By Dr. Rob Bell

Dr. Bell is a Mental Toughness Coach and Certified Consultant of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.  He consults with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and teams and has served as the mental coach for PGA tour winners, USTA Champion, and Olympic Medalists.  He is also the author of several mental toughness books. For more information about Dr. Bell and his services visit https://drrobbell.com/

A team locker room is a sacred place.

Basically, what is said there, when you leave there, leave it there.

Sorry, but here’s the wrong way to win the locker room.

New Buffalo Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott felt that setting the tone of the locker room was important.

Agreed

Coach Sean McDermott is all about “culture” and leading by example. He’s a 3:30AM fitness guy.

Agreed

He is a driven, hard-nosed, accountability coach whose locker room culture begins with him.

Agreed

Coach stated that “this is a business”, so he removed the pool table and video games from the locker room.

Disagree    

Players don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Hall of Fame coach, Bill Walsh, set up a fishing tournament amongst his players during pre-season. He stated, a “team that can laugh together, can get serious together.”

Hard nosed, two time Super-Bowl winning coach, Tom Coughlin, spent the very first day of a training camp by having a bowling tournament. He changed his tyrant approach because  he “wanted his players to see him as his grandchildren did.” 

Super Bowl Winning coach, Dick Vermeil was known for his “boot camp” practices and discipline, but only after he started to develop a relationship with his players did he finally reach the pinnacle.

Look, there is nothing sexier than discipline, accountability, hard-work, grit, perseverance, and a culture of excellence.

However, in order to win, coaches have to win their hearts as well. In order to do that, they need to win the locker room.

Here’s 5 ways to win the locker room

Develop a TEAM culture- 

Every coach would agree that when you have players willing to fight for one another, there is nothing more powerful. Practices should be difficult and demanding, but developing team chemistry also takes place in between practices and games. You hang out so much together, that either bonds or cliques get formed in various ways.

Developing a locker room where players can unwind, relax, be themselves, and hang-out is crucial. Who wants a locker room where players simply dash out after showering and changing?

A pool table or ping-pong table encourages players an outlet to bond over a competitive activity that is not directly related to their own sport. The Cornell basketball team that made the sweet sixteen and finished 29-5 all lived together and touted their Super Mario bros. and table-tennis competitions. 

Allow the players to take ownership-

Jeff Van Gundy allowed all minor decisions like where to eat, which music and movie to play on the bus up to the players. He granted them a voice in their own culture.

Have a leadership council-

In all pick-up games, kids self-govern themselves. You can’t break the written and unwritten rules of the court and expect to be welcomed back. A leadership council of players should make decisions on certain disciplines that coach doesn’t have to. That creates more ownership among players and takes more off of the coach.

Orchestrate the cohesion-

Teams become cohesive over the task at hand (winning), or socially (togetherness). Ultimately, task-cohesion is king. However, these task-cohesive teams are only fostered through extremely strong peer-leadership.

Social cohesion is queen. Teams full of mutual respect for one another have more trust and uphold standards within the team. Usually, the best teams have BOTH task and social cohesion. These bonds can be enhanced through scheduled sessions intended to do so.

Foster organic cohesion-  

Yes, it is a business. Winning is a habit. But, allow play to be a part of the culture. Allowing athletes to express themselves through free-play is as old as the cave-man days. We thrive on working hard toward a goal and also having fun along the journey. 

I’ve been in the team locker room at the end of a season with such tears of joy from winning, because they all knew of the effort and sacrifice and bond. I’ve been in the other locker room as well, that tears flowed because the loss was so heartbreaking because of the sacrifice and bond.

If you’re in the game long enough, these moments will happen. That’s life.

The way to a winning team locker room begins way before these moments of joy or heartbreak. It begins with the culture of the team and finding ways to win the locker room.

By Dr. Rob Bell

Dr. Bell is a Mental Toughness Coach and Certified Consultant of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.  He consults with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and teams and has served as the mental coach for PGA tour winners, USTA Champion, and Olympic Medalists.  He is also the author of several mental toughness books. For more information about Dr. Bell and his services visit https://drrobbell.com/

No question about it, self-belief is the most important mental skill.

