“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz

We have all been there, in that dark corner of our football mind, where our thoughts constantly battle against our beliefs in an attempt to mould our responses to our environment and to the immediate situations we find ourselves in.

Ultimately, the way in which we choose to repeatedly engage , and our ability to manage our beliefs in a rational way, will directly impact and determine the outcome to most situations that are faced on the field.

According to football psychologists, all athletes enter this world with the potential to generate both rational and irrational thoughts. Within each and every athlete there is a predisposition for self-growth and happiness or self-destruction, self-blame, procrastination and avoidance.

What fans the flames of these irrational thoughts is the repetition in our way of thinking. The tendency is to internalize these negative thoughts and eventually end up believing them.

Irrational beliefs can be defined as any unreasonable, rigid, dogmatic, unhealthy or maladaptive convictions that are self-defeating and mostly get in the way of our efforts to achieve our goals.

Irrational beliefs are typically characterized by demands, musts and should.

This type of thinking saps away at an athlete’s football mind and also has them focusing on unnecessary things come game time, which only adds to the pressure and hampers confidence and composure.

In terms of an athlete’s football confidence, composure, performance and their football mental game these unhealthy irrational beliefs can end up ingraining the ways in which athletes behave.

By holding on tightly to these unrealistic expectations, perfectionistic ideals, over-generalization and negative self-labels athletes end up believing ideas which prevent them from achieving their full potential.

A good example is how a perfectionistic athlete believes that he or she should and must perform perfectly to win or play well. For perfectionists, this is an unrealistic demand they place on themselves, which causes additional expectations, anxieties about their performance and is detrimental to their games.

These habitual responses are designed by the ego, usually at the expense of an athlete’s sporting progression, to offer it protection when faced with difficult situation.

The first step in dealing with irrational self-defeating beliefs is to become aware and honestly identify the beliefs that cause you anxiety and or frustration.

Becoming aware of these beliefs is a big step in itself, however once you have identified just how much your limited beliefs are keeping you stuck in the same old patterns it is easier to accept that a change will not only be beneficial but rather absolutely necessary to truly break free.

Once the decision has been made to make positive changes in your thought patterns these positive effects will ripple across and strengthen your football mental game and performance.

The final step is learning and training your brain to think differently in relation to your sport by modifying your beliefs to enhance your confidence and composure.

*Download the free mental game assessment and get started on Improving your Mental Game in Football