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Mental Skills Toolkit:

The #1 Reason to Strengthen your Mental Game RIGHT NOW

Published: November 12, 2022
Updated: February 22, 2023
By: Jenn Ireland

Category: Confidence, Growth-Mindset, Mental Fitness, Mental Wellness

When you set out to strengthen your mental game, what are you working towards? Increased confidence on the soccer field? Playing with focus and composure? Being able to handle high pressure moments? Yes, yes and yes! Mental skills training helps with all of these things, as well as with resiliency skills, execution on the field, and general overall wellbeing and mental health.

But all of these are positive side effects of the ULTIMATE GOAL of mental skills training. The ultimate goal, and the number one reason to strengthen your mental game, is to LEARN TO COACH YOURSELF. Developing a strong inner coach is the one thing that ties all this together.

Training your mental game will not fix everything and will not solve every problem, but it WILL give you the skills that you need to coach yourself through all of the pressure, adversity, and challenging moments you are sure to encounter as you continue your soccer journey. Developing a strong inner coach is the #1 reason to train your mental game. It is the pinnacle of mental skills training and is what gives you an edge on your competition.

When you are able to get inside your head, shut off the self-doubt and self-criticism, and fill your brain with what it NEEDS in the moment to get through whatever situation you are in – THIS is coaching yourself. And when you do this you are literally unstoppable. There is nothing you can’t overcome when you have this stable, inner support system and are able to provide yourself the good, useful and constructive guidance to navigate whatever shows up or presents itself to you.

Why is having a strong inner coach SO important?

Coaches, mentors, parents and teammates, they can all provide you support, but as helpful and as caring as they might be, will never be out there on the field with you. They will never be inside your head with you (which is a good thing, we promise). While it IS really important to identify what people you can lean on in hard moments, it is just as important, perhaps more, to be able LEAN ON YOURSELF in ALL moments.

A strong inner coach is necessary for elite performance

To be an elite performer, you need to be able to regulate your actions and your focus, in any situation, no matter what is going on around you. Circumstances can change quickly on the soccer field – you go up a goal, down a goal, you gain control and momentum, you get disorganized and start to breakdown, etc.

To execute an elite level performance, you need to be able to stay in your optimal mental performance zone as these changes occur so that you can play your best soccer and help your team do what needs to be done in the moment. This means having the ability to self-regulate and use emotional control to stay composed and focused, no matter what.

And the way to do this is by COACHING YOURSELF through the moment and providing yourself the support and the guidance that YOU need right now. For example: when a soccer player becomes stressed out and starts overthinking the situation or replaying mistakes in their mind, they become their own worst enemy in the moment. They impede their own focus and concentration, they get in their OWN WAY.

Players, when this happens, it knocks you OUT of your optimal performance zone. It puts you into an elevated state where things start to unravel and you are unable to stay fully focused on what is right in front of you. This is EXACTLY why it is so important for soccer players to strengthen their mental game and develop a strong inner coach – so that they can get themselves through these challenging moments and execute to the best of their ability, even when the pressure of the moment is threatening to derail their performance.

Grow your confidence through preparedness.

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Inner critic or inner coach? The choice is yours

Let’s play a game real quick – pretend that the inner critic and the inner coach are your REAL coach for a moment. If your soccer coach yells at you and tells you how terrible you are, that is probably going to negatively impact your game right? On the other hand, if they offer words of encouragement and helpful advice about what to focus on, you’ll probably play better.

THIS IS THE SAME THING THAT IS GOING ON INSIDE YOUR HEAD. And something you have control over! Players that choose the inner coach over the inner critic have a HUGE advantage on their competition because they aren’t self-defeating or getting in their own way, they are in fact using that same energy to HELP themselves play their best soccer in every given moment.

Here is what is happening when the inner critic is in charge:

negative self-defeating thoughts happen ALL THE TIME
your focus and concentration is SHOT on the field
you consistently feel bad about yourself after games
you do not believe in yourself and are filled with self-doubt

Letting go of your inner critic

I am a big fan of Dan Harris, news anchor turned meditation connoisseur, and I was listening to his recent TED talk the other week and he had this brilliant thing to say:

“Research shows that this process of replacing your sadistic inner tyrant with a supportive inner coach that has high standards, but is not a jerk about it, makes it more likely that you will reach your goal”

Dan Harris, 10% Happier

MAKING THIS SWITCH and leveling up with a strong inner coach makes you way more likely to meet your goals than being drug down into the depths of self-doubt and self-criticism. Some players think though, that without their inner critic, they might not be motivated to improve. They feel like internally beating themselves up is what drives them and pushes them forward. This might be working on some level, sure. Berating yourself may push you to improve and get better, but it will also leave you in a permanent state of feeling crappy.

Letting your inner critic run amuck will leave you in a state of never feeling worthy, never feeling confident, and never feeling like you are enough. I don’t know about you all, but I don’t really want to be successful if it comes at that cost. Especially when I know that there is a way to have BOTH the motivation to improve, PLUS happiness and wellbeing (aka when you strengthen your mental game and find your inner coach).

Dan emphasized in his TED talk that choosing to swap out your inner critic for an inner coach doesn’t make it you soft. It doesn’t mean you are going easy on yourself by letting go of the critic. It just means that the energy you expend is now going to be more productive and less impeding.