Belief and trust eventually become the ONLY difference between those who eventually reach continued success and those who don’t or can’t sustain it.

Confidence is King. In the game of chess, when the king dies, the game is over! So, it’s how the game is lost! If there is a loss of confidence and self-assuredness, it’s tough to get it back. We have to start a new game.

So, what’s the only way to overcome a loss of confidence?

Notice I didn’t write a lack of confidence. And that’s crucial.

A lack of self-efficacy means there’s not enough, there’s a shortage, which means WAY more work, planning, strategy, and execution is needed to fill this lack.

A loss, on the other hand, is temporary. We’ve lost, we’ll be back.  We’ll have to start a new game!

I don’t have a lack of keys for my car. I’ve merely lost my keys. Having to go to the dealer or GM headquarters and get new keys manufactured would be awful. Losing my keys is no fun either, but I know I’ll find them, I just have to look in the right spots.

Remove the Issue

Jack Nicklaus once was asked why he played so poorly the week prior to winning the tournament. He answered “Oh, I slept awful last week, very poor bed. This week, I slept great!”

In the 1992 U.S. open, Ian Woosnam hit an awful shot on the par 3 twelfth hole. He immediately turned to his caddy and said: “there’s something wrong with that golf ball.” Next hole, after switching balls, he purred it right down the middle of the fairway.

Why would these greats not accept responsibility and just say “yeah, I sucked!”  Because that would mean that they sucked! And they didn’t believe that. They believed the situation or external event caused the mistake. 

We need to remind ourselves and others that “self-belief” is NOT the issue! And it’s true! Confidence is a feeling, not thoughts, and deep down they really believe in themselves. So, letting them know trust is NOT the issue means there’s nothing wrong with them.

We need to remove confidence as THE issue.

Flank the Confidence

B. H. Liddell Hart was a military strategist who examined over 250 campaigns. He looked at what decided the outcome of battles. In almost every campaign it was never just a frontal assault! He found that most battles were won by an “indirect approach.”  A flanking strategy —- A quick move that caught the enemy off guard and they were able to get behind the opposing forces.

The only way to overcome a loss of self-efficacy is the same way.

A frontal assault attacks someone’s entrenched position. It attacks one’s trust in themselves, their beliefs, their values, and the ego.  It also attacks their coaches, their teammates, everything. It gets them questioning and doubting themselves.

We frontal assault someone’s self-belief by telling them, “it’s all in your head” or “you’re not confident enough” or “what’s the matter with you?” It’s easier to crush someone’s belief than it is to build it up…Here’s our infographic showing 5 ways to crush someone’s confidence.

Let them know that since it’s not a belief issue, it’s just that they are focused on the wrong things! 

Focus is Queen. In the game of chess, the focus is how the game is won! We can’t move our king one space at a time and think that will win. Our queen is what wins the game! Focus!

We can’t JUST address self-confidence head on. We need an indirect approach —- when we have a loss of confidence, we need to flank it.

Overcome The Loss In Confidence-

When we are focused on the wrong things, 99% of the time, we/they are worrying about things in the future or not letting go of the mistakes of the past. We are focused on outcomes, results, and what it may or may not mean. We are time-traveling to the future.

Our focus is OFF.

We need to return to our breath, this moment, this day. Focus on the Now! 

This is especially difficult during tough times, but it’s the ONLY way to return our confidence!

But, If we are truly focused on this moment, then how does self-belief even come into play? It’s ALL about focus in the moment.

There is indeed fear in the future and people, places, and things that are out of our control! Fear lives and ferments in the future. When we look back at our mistakes and all the times we came up short, then there is actual proof how we aren’t good enough.

It gets back to our focus!

Check out Kelly Exter’s blog post on 8 ways to rebuild confidence. 

When we overcome a loss in confidence,  we need to pay attention to all of the things that we say to ourselves. The Voice in our head is negative and we are simply over-thinking! When I overthink, I lose my keys and get off at the wrong exit.

This post was provided by InnerDrive, a mental skills training company

Is there such a thing as a perfect penalty? Probably not, but how can players give themselves the best chance of success? Great penalties are not just “luck”, it’s all about performing under pressure. So what strategies can players involved in penalty shoot outs employ to give them the edge over their opponents? What does the scientific research from sport psychology actually say about how to take the perfect penalty?

