Dan Abrahams: Work on Being Mentally Focused To Achieve Your Goals
SoccerToday columnist Dan Abrahams shares his insights and advice for success on the soccer field for players of all ages. A global sport psychologist and author specializing in soccer, Abrahams is based in England and works with professional soccer players in the English Premier League (EPL). Abrahams has helped hundreds of soccer players – many of them who play in theEPL and others who play across Europe. Abrahams has held contracts with QPR, Fulham, West Ham and Crystal Palace among other clubs and works quietly, behind the scenes with many coaches from top clubs across Europe.
Developmental psychologists have demonstrated that our formal way of thinking is through pictures.
When I was a professional golfer struggling to make a living on the mini tours around Europe one of the challenges I felt held me back was my seeming inability to see (picture) the outcomes I wanted. Whether it was winning a trophy, shooting a great score or hitting a supreme shot the clarity of my images were less than crystal clear – quite fuzzy in fact.
I firmly believe that champions from any sport or discipline are able to construct simple but lucid inner images that direct their brain toward what they want to achieve…to a degree!
You see, what I now know is that the pictures we should be striving to ‘see’ in our mind’s eye should relate more to the process of performance as opposed to our desired outcome.
Visualizing winning, scoring or keeping a clean sheet really isn’t that impactful.
In contrast, seeing yourself make effective plays is powerful.
Picturing being strong in the air, timing your tackles perfectly, making penetrating runs in the area and delivering whipped-in pin pointed deliveries into the penalty box are critical essentials depending on your role in the team.
Mental rehearsal and visualization is useful if you spend time picturing the process, the things you CAN control and the things that will help you have the best possible game you can have.
Having studied psychology and brain science for over a decade, picturing what you want is a skill that can be improved.
I know this to be true because developmental psychologists have demonstrated that our formal way of thinking is through pictures.
Over time we learn to attach words to those pictures and because words become our primary means of information processing our ability to summon up inner images declines. But it doesn’t disappear altogether and through practice it can improve.
Developing a catalogue of inner pictures is crucial for a soccer player if she wants to play with confidence and certainty.
You can help this by using this short process in training.
Use the 5 minutes before and after training to help yourself develop your pictures and subsequent confidence.
- Before training ask yourself two important questions:
“What do I want to achieve in training today?” - “What will it look and feel like if I do this really well?”
After training ask yourself 2 questions:
- “What went really well today?”
- “What would it look and feel like if I did this really well in a match?”
Make sure you are using as many senses as possible – especially what you see, feel and hear. Allow yourself quiet time to build your library of pictures and ask yourself powerful questions: your movement, your tackling, passing and shooting – whatever you think is most pertinent to your game and to your training session.
- What will non-stop movement look like today?
- What will it look like if I found space time and again?
- When should I shoot?
- Where should I commit myself and where should I stand a player up?
The quality of the questions you ask yourself influence the trajectory you have as a soccer player.
When you take time before training and after training to ask yourself questions so you can picture the process of performance, the benefits are multiple.
The imagery session will create a blueprint on your mind before and after your training. Not only will this improve your ability to picture their performance but it will also be the perfect tonic for the plague of inconsistency. By directing your brain toward what you want to achieve and what you have achieved during training, you will be managing your self-belief and confidence levels.
