studies on stress and anxiety. 
Soccer player sits looking at the field with her cleats and shinguards in a pile next to her
For a soccer player, the feeling of soccer burnout is directly related to the relationship between your goals, your effort and the amount of progression you are achieving. In this book, Emily & Amelia do a fantastic job of explaining the goals/effort/progress relationship using a concept they call the ‘Monitor’. Here’s how it works:
  • Your ‘Monitor’ is “the brain mechanism that decides whether to keep keep trying… or to give up.”
  • “The Monitor knows (1) what your goal is; (2) how much effort you’re investing in that goal; and (3) how much progress you’re making. It keeps a running tally of your effort-to-progress ration, and it has a strong opinion about what that ratio should be.”
  • It can get frustrated when it KNOWS the goal is attainable and there’s a lot of effort , but not a lot of progress
So to sum it up, soccer burnout happens when your ‘Monitor’, feeling frustration from extended amounts of high effort + slow progress, decides that your goals are no longer attainable and switches over and tells you they are now UNATTAINABLE and that you should give up. 

Ways to get ahead of burnout

In order to keep pushing yourself, keep pursuing your goals and stay motivated all while NOT experiencing soccer burnout, you need to challenge yourself regularly and work toward smaller, incremental goals instead of just looking at the BIG ones down the road. This is definitely easier said than done, but it is THE WAY if you want to make it through with your mental health and your love for the game still intact and flourishing. 
Smiling girl in a backpack holding a soccer ball

Challenge yourself regularly if you want to see consistent progress

In Burnout, Emily & Amelia talk about something they refer to as positive reappraisal. Positive reappraisal means that you recognize that the frustration that your ‘Monitor’ is feeling (from high effort & slow progress) IS WORTH the frustration. It means changing how you are looking at the situation and “deciding that the effort, the discomfort, the frustration, the unanticipated obstacles, and even the repeated failure have value – not just because they are steps toward a worthwhile goal, but because you reframe difficulties as opportunities for growth and learning.”
As a soccer player, you can see EXACTLY how this relates to you and your pursuit of your goals. You have to DECIDE that all the hard work is worth it and be able to push yourself through the difficult moments.

Difficulties are opportunities “when something feels uncomfortable, you’re probably doing something that creates more and better progress than if it were easy.” Positive reappraisal (aka reframing the situation) “reduces frustration by keeping you motivated and moving forward.” Reducing frustration reduces chance of soccer burnout.

"There is a distinct downside to effort that is too effortless: When a task feels easy, we feel more confident about our ability to perform that task even though we are actually more likely to fail."

Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Think of it like this: you are more likely to do poorly at things when your training is easy. This applies to all parts of your soccer game: technical, tactical, physical & mental. 
A young goalkeeper holds her hands together while she listens to her coach

Incremental goals is how you push through to harder, bigger goals

Bigger goals, by nature, are going to take longer to reach, which at times is going to frustrate your ‘Monitor’. So, how do you solve this so that you aren’t constantly approaching soccer burnout when working toward your goals over the years? You redefine winning and focus on smaller, closer, attainable goals. Controllable objectives that can happen NOW. In other words, “you need to change your Monitor’s expectancies about how difficult it will be or how long it will take” to reach the top. 

"If you're trying to do something where you will inevitably fail and be rejected repeatedly before you achieve your goal" - like, if you're trying to get to the top of your sport for example - "then you will need a nonstandard relationship with winning, focusing on incremental goals."

Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Expectancies are the PLAN, so when things get interrupted or go off course, being able to redefine winning and focus on incremental, process goals will lesson your stress and help you feel OK and overcome obstacles. With bigger, more difficult goals, it’s normal if you’re struggling. Recognize this and then commit to redefining winning to help you push through and keep grinding. 
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Finding meaning and knowing your 'why'

One of the best things you can do to to prevent soccer burnout and keep having patience to pursue your goals is to create purpose for yourself. Strong purpose breeds motivation and defining your ‘why’ gives everything you are doing meaning. Why are you playing soccer? Why are you out here on the training field every day? This type of self-exploration helps keeps things in perspective and helps carry us through the difficult moments. 

{Related read: Why I coach soccer; identifying my PURPOSE on the soccer field}

"Meaning, in short, is the nourishing experience of feeling like we're connected to something larger than ourselves. It helps us thrive when things are going well, and it helps us cope when things go wrong in our lives."

Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Self-criticism & toxic perfectionism

Self-criticism and toxic perfectionism are two things to look out for if you are trying to avoid soccer burnout and stay mentally healthy as you pursue your goals. These are topics that Emily & Amelia go into in quite some depth in this book, another reason you should read it. 
Self criticism is the gap between YOU and EXPECTED YOU; the gap is “your fault and a sign of your essential failure in life. The result is guilt and shame.” It’s judging your core being and has massive impact on your self-worth and how you feel about yourself. Self-criticism is, least we can say, a HUGE obstacle for some players and a major contributor of soccer burnout. Here’s a vlog I did about my personal experiences with soccer and self-worth. 

