Dan Abrahams
What you say. What you do. How you say it. How you do it.
There is no standing still. As coaches, we must always be working to improve.
- You must believe in yourself and your methodologies.
- Believe in your players
- Be an eternal optimist
Belief is what separates the best from the also-rans.
Don't half-ass it. Figure out what's important. Work as hard as you can towards whatever objectives will help to benefit those important components of the game.
In the case of a soccer team, the ideal is such that the group is worth more than the individual parts. 1 + 1 = 3.
- Success is fueled by habits and patterns. Make them excellent.
- There is never a throw away remark, or a casual drill.
- Do things with a purpose, with belief.
- As a coach, you must beg and borrow information. Observe others, then expand yourself
- For your players to be at their best, so must you, their coach
- Avoid average
- Break the game down into components
- Details matter
- Become an authority on something. Take an aspect of the game and dominate it.
- Let the players talk to you. Be open, learn from their criticism. Have them tell you your strengths and weaknesses
- Scepticism. Not cynicism
Talent in sport is the demonstration of appropriate physical behaviors and appropriate mindsets.
Includes focus, confidence, discipline, motivation, self-awareness, self-management, desire, dedication.
Do 100 things 1% better -> aggregation of marginal gains
- Help your players feel strong, confident, dominant
- Make them feel that way consistently
- Self-belief is the precursor to confidence
- Put the mental side of soccer on a pedastal.
- Believe in belief, and believe in optimism.
Shift your mindset from 'judgement' to 'development'. IE: If he's not tall enough, help him use his height to his advantage (win the second balls, use his low center of gravity).
Questions you should know the answers to (via Martin Seligmen).
- What are your players saying to themselves on a daily basis?
- What words are they using after a training session?
- Are they optimistic, or are they remembering the 'bad' moments, the failures?
What are your players 'Explanatory styles'? Are they positive or negative?
The externalities you see as a coach are governed by the players internalities: thoughts, feelings, focus…
Your words travel with your players everywhere they go.
Cultivate confidence by:
- Show that you believe!
- If you believe in them, they will believe in themselves
- Have a can do attitude
- Make things big, bold, bright, and exciting.
- Never doubt your players
- Push them though their comfort zone
- Emphasize fun
- Fun, stems from a mindset that is enjoying the process of execution.
- A space for the negative
- There must be a space for negative feelings
- Negative feelings are as natural as positive, ignoring them is counterproductive
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Negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, and paying greater atttention to the external world.
- Hard work. Quality work.
- Focus on strengths
- Knowing your strengths is an important part of performance literacy.
- Fuel from adversity
- Guide the player toward optimism by helping the player embrace the mistake, and then learn from it.
- After failing, focus on the future, on the next challenge.
The optimistic player suspends the thought of draw or defeat, to fight hard until the bitter end.
You have to help them think, and you have to help them feel.
Self belief is the feeling of knowing. It's primarily an intangible source of emotion that fuels performance.
There is a strong relationship between a players everyday self-belief and the performance confidence she feels and demonstrates.
Every day, ask yourself: 'Did my players build self-belief today?'. Ideally, the answer is always yes.
Reframe the players focus from what he's been doing wrong, to what he's been doing well.
Often, the conversation will look like this:
- On a scale of 0-10, where is your level now?
- If he answers low, reframe!
- That's great, why as high as a 4?
- Shift the conversation to those positives that are keeping the level at a 4, rather than a 1.
Compliments are a good thing.
Ask your player how he can move his self-belief up? Let the player solve the problem. Forces him to be aware of it.
You should be striving to compliment every single one of your players at least a couple of times in every training session.
A broad well-down isn't specific enough to shift emotion. Get specific.
A few minutes every session, ask your players to remember their best moments from the past week. Compliment those things. Reinforce that good behavior.
Ask your players, "imagine the good things you'll do in a game. Be specific. How does that feel?".
By doing so, your help your players release 'positive' hormones.
Think about the good in the future, not that bad in the past.
Competence by itself is not enough to produce the elite player, nor the winning team.
Confidence is the physiological signature of positive emotion surging through the body.
Where coaches can go wrong is to separate the tactical, technical, physical, and mental sides. They are inextricably linked.
When you train your players, insist on confidence:
- repeat the word during practice.
- insistance of actions and body language with confidence.
Mindset. Insist on a confident mindset every moment.
Do your players see the match as a challenge, or a threat? Are they meeting it with positivity, or are they afraid of failing?
