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Overcoming Performance blocks, slumps and losing streaks: |
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Most good coaches have two overall coaching
goals that influence and guide their daily interactions with their
players. These are: To teach a love of hard work and a commitment to the
pursuit of excellence. The good coach knows that personal and professional
successes are impossible without embracing both of these values. As a
result, coaches often have very little tolerance for half-hearted efforts
from their players. In addition the successful coach has difficulty with
any player who tends to accept mediocrity.
There is no question that performance problems and slumps challenge the patience and sanity of even the best of coaches. However, how you as a coach respond to these problems will often determine whether the slump or block gets worse or disappears completely. |
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| Firstly, understand that despite what match
results appear to say about you, your value and effectiveness as a coach
is NOT necessarily determined by your players’ performance problems. If
your team slips into a losing streak this does not automatically mean that
you are a terrible coach. Losing is a result of a number of uncontrollable
factors including luck, the skill and strength of the opposition,
injuries, the officiating and the individual talents, mindsets and
psychology’s of your players. Certainly if you yell and scream at your
team, threaten them with adverse consequences should they fail to perform
to your expectations and continually pressure them with an outcome focus, you
will indeed be directly responsible for their poor play. |
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| However, all too often performance problems just happen regardless of who you are or what you do or say as a coach. What’s critical here is that when they do, you learn to separate your self-worth and ego from your players’ performances. If you measure your self-worth by how they perform, or whether your team wins, then sooner or later you will end up inadvertently pressuring them to win more. Remember, “coaches who coach winning, consistently lose”. Having an outcome focus is a huge performance trap! If your players pick up on your need to win, they will often tighten up and underachieve, regardless of how much they’d like to please you. | |||
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When your players struggle, one of the most
powerful things that you can do is to very clearly communicate
to them that you still believe in them and their ability. Your
opinion of your players matters very deeply to them. Belief and confidence
have been proven to dramatically affect a footballers performance. In fact
a player is always limited most by what he/she believes is possible. Another stance that you as the coach must adopt
is to stay positive, no matter
what. Being negative will not inspire your team to start winning.
It will NOT help a player to overcome his fear or bust out of a
performance slump. A negative attitude will undermine motivation. Let’s
face it. Nothing good comes from negativity. Negativity disrupts a proper
focus, increases the players stress and dampens players competitive
spirit. When coaches are negative the whole team is brought down. No
matter how frustrated you may be with your team it is crucial that you
stay positive and optimistic. After all, if you as the primary adult and
team manager can’t remain positive, no one will be able to and,
confidence moral and team spirit will all be lost. Remember, adversity can’t be mastered and setbacks can’t
be overcome without you maintaining a positive attitude. Above all, be
supportive and patient with your players struggle. Impatience will
rarely help a team get unstuck. Instead, players will tighten up more with
the pressure that you put on them when you’re impatient. Understand that
players who struggle quickly get down on themselves. Your getting on their
backs will only make things worse. Your
support in these situations is absolutely critical. Ignoring or
withdrawing from the struggling player can send their self-esteem and
performance further down the proverbial tubes.
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Help
your players to refocus. Teams that struggle naturally have a
tendency to become obsessed with and over-focus on their problem. This
gets them trying too hard and trying too hard often makes the situation
worse. Instead players need help to refocus on what they need to do in
order to perform to their potential. Encourage them to focus on what
they want to have happen. Give them specific concentration goals that
they can focus on during training and matches. These concentration goals
should be “process”, not outcome related. For example, staying calm
before and during the game (so the player may focus on a relaxation
technique pre-game). One main concentration key to maintaining
attentional focus is to encourage players to centre their attention on the
NOW of the performance. Struggling players have a tendency to “time
travel” from the past to the future both before and during their
performance. Peak performance can only happen when the players mind is focused
in the moment, attending and concentrating on what is going on RIGHT NOW.
Encourage your players to leave the past behind them, forget the future
and concentrate on what is right in front of them. Remember, slumps and blocks happen. Setbacks and injuries happen. However, on the other side of these dark moments is the bright sunshine of success. On the other side of impossible is triumph! |
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