Perfectionism & how it contributes to soccer burnout

There’s a lot that can be written about perfectionism, but what I enjoyed most in Burnout, is the authors’s approach to separating the helpful bits from the unhelpful ones:

Generally benign perfectionism is “preferring tidiness and organization over messiness; being detail-oriented and checking your work for mistakes; having high standards for yourself and others. Any of these factors can become toxic and, at their extreme, are even associated with obsessive-compulsive-disorder. That happens when perfectionism functions as a maladaptive strategy to cope with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, repressed rage, and helpless despair”
If you cope well with your feelings and have good self-regulation skills, benign perfectionism can actually be beneficial to athletes as they can steer it in a positive direction where it can help instead of hinder and get in the way. Fine-tuning technical skills through countless hours of individual ball work is an example. This is a place where your perfectionism can benefit you as long as you can keep a healthy perspective and not get swept away by the detrimental bits.
Generally toxic perfectionism is “believing that if things aren’t perfect, they aren’t any good – e.g., if you make one mistake, everything is ruined – and feeling pressure from other people to succeed at everything you do. These domains of perfectionism are associated with depression, anxiety, disordered eating, negative relationships, and feelings of helplessness in the world.”

"The fundamental problem of perfectionism is that it does terrible things to your monitor. You have the goal of "perfection" which is an impossible goal, as you start the project or the meal or the outfit of the day, and then as soon as something falls short of "perfect", the whole thing is ruined. And sometimes if your goal is "perfect," some part of you already knows that it's an impossible goal, so you think about your project or meal or outfit, knowing you're never going to achieve your goal, and so you feel hopeless before you've even begun."

Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Is your perfectionism holding you back on the soccer field? Unhealthy perfectionism vs healthy striving mentality

The remedy is self-compassion

Self-compassion is the remedy for the criticism and unhealthy perfectionism. It also builds up your resiliency skills. “It reduces depression, anxiety and disordered eating. It improves overall life satisfaction. When you are gentle with yourself, you grow mighty.” Beating yourself up does not get you toward your goals, it just doesn’t. 
Girl drinking a water bottle at soccer practice

Soccer burnout isn't always bad, sometimes moving on is what you need to do

“We have been taught that letting go of a goal is the same as failing. If we ‘fail’ to achieve a goal, it’s because there’s something wrong with us. We didn’t fight hard enough. We didn’t ‘believe.'” THIS IS A LIE THAT SOCIETY IS FEEDING YOU – because there’s actually great courage, strength and openness in knowing when its time to move on from something. 

"We get exhausted and we wonder if we can accomplish any of the things we hope for, without destroying ourselves in the process. We ask ourselves if it's time to quit."

Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
If soccer no longer serves you in the way it once did, if it’s destroying your mental health, if it’s not fun anymore and a huge source of stress, sometimes quitting might be the right thing to do. Even if you’ve put in a ton of effort, energy and YEARS OF TIME into reaching your goals, if they have shifted, trust your intuition and make the change. Do what’s right for you. 
Black teenage girl with a hoodie on her head leaning on a fence

Your teammates and friends, and maybe even your family, will probably not understand and question your decision, but you don’t owe them anything. It may feel like you do, but you don’t. If changing course and pivoting away from soccer is what you need to do to protect your mental health, do it. Love yourself enough to take charge and stand up for yourself. 

While the purpose of this post is to help players avoid soccer burnout “if you’re feeling not just frustrated and challenged, but helpless, isolated, and trapped” it might be time to quit or at least take a break to reset and refresh. 

Joy and self-worth: the ultimate way to keep soccer burnout at bay

A great gauge to keep tabs on your mental health and get ahead of burnout is self-reflecting on an ongoing basis and keeping tabs on your general overall mindset. Are you enthusiastic about your time on the field? Do you feel authentic passion and drive to play and improve? Are you enjoying your relentless pursuit of your goals? Are you driven and motivated, even when pushing past obstacles and dealing with setbacks?

{Download our FREE self-reflection worksheet bundle! Own your growth NOW}

A confident, smiling teenage soccer player holds a soccer ball in her hands
If you consistently feel good, excited, motivated, driven and come at everything with a striving mentality and a genuine curiosity to learn and grow, you’re in a good headspace and have a healthy soccer mindset. But if joy is hard to find, if you feel like your self-worth is completely wrapped up in what you do on the soccer field and how you perform, then soccer burnout may be a very real thing for you.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed out and burnt out with your soccer training and pursuit of your goals, this book is going to be a lifesaver because the it GETS YOU. It understands the pressures, it understands the expectations and it understands the social conditioning that comes with being a female in today’s world. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily & Amelia Nagoski is a gem of a book, not just for soccer players, but for anyone and everyone looking to get out from underneath the never-ending weight of expectations and stressors.
In closing, from Emily & Amelia: “Trust your body. Be kind to yourself. You are enough, just as you are right now. Your joy matters. Please tell everyone you know.”
Portrait of Jenn Ireland, Mental Skills Coach at Expand Your Game

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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Picture of Hi everyone!

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.

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