- Body - positive body language at all times
- Action - constantly look for an action to execute
- Move - keep moving
Body language can change how you think and feel.
Your physiology changes your pyschology as much as your psychology changes your physiology.
Act powerfully, think powerfully, and develop the potential to perform powerfully.
- What should your players think about during play?
- Why do some players train well, but perform poorly in matches?
- How do you best prepare yourself for a match?
How your players are thinking, as well as where their focus of attention lies, should be of paramount importance.
Players that focus on aspects of the game they can't control have a tendancy to move into the threat state. All you can control is yourself.
Ask your player: "what are you trying to achieve during a game?"
Help your players set controllable goals on the pitch.
Don't set outcome or performance goals, as they aren't controllable. Instead, set mastery goals, IE:
- Be vocal at all times.
- Stay on your toes.
- Consistent, sharp movement.
- Great body shape.
- Command my backline.
- 100% intensity throughout the match.
- Head on a swivel.
- Gamble on runs in behind.
Mastery goals must relative to specific behaviors. Avoid the word 'don't' in setting mastery goals.
Always focus on the things you have to to do win, rather than the things you have to do not to lose.
Insist that your players warm up in the style of their match script.
Screaming from the sidelines merely suggests that you haven't put the necessary work in during training.
During half-time, questions are more powerful than words.
- How can you improve?
- What were your best moments?
Set and maintain high standards.
You (as a coach) must strive to be at your best at all times.
Are these players learning?
Your players should be fully focused when you are speaking or demonstrating. If they aren't, something needs to change.
- Interesting
- Intense
- Internalised
- Integrated
Are your sessions interesting and engaging?
A footballer must find what he's working on significant to his game in order to focus his full attention on it.
Attention starts the process of brain change. It starts the process of improvement.
- As a coach, you must always be pushing the comfort zone.
- Intensity is not just hard work, it's quality work. Physical AND mental.
- Players should feel mentally fatigued after practice.
During training, a player should be constantly examining the process of his practice
- How is my body shape?
- Did I get into the right position?
Players should be monitoring themselves during training. Encourage your players to be self-aware. Hard to improve things that you aren't aware are happening.
Feedback from the coach is required! Let players recognize that what they're doing is correct, and if not, how to change it so that it is.
Have your players choose three things that they are going to work on during each training session, ie:
- Is my body language positive?
- Am I always being vocal?
- Am I always moving into space?
Blend the technical, tactical, mental, and physical.
Make your players become students of the game. Move from just showing up and training, to analyzing the themselves in the context of training.
Work on both strengths and weaknesses. By working on strengths, you remain positive. By working on weaknesses, the weaknesses become strengths.
Thinking flexibility and problem solving are products of thousands of hours of training. They are built through game knowledge and an understanding of solutions in context specific situations.
To build your culture of cohesion you must SHOW leadership.
- S: servant
- H: host
- O: optimism
- W: will
Captivate your players. Describe your vision. Make it real. Sell the process.
Your body must exude energy during a training session. Your external behavior is a window into your internal thoughts.
Desire in football is about loving the detail behind the victory, not just the outcome itself.
Be ambitious and be relentless. Keep moving forward. Keep developing. Keep learning. Keep improving others. Obsess the detail. Prepare thoroughly. Be better than the others. Be the best you.
- You (keep a journal)
- Detail the the reactions and responses from your actions and communication.
- Frustrations and successes
- The players
- The families
- Your colleagues
It is rare for leaders to be both liked and respected.
- Care about your players. Find out about their personal lives. Talk to them.
- Take the blame for bad results.
- If correction is required, do so in private.
- Be honest and open.
- Be specific.
- Make it personal. Try not to compare the individual to teammates
- Goal oriented, actionable advice
Work together to an agreed upon set of goals and objectives. Task cohesion is more powerful than social cohesion with relation to outcomes.
Getting your team rallied around the objectives of your club has more impact on the feeling of togetherness than taking your group on an activity outing.
What does your team want to achieve? Steer the answers to that away from winning itself as an ambition.
Sit down with your team and discuss the good qualities we have. Focus on the positive.
Set your ambitions. Label your assets. Base the team rules and standards of of them, and stick to the plan throughout the season. Don't let standards drop, or the objective be forgotten.
IE:
- We will play with loud voices
- We will compete with non-stop intensity
- We will press for 5 seconds when we lose the ball
- We will communicate positively
- We will constantly be moving
Togetherness requires a common purpose.
Stereotyping should revolve around the commitment of the group as well as its identity. 'This is what we do', rather than just 'This is who we are.'