Before

Since 1982, there have been 26 penalty shootouts at the World Cup Finals, but before a penalty is even kicked, you can increase your chances of winning a shoot-out. Researchers analysed 1,343 penalty kicks from 129 penalty shoot-outs and found that the team that started first won 60.5% of them. So basically, if you win the coin toss and choose to shoot first you have a great chance of coming out on top.

This can be explained by pressure. Increased pressure is the single most significant cause of penalty failure. In the World Cup, penalties are only introduced in the knockouts stages. It’s not just a match defining moment, it’s the World Cup dreams of a nation at stake. So when players know they can take a penalty to win the shootout, the success rate rises dramatically to 92%. Whereas if a player knows that if they miss, they lose the shootout, success rates plummet to below 60%.

Clearly, those who have learnt to handle their nerves at the World Cup have an advantage. Germany provide us with a great example of that, with the nation winning 5 out of 5 in their World Cup penalty shootouts. So how do sport psychologists explain this success? They’ve found that there are two key tricks that players may have used over the years and it relates to the relationship between them and the goalkeeper.

The first trick is to realise that after you have placed the ball down on the spot it is a mistake to turn your back on the goalkeeper before the start of your run up. Researchershave found that those who do are more likely to miss. This is because it interrupts their preparation, allows them to focus on things they cannot control, projects their nerves and provides the goalkeeper with subtle cues as to where the penalty is going.

The second trick is not to spend too long looking at the goalkeeper before the kick. In a study of 167 penalties, researchers found that those who fixated on the goalkeeper were more anxious and missed more penalties. It is far better to focus on your target and your abilities, or something that calms you down, rather than the opposition goalkeeper.

During & After

Don’t rush your penalties. Take time to ready yourself. Research has shown that players who rush their penalties (i.e. respond to the whistle within 200 milliseconds) only score around 57% of the time. However, players who take time to ready themselves, be it only for one second, score on average over 80% of the time.

We all know England struggle in World Cup penalty shootouts. Losing a record 3 times out of 3. It has left us with a 0 % win record at the competitions finals. Worryingly, England’s players have been seen to take their penalties quicker than any other nation. England football legend Steven Gerrard stated in his autobiography ‘Why do I have to wait for the bloody whistle? Those extra couple of seconds seemed like an eternity and they definitely put me off’. If only he knew that taking his time could have calmed his nerves and increased his chances of scoring.

England aren’t alone in this perilously poor penalty pickle. Italy have also lost all 3 of their shootouts at the World Cup finals. Surprisingly, one of the most successful World Cup teams Spain, only have a 33% penalty shootout success rate. That’s lower than Brazil (75%), Argentina (80%), France (50%) and Germany (100%).

Research has shown that by changing your mind at the last minute, players experience increased stress and uncertainty which leads to poor technique and inevitably a penalty miss. It is far better to pick a spot and commit to it. Penalties that are in the bottom/top corners are rarely saved due to the difficulty for keepers to reach them.

So once we prepared well and then executed the skill of the penalty, is there anything else we can do? Well, according to research there is. One hundred and fifty-one penalties from the World Cup were analysed and researchers found that if a player celebrated their successful penalty, their opponent was far more likely to miss their next penalty. Watch how every penalty taker for Italy celebrated their goal during their penalty shoot-out win against France in the 2006 World Cup.

What Can Goalkeepers Do In A Shootout?

A goalkeeper’s kit can have a direct impact on the penalty outcome. The fewest goals were scored against goalkeepers who wore red (54%) or yellow (69%). The two worst colours? They were Blue (72%) and green (75%). Interestingly, it would seem that out of the major nations competing at this year’s World Cup, England (Yellow) and France (Yellow) will be the only team’s utilising this colour in their goalkeeper kit.

Beside their kit colour, what is the best strategy for a goalkeeper to employ in order to save a World Cup penalty? Research suggests it is for them to stand still. Analysis of 999 penalties from the Bundesliga found that 15% of players shoot down the middle. A separate study of 286 penalty kicks from the top leagues around the world found that only 2% of goalkeepers remain in the centre. It is calculated that goalkeepers are actually twice as likely to save a penalty if they stay in the middle of the goal rather than dive.

