“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi

“What is so wrong about having the perfect football mind?” athletes often ask. Well, apart from the fact that a perfect football mind does not exists, not much else. There is also nothing wrong with an athlete who works hard towards perfecting their game by training consistently on their physical attributes, techniques or their football mental toughness. However, the negative effects can be manifested out of an athlete’s strong drive and desire to reach perfection.

There are a couple of the determining factors as to whether an athlete who chases perfection will benefit from doing so or will just end up putting themselves on the perfect path to failure. It can sometimes simply come down to their perspective on perfectionism and any pre-disposal they might have to the fear of failure.

By reaching for the impossible with consistent hard work and possessing the football confidence to know that mistakes are just opportunities to improve and grow, an athlete’s game and mental toughness will benefit considerably.

However, athletes that chase attaining perfection will only ever get frustrated when it inevitably does not materialize. What tends to happen in these situations is that the athlete chasing perfection will experience tightening up during competition, feelings of self-doubt, stress and anxiety; which will only end up clouding and taxing their mind when they need it the most.

The same negative effects on an athlete’s game can also spawn from high levels of motivation. This is mainly due to the fact that this drive can also lead to the fear of failure. This predominantly happens to athletes when in a weakened football mental state, as they become frustrated or even bored when they do not meet their personal goals or achieve their expected standards of performance.

By tweaking the perfectionist’s perspective on the definitions of success and improvement, they can instead see the smaller, and vital, pieces of the bigger overall picture. By learning to acknowledge these pieces as vital stepping stones and learning to gradually put them together. By experimenting around to see if and how the different pieces fit and slowly seeing their invested time and mental effort paying off, the bigger picture will start to unfold before their eyes. This process is just as rewarding, if not more rewarding, than the end result for most athletes.

By working on an athlete’s mental game the potential benefits and insights that can be reaped are bountiful. With the guidance of a mental game coach, athletes can be taught how to avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism and how to unlock their ultimate football mental game while also walking down their own path to reaching peak performance.

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