Athlete Tip: How To Stay Motivated!

Welcome back to the raising of the competitors podcast. I'm coach Bri, a mental performance coach for a girl athletes. And I am so happy that you are here, athletes. This is a special athlete tip episode just for you. So we are talking about how to stay motivated. Let's face it as an athlete. You're not always going to feel motivated and likely you've experienced that where you're like, I'm just not feeling it today. Or I had, do not want to go to practice today, or I don't want to train today. Normal. And we're going to talk about how to deal with that before I do. I want to give a shout out to an athlete in our community. Her name is Abigail. She is going through our mental training program called the elite mental game. And she said this. I used my snapback routine when practicing with a college team I'm interested in and it helped me to stay out of my head and to stay in the present moment. I also use it in a week playoff game and it made me feel more calm and less anxious. So congratulations. Abio, I'm super pumped for you. So the snap-up routine, if you're not familiar, those that are listening. Is our routine that we teach athletes to help them come back from mistakes and be in the present moment. So, you know, the feeling when you like make a mistake and you kind of spiral, or you're wondering what the coach is going to do, and you just start to make more mistakes or you hesitate. The snapback routine is a combination of a breath, a reset word, and a reset, reset signal that athletes use in those moments to come back to the present moment and to play better. So I'm so happy that this worked for you to help you stay out of your head. Right say. In the present moment. And then also with those lead playoff games that are like big pressure, big moments. You're able to feel more calm, less anxious, and able to play your best. So cool. Nice job. Okay. Let's get into today's episode athletes. We're talking about, like I said, about motivation. I'm going to tell you one thing right now, motivation is a feeling it comes and it goes. So you can not rely on motivation as an athlete to get you to do anything. If you are waiting to feel good or waiting to feel motivated to do your workout or go to practice or do the things you will be potentially waiting for a really long time. And so motivation is not something that we. I rely on as athletes too. Help us stay the course and do the things that we need to do. So that is the first thing I want you to know. Is that you sometimes as an athlete, Get to do things when you want to do them and you feel good and you like it. And you also do things when sometimes you don't want to, and you don't like it. That is just part of being an athlete. You show up when you feel like it and you show up when you don't feel like it. And some days when you were having those days where you're feeling like a little bit low on the motivation. That is what you need to tell yourself. I'm an athlete. I show up on the days, even when I don't feel like it now. Here's the other thing. Motivation comes after action. So once you start to take action meeting the, you do the practice you put on your shoes, you, you show up at the gym. Then you actually start to feel more motivated. The. The hump that you have to get over is just doing and whatever that hump is for you. Literally, sometimes it's just showing up and you're like, okay, I can be kind of like grumpy in the car ride on the way to that practice. But once I get there and I walked through the doors, I'm here, I'm going to commit to the next two hours. And here I am. And once you start going, you'll notice that like, you start to feel a little more, more motivated and, and that's because motivation, that feeling follows action. Does it come before all the time? Yeah. There are times where you do feel a little more motivated. Typically when you like start a season or you begin. Begin something new. But again, that motivation fades because it is a feeling and you don't always feel like doing things. Here's another thing I want you to consider that will help you with your motivation. What are your goals? Why do you play your sport? You know, and I just want, you doesn't mean you don't have to like, go super deep with this, but just answer the question for yourself. Why do I play. Why do I like my sport? Maybe it's because you love the feeling. When you play your sport, you love the challenge. You have good teammates, friends. You want to play in college, you know, even if you don't want to play in college, there's a reason why you play. And getting back to that reason can help with that motivation and just remind you of like, Hey. This is a sport that I love. And even with the things that we love, like our sport, we're not always going to feel like showing up for them all the time and that's okay. It comes in, it goes. But knowing what your goals are and why you play. And what your goals are for the season that can help you stay the course because it's one thing to have goals. And it's another thing to have goals and actually work every day to get better at them. And when you show up on the days where you don't feel like it, when you show up and you get what you have on those days, you are actually making the most progress on those days. Mentally and physically. So fashion gives you a little burst of motivation to actually go do it because it's easy to show up. And work hard on the days where you feel like it. Everybody can do that. Every single athlete does that. When they're feeling good, things are great and you show up and it's a good practice. Come on. That's easy. All right. But what type of athlete are you when it doesn't feel easy? One going to practice. This is the last thing you want to do. Right. You're like, I know I need to go, I need to show up. Right. And you have to show up, but that is really where you get to review of what type of athlete you are in those moments when you don't feel like it. Right. So separate yourself. That is an opportunity for you to separate yourself as an athlete from your competition is when you show up, when you don't feel like it, when you stay the course and you stay disciplined, even when you don't have the motivation. Here's the other thing, have a plan. Now, if you're out of season and you're kind of doing your own workouts and your own thing, it's hard to stay motivated because you don't have a coach or teammates kind of holding you accountable. So make sure you have a plan and that plan needs to be specific. So if it's like, I want to work out three times a week, or I want to do ball control three times a week. Tell, like, write it down. You know, what are you doing on those days? What workout are you doing? Like write it out. The more you have to think about it, the less you're actually likely going to do it. So have a plan ahead of time. Like on Monday, I'm going to do a 20 minute workout where I am. You know, doing whatever squats, pushups. Lunges. follow a plan and elicit help for that. Like maybe you can, can Look up plans from trainers who are specific to your sport to get you a workout plan so that you just have to, you have to think about it. You just follow it. Say with ball control, I'm going to do 10 minutes of all control three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. At 4:00 PM. Like the more specific you can be for your plan, they, you just show up, you just do just follow the plan. You don't have to think about it. Okay. Five minute rule. I love this one too. Give yourself five minutes, set a timer. Like I don't, I'm not going to do this is like, if you're kind of having to do things on your own, right? Like outside of your sport, I'm going to do ball control for five minutes and that's it. You can do anything for five minutes, so set a timer and then do it. And if you're done after five minutes, okay, I'm done. If you want to go longer. Hey, you got longer. The thing is just getting started, right? Remember motivation follows. Action. Okay. Now the other thing I'll leave you with as we wrap up here is like I said, you will not feel motivated all the time, so don't rely on that feeling and also know it's okay to not feel motivated all the time. It's all right. That's totally fine. As an athlete. To go through those abs in those clothes. Now, if you're feeling I'm motivated for months at a time. You don't want to go to practice for months, there might be something underlying. Maybe you are. You're starting to get close to burnout. You need to take more breaks. Maybe you're not doing your sport, like you used to, so. If you're feeling like that for a long time, I would highly encourage you to take a break, make sure that you're building in regular breaks into your week, into your months, into your seasons, so that you do not get to that point where you're burned out and you literally don't want to do anything. Okay. The last thing, the last little tip I'll give you is to give what you have. And we'll get a check in with yourself every day, right before practice or rip for your training and ask yourself, what do I have to give today? If it's like a hundred percent, all right. Full sand, let's go a hundred percent. If you're like, I've got about 75%. Okay. For whatever reason, maybe there's all that stuff going on outside, outside your sport. Maybe you're at a certain part in your menstrual cycle where it is impacting your mood and your energy level. Totally fine. Totally normal. Give what you have. You got 75% give 75%. You got 50%. Give 50%. Okay. And sometimes I can just help to take the pressure off of having to show up at a hundred percent every single day, because it's impossible for every athlete to show up at a hundred percent every single day. All right, athletes. I hope this was helpful to just kind of help you reframe this whole feeling of motivation and what you can do if you are feeling a lack of motivation from time to time. So you've got this, I believe in you, and I will see you in the next athlete tip episode of raising weak competitors podcast.