So why do goalkeepers rarely stand their ground? Psychologists refer to this behaviour as an “action bias”, which is where the value of being seen to do something is higher than that of doing nothing. If they dive and the opponent scores, the goalkeeper doesn’t attract blame, but if they stand still and the opponent scores then they do get blamed. It seems this fear of blame sub consciously overrules a perfectly good strategy.

To find out more about Sports Psychology for Football, visit our guide page.

Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it’s something to be powered by.

By John O’Sullivan, Founder of Change the Game Project

In May 2018, retired US Women’s National Soccer team star Abby Wambach gave the commencement address to 600 women from Barnard College in New York City. Wambach, the all-time leading scorer for Team USA, an Olympic and World Cup champion, and an inspirational athlete known for playing with passion and giving her all every time she stepped on the field, gave an incredible talk to the graduates, sharing stories from her career, and lessons she learned. (You can read the amazing talk here, I think every young woman should read this, my 12-year-old daughter did!)

One of those lessons she learned over decades at the top of her sport:

Make Failure Your Fuel!

As Wambach stated to the attendees:

“Here’s something the best athletes understand, but seems like a harder concept for non-athletes to grasp. Non-athletes don’t know what to do with the gift of failure. So they hide it, pretend it never happened, reject it outright, and they end up wasting it.

Listen: Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it’s something to be powered by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.

When I was on the youth national team, only dreaming of playing alongside Mia Hamm… I had the opportunity to visit the national team’s locker room. The thing that struck me most wasn’t my heroes’ grass stained cleats, or their names and numbers hanging above their lockers. It was a picture. It was a picture that someone had taped next to the door, so that it would be the last thing every player saw before she headed out to the training pitch. You might guess it was a picture of their last big win, or of them standing on a podium accepting gold medals. But it wasn’t. It was a picture of their long time rival, the Norwegian national team celebrating after having just beaten the USA in the 1995 World Cup.

In that locker room I learned that in order to become my very best — on the pitch and off — I’d need to spend my life letting the feelings and lessons of failure transform into my power. Failure is fuel. Fuel is power.

Women: listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction.”

Yes, Abby, yes! We must embrace failure, and not let it destroy us, but use it as fuel to get better. As fuel to get moving again. As fuel to not let anyone tell us our dreams are not worthy of pursuing. As fuel to put aside the disappointments that come along with pursuing something worthy and great.

Failure is oxygen. Like a fire uses oxygen as a to grow, we use failure as our fuel.  It is a natural part of pursuing excellence. It is supposed to happen.

We have written about adversity here before. In their research on elite and near elite performers, or what they call “Super Champs” and “Champs,” Dave Collins and his colleague Aine MacNamara have found that those who make it to the very top, who play internationally and have the greatest success, have a path filled with struggle. They are presented with both on field and real-life struggle, disappointment, and at times pain, yet they persevere. “The talent pathway,” they conclude, “should not be a comfortable place to be.”

It is a rocky road to the top.

Collins and MacNamara have also found that well-timed character and psychologically based interventions from coaches and supportive adults help these athletes develop coping skills, grit, and resilience. In other words, it is not our job to smooth the pathway of our athletes, to give them plush fields, carry their gear for them, and remove all obstacles from their supposed path to greatness. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It is our job to help them learn from struggle, and see that the path to the top is not supposed to be easy.

If we really want to help our athletes, students, musicians, and entrepreneurs achieve something great, we need them to understand the path is filled with potholes. And we need to be sure not to pave them, but to ensure each one of those potholes is an opportunity to learn.

For many children in sport, May and June mean tryout season. This is inevitably a season of disappointment for many children, some who do not make the team they want, and others who do not make a team at all. It is a time where they face uncertainties such as new teammates, a new coach, perhaps a new club and whole new friend group. Many families move towns, and young athletes are thrust into trying situations, with no friends or familiar faces to look upon.

