“Try not to do too many things at once. Know what you want, the number one thing today and tomorrow. Persevere and get it done.” George Allen

Managing expectations is a balancing act for success on the football fields.

Sometimes, expectations can be helpful: they can give you a sense of motivation and direction.

However, when expectations influence your thoughts too much, it can significantly affect your mental game and our performance.

How do you start managing your expectations when dealing with strict expectations from either you, your coach or your parents?

Uncover the Reasons for Setting Strict Expectations

Athletes often raise the expectation bar to challenge themselves to try harder and do more.

They raise the expectation bar to take risks, grow, and deliver exceptional results.

Their coaches and parents tell themselves, “You can do anything. Be all that you can be!” So they set aspirational visions of being the best and stretch goals to increase effort and accomplish more than is ordinarily possible.

They focus more on outcomes than the process.

Focusing on the outcome instead of the process cause anxiety. Anxiety causes you to tense up, then mess up. And if that is not enough, you start judging yourself for the errors and the downward spiral continues.

The danger of the high expectation bar is that missed expectations can lead to disappointment and a pattern of failure where athletes quit trying, and their football confidence takes an unexpected downturn.

How to Manage Your Expectations

First and foremost, the moment you realize your expectations are unrealistic, rechannel your thoughts, refocus, and set new goals.

Replace your unrealistic expectations with process goals.

Your football mindset is key to this process. It’s balancing an orientation between

Outcome and Process thinking.

Outcome focused orients your thinking and actions primarily towards a defined result.

However, being subject to all kinds of factors discussed earlier, there’s much to navigate on the way to the desired outcome.

You strive for a thing. You’re focused on capturing a thing. And all the things that come with results: trophies, attention, praise, accolades.

On the other hand, Process thinking is less on the result, and more on the process – the practice. Through process thinking, you’re never finished. When you focus on the process, you’re oriented to how you feel doing right now, what you are doing right now, what the play is right now.

Process orientation is thinking big and acting small. The road to the end result passes through thousands of micro-moments.

Your expectations shape your reality.

They can affect your football game, mentally and physically. Be extra careful about the expectations you harbor as the wrong ones make your football journey difficult.

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