Gaining an Edge: Focusing on the Process and Setting Goals

Welcome to the third edition of Gaining an Edge. This series empowers Socceristas to own their growth and maximize their potential by expanding mental performance skills, reframing limiting beliefs, and uncovering authentic drive. In week one, we covered why upping your mental game is the secret to gaining an edge, and in week two we dove into performance pressure & how it impacts your confidence.

In this third edition, we’ll talk about focusing on the process and the smaller, controllable aspects of your game as a way to navigate the pressure while still playing your best soccer and growing your confidence.

The process

If you truly want to improve at soccer and grow your confidence, winning games is not your main priority. Really, it’s not. Why? Because if your confidence is attached to winning games, when will you feel good about yourself? ONLY WHEN YOU WIN.

And is winning every game a realistic expectation or an unrealistic expectation? It’s unrealistic and impossible because YOU CANNOT CONTROL every aspect that has to do with winning. You cannot control your referees, opponent, or teammate. You can only control yourself.

Therefore, to have consistent confidence and belief in yourself, you need to choose to attach it to something that you can ALWAYS CONTROL. And that something is the process.

The “process” refers to all the pieces of your soccer game that you work on daily to improve and become a better player. It’s not scoring the goal. It’s all the things that lead to your scoring.

Socceristas, focusing on the process, is HOW you survive performance pressure and move past overly focusing on the expectations of scoring, winning, playing with no mistakes, etc. Because here’s the thing–pressure, nerves, and making mistakes–none of these things are going away. No matter what level of soccer you get to in your career, they will always be there in some form. So learning how to live WITH them and still play your best soccer while they are present is how you gain an edge. And focusing on the process is how you do that.

Set controllable game-day goals

This is the key to everything, from dealing with the pressure to gaining more confidence. Setting controllable objectives is how you “win” the day, even if your team doesn’t win the game.

Controllable objectives are goals you can use to gauge your success on the field that day. They are manageable, specific actions you HAVE THE POWER to do in a game, no matter what everyone else is doing. They’re conscious choices that you can always make; whether or not they happen is up to you. They focus on the PROCESS of self-improvement, not on the game’s outcome or eliminating mistakes.

Socceristas, next game day, instead of focusing on scoring the whole time, take it back a few steps and focus on the parts of “scoring” that are within your control. Ask yourself, what HELPS me score? Making well-timed runs in behind the line? Checking in and out of space? Communicating with my teammates? Getting my head up? Scanning the field? Being light on my toes? These are all things you can control.

When working on setting your own objectives, make sure each one meets the following criteria: 

• Is this goal achievable, even if you don’t score and your team doesn’t win?
• If you work hard and focus on doing this, can you do it?
• Is this action completely within your control?
• If you achieve this today, will you feel good about that?
• Will working on this goal today make you a better player?

The best part about focusing on the process and the controllable pieces of your soccer games is that you start to redefine what winning means for you. This will lead to increased confidence and more fun on the soccer field. Focusing on this also helps you move past the anxiety of performance pressure because it takes your mind off of the expectations. Your focus will be tuned to the game in front of you.

Controllable objectives also improve your overall performance because your mind is paying attention to things that are good and useful to you right now.

Socceristas, try setting your own controllable objectives and redefining your “win” of the day next game day with this free confidence-building worksheet. You deserve to feel good about yourself and your gameplay, no matter the match’s results.

Up next:

Follow Girls Soccer Network, so you don’t miss the next edition of Gaining an Edge. The fourth edition will be diving into self-talk. We will explore the most common self-defeating mentalities: overthinking, fear of failure, replaying mistakes, perfectionism, missed opportunities, etc. and talk about what to do if you are a player who is being negatively impacted by any of these.

Till next time, 

Jenn Ireland, Mental Skills Coach + Founder of Expand Your Game

Gaining an Edge is a ten-part series from Expand Your Game’s Mindset Mastery Academy, a transformative 1-on-1 mental skills mentorship experience for female soccer players.

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