February 4, 2025: When youth players are the most dominant player on their recreational team or lower level club team, and it’s time for them to make the move to a more challenging level of play, here’s something you NEED to help them get ahead of:
THE CONFIDENCE DROP 🚨
The confidence drop (explained below) tends to happen to a lot of young players that are very physical and athletic and score a lot of goals. Players that continually play major roles in carrying their teams. The confidence drop happens once they decide to focus more on development and move into higher levels of play.
But in this new space, on this new higher level team, dynamics suddenly shift (pressure, expectations, comparison, etc.) and 99% of players aren’t mentally ready for what comes their way next…😩😔
What comes next is that all of a sudden they are no longer the standout. They are no longer ‘the best.’ Often not only are they no longer the best, sometimes they are actually BEHIND in certain areas because other kids started in academy or club years prior.
THIS IS ALL COMPLETELY OK (and in fact, remind yourself, the exact reason that you made the switch), but nonetheless it can still be very difficult for a young player to process.
You see, their confidence from before (being the biggest, fastest, strongest, most goal-scoring-est, etc.) is what I sometimes refer to as ‘fake confidence.’ Meaning, it was all coming to them from external validation of their natural talent. People were continually praising them for their raw athletic skills, which naturally builds up confidence
But then suddenly, at the higher level, this isn’t happening anymore.
And that can be VERY confusing and disorienting to a young player who is used to the validation of being told they are the best. This can create all sorts of changes in their relationship with the game. Often this is where the self-defeating mentalities really start to take root, a lack of motivation can creep in, and even a diminished love of the game can start to present.
This does not apply to every single player of course, but is a pattern that I see happening to a LOT of players, based off of hundreds of conversations with the parents of competitive and elite youth soccer players from around the country.
The reason I’m talking about this is because even though this moment is kind of inevitable in many cases, it does NOT have to be a bad thing. How? Well if players can get AHEAD of this, if they can understand that this is a wave they are going to have to ride when they make this jump, it actually makes it WAY easier for them to navigate the adversity when they aren’t blindsided by it.
There’s a great silver lining in all of this, too. These hard moments where we are feeling out of sorts, these are in fact golden opportunities to build REAL confidence. Confidence that isn’t dependent on other people or on approval from others. Confidence that is true, deep belief in yourself and your abilities. Confidence that is attached to you doing the controllable things that move you forward toward being the player you want to be.
Confidence that YOU are in charge of.
And this is the confidence that you truly want. The foundational confidence that you will carry with you throughout your life and use to coach yourself through adversity, both on and off the soccer field.
How you help your player do this is by normalizing the conversation around this difficult topic and helping them understand what is happening, and what they can do about it. Focused, objective conversations about the challenge is how players navigate this transition smoothly, get themselves through the hard patch, and then learn to embrace the challenge and even LOVE it because they know it is making them even better than they were before.
Even if they aren't the best on their team anymore, every second spent in this more challenging environment is helping them expand.
That understanding, along with knowing that these obstacles are normal when they choose to push into uncomfortable spaces and level up, is called grit and will actually help them more in the long run than talent.
So in a sense, not only is this ‘confidence drop’ moment totally normal and OK, we can actually even look at it as a GOOD thing because it means players are moving forward toward their goal of being the very best they can be.
And towards growing real, true, DEEP confidence in themselves. Foundational confidence that is based on INTERNAL validation, having their own back and pushing through something hard and coming out a stronger player on the other side. Something they could never do if they had stayed on their old team and simply stayed ‘the best’.
Reach out if you want help navigating this situation with your daughter, we’re here to help.
Till next Tuesday,
💎 What I’m digging: The Mindset Mastery Academy spring session is completely full! Can’t wait to get started and help all these young women make life-changing shifts in their game! We are now accepting applications for session 2, find out more here.
👩🏽💻What I’m reading:You can tell a lot about a person from their booklist… Here are my top (1) mental performance and (2) mental wellness recommended reads.
🎧 What I’m listening to:The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is helping my personal mental wellness right now.
Grow your confidence through preparedness.
Subscribe to our email list to
Get your FREE Weekly Soccer Planner!
We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime.
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.