So how do you make this switch? Well, for Dan Harris it was meditation that did it. For us, it’s MENTAL FITNESS as a whole and working to strengthen our mental game (which can totally include meditation for soccer players, for sure).

Quiz: is your perfectionism holding you back?

Is perfectionism negatively impacting your soccer game
OR is it helping you stay focused to fine-tune your skills?

How to ditch your inner critic and strengthen your mental game

How do you develop an inner coach? How do you become your own BEST inner coach and stop being your own worst enemy?

The first step, as with with any sort of mental skills training, is self-awareness. In regards to ditching your inner critic, soccer players need to become fully aware of the inner critic’s presence and the havoc that it wreaks. That self-defeating voice or thoughts in their head. For some players this manifests directly as negative self-talk, for others its simply more of a FEELING of self-doubt and lack of confidence and worthiness.

Separating yourself from your inner critic

If you want to be able to develop a strong inner coach and strengthen your mental game, you have to become consciously aware of what is going on inside your head. Start to objectively observe and notice what is happening, when it’s happening and what triggers it.

It might take some time, but after you are able to NOTICE when it is present, try to start looking at it as something that is separate from you. Your inner critic is NOT YOU. It is a separate thing that, in its own messed up way, is actually trying to help you! It’s a scientific fact that the brain has a negative bias and leans negative more than positive, this is WHY your inner critic pops up. Of course you are not actively choosing to beat yourself up – it’s just your brain doing brain things and it is a shared experience that happens to ALL OF US.

When you start to be able to look at your inner critic this way, it automatically looses some of its power over you. It’s not as big and as scary when you can separate yourself from it and start to see it as a separate entity, something that is not a part of you.

When you’ve gained good awareness of your inner critic and started to separate yourself, you also begin to realize that you can do something about changing it. Your inner critic is not a fixed thing. It is a part of your soccer journey, an obstacle, a roadblock that you are going to have to overcome, true – but you CAN overcome it.

Using Self-talk and other mental skills tools

After you’ve gained awareness and can objectively see your inner critic and what it is doing to you, starting to be intentional with your self-talk is the BEST way begin learning how to coach yourself. Self-talk is a mental skill, and mental skills are SKILLS – meaning they CAN BE LEARNED. Self-talk can be a pretty big topic, so we recommend you checking out this in-depth guide to positive self-talk for soccer players that addresses the 4 best types of self-talk to start playing the best soccer of your life.

Beyond self-talk, there are many other ways to expand your game in this area in regards to developing your strong inner coach. You can start to learn on your own by reading and educating yourself on mental skills topics, and then diving into some of the tools that will help get you there:

Additional ways to individually strengthen your mental game:

Self-reflection and reframing activities
Mindfulness meditation to get present moment focused
Focusing on process goals and on controllable pieces of the game
Breath work and visualization exercise

1-on-1 mental skills training

Individually training is great, but the BEST, most impactful way to strengthen your mental game and grow your inner coach is through 1-on-1 mental skills training. There is literally no replacement for the value of 1:1 mental skills coaching when it comes to making the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. That is because 1:1 coaching provides a safe, supportive environment where players are given the expert guidance, tools and care they need to empower themselves to reframe their thinking and transform their soccer mentality.

soccer Is 90% Mental

So what are you doing to train that part of your game?

Introducing the Mindset Mastery Academy

A 10-week 1:1 mental skills mentorship experience for female soccer players

You don't always have to be your own worst enemy

Think of your inner coach as a much kinder, more resilient, more supportive, helpful, positive version of your inner critic. Basically the exact opposite, but still inside of you, sharing your headspace. The main difference is that one version focuses on HELPING you while the other is dead set on DEFEATING you.

When you choose an inner coach over an inner critic, you get to make the rules. You hold yourself accountable. You set high, yet achievable, standards for yourself. You take responsibility for your own development. When you choose an inner coach over an inner critic, you get to get invested in creating the best, most supportive, most motivating coach that you can think of – and then you get to BE THAT COACH.

Mental skills training will not fix everything and solve all of your problems. But it will give you the skills you need to be your own best coach so that you can guide yourself through all the future hard moments yet to come. Learning to have a strong inner coach is what will HELP YOU be able to HELP YOURSELF in these difficult moments grow your confidence, resilience and self-regulation skills all by yourself.

Choose your own adventure

This is a ‘choose your own adventure’ scenario, truly. You can choose to stay with the self-doubt and negative, self-defeating thoughts OR you can choose to stand up for yourself and make a change. Change IS POSSIBLE through mental skills training and development. Through reflecting on, and reframing, limiting beliefs. Through exposing yourself to this world of mental fitness, a world where you can LEARN to think differently, change how you view things and strengthen your mental game.

The biggest takeaway here: you don’t always have to be your own worst enemy on the soccer field. YOU CAN CHOOSE to change things and grow your inner coach, by getting invested in your development as a soccer player and deciding that the time is NOW, no more of this. You can CHOOSE to be your own most motivating, dedicated, determined, resilient, kind, supportive, helpful and constructive self. You can CHOOSE to be your own best coach RIGHT NOW through the action of working to strengthen your mental game.

So, inner coach or inner critic? You pick.

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!

We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime.

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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.