They may face failure and adversity this month. They will definitely face it if they continue in sports. I love this image about talent development:

It is not a smooth path nor a straight line to the top. That is where we come in parents. It is up to us that failure becomes their fuel. How do we do that?

We can help our children learn from adversity, and embrace the struggle. To do so, try these ideas below:

1) Help your athletes focus on the process: nothing worth doing comes easily, especially in sports. You will have your good days and bad days, your injuries and your healthy periods, your good coaches and your bad ones. Help instill a growth mindset in your kids by, as noted Stanford Researcher Carol Dweck says in her great TED talk, introducing the word “yet” into their vocabulary. “I didn’t make the top team YET, I need to practice more.” “I have not earned a starting spot YET, time to get to practice early and stay late.”

2) Ask your athletes the right questions when they struggle: though times of adversity can often lead us to criticize, or focus on the negative, a great approach after a struggle is to ask these three questions

What went well?

What needs work?

What can you learn from today that will help you practice better this week and perform better in the future?

These are not only process-oriented questions, but they help athletes realize that it never all goes wrong. There is always some good, and always opportunities to learn. When your athlete faces adversity, focus on ‘what is good about this?”

3) Don’t blame the uncontrollables; instead focus on their response to events: Athletes do not control the actions of officials, or what the opponent does. They cannot account for a bad field or poor weather. Blaming and complaining about those things will never make an athlete better, and they only bring negative energy into the conversation and the team. Help them focus on what they control (effort, focus, training time, etc) and let the other stuff just roll off. As Ohio State Football coach Urban Meyer says, E + R = O. The EVENT plus our RESPONSE equals the OUTCOME. We control our response, so respond well!

4) Help them find things they are passionate about: One of the critical ingredients needed for athletes to overcome adversity is ownership of the experience. As parents, when it comes to sports it is very helpful to assist our kids in finding their passion, instead of determining it for them. When a young athlete loves what she is doing, and is doing it because she owns the experience, she is far more likely to keep pushing through injuries, adversity, etc. It is great when kids fall in love with the sports we love or played, but that does not always happen. You cannot force passion, and passion is what overcomes adversity.

5) Show them how to embrace the hand they were dealt, and play it well: We all have faced adversity, and when our children struggle, it is a great time to share our own struggles, and what we learned from them. Be vulnerable, and teach them how adversity helps you develop grit, resilience, and more love of a sport, or a job, or anything you do. As Wambach shared in her speech, going into the 2015 World Cup, as one of the greatest players and leaders the US National Team had ever known, she was asked to lead from the bench. “You’re allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life’s benched you,” said Wambach. “What you aren’t allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench. During that last World Cup, my teammates told me that my presence, my support, my vocal and relentless belief in them from the bench, is what gave them the confidence they needed to win us that championship. If you’re not a leader on the bench, then don’t call yourself a leader on the field. You’re either a leader everywhere or nowhere.”

I wrote this today not only because I just heard Abby Wambach’s inspiring commencement address. I wrote it because I am a coach, and my teams just finished tryout season. I have been coaching for over two decades, and I still hate tryouts. This year, like every other, there were disappointed players. But there was one who was thrilled.

Recently, I had to have a very difficult conversation with this young player who was devastated not to make the top team in her age group. It is a conversation every coach dreads having.

She could have quit. She could have blamed everyone. But she did not. She got to work. She showed up focused and prepared every day. She joined extra practices. She embraced her role as a leader on her new team. She took every opportunity to play up, and gave her best effort every time. She learned from the good days, and from the bad days. And one year later, she was back on the top team in her age group.

Her failure was her fuel. And that fuel helped her earn her spot.

Because in the end, it was not really even a failure at all. Just a bump in the long rocky road to the top.

Help your athletes to make their failure their fuel. Help them navigate those potholes that sports, and life, throws in their way. Not by blaming, avoiding, or paving over those bumps, but by helping your athletes see that there is always a path forward.

Coach O’Sullivan is a former college and professional player as well as a high school, club team and college coach. He is offering a FREE video series that is part of his Coaching Mastery program. For more information about gaining access to that program click the link above or in the image below. The video series includes a wealth of coaching education including some motivational and team building ideas used by some of the most successful coaches.