Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Raising Elite Competitors podcast. Athletes, this episode is for you. It is tryout season. Here we go. If you're listening to this, then likely you have a tryout coming up, or if you don't, you're gonna stick this in your back pocket for when you do. We're talking all about how to crush your tryouts, how to do everything that you can to prepare so that you feel confident going in and showcasing what you've got Now. So that you feel confident going in and showcasing what you've got Now before we get into this episode and this episode actually is pulled directly from the elite mental game, which is our mental training program for girl athletes. We have thousands of athletes who have come through the program to strengthen their mental game and their confidence and we have a little bonus section in there all around a plan for a tryout. So I've pulled that section out of our training to give it to you here, so you get a little sneak peek into the program plus a really awesome and tangible plan to help you crush tryouts. Now, before you get to listen to that, I want to give a shout out to one of the athletes inside our program. Her name is Paige. She texted me this the other day. She said I've been pretty busy, but also I was in Vegas for a tournament and I used my backpack visualization a lot and I totally aced it. I'm a goalie and I had the highest goal save percentage of any goalie in the whole tournament. I was so proud of myself. I for sure need to thank you, though, and thank the Elite Mental Game, because I think that you guys totally had a part in that win. We came in fifth and all the games we played we won. Last year we lost in overtime against a team called the junior bruins, and this year we beat them in overtime. It was so awesome. Congratulations, page. What I love to hear is that you are using your tools. Visualization is a powerful mental performance, mindset, skill and tool that our athletes use to help them play their best. So, page, congratulations for putting that tool into practice. I'm so proud of you, so proud of your team. Keep going in the program. You've got this all right. Athletes enjoy this episode, like I said. So, paige, congratulations for putting that tool into practice. I'm so proud of you, so proud of your team. Keep going in the program. You've got this All right. Athletes, enjoy this episode. Like I said, this episode is actually one of the trainings that is pulled from our signature mental training program for girl athletes called the Elite Mental Game. So you get to have a little bit of a treat here, a little bit of an insight into the program, plus a really great way for you to feel confident going into your tryouts. So go ahead and crush it and enjoy the episode.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Athletes, this is your plan to crush tryouts. In this training, we're going to talk about how to prepare for tryouts so that you go in feeling confident and playing and performing your best. Let's first talk about the goal of tryouts. Now, obviously, in your mind, you're probably thinking well, the goal of tryouts is to make the best team or to make the team in general. I want you to shift your thinking just a little bit. The goal of tryouts really is just for you to go out and showcase what you can do. There is no way that when you show up to tryouts, you can do any more or any less than what you currently are. So whatever you show up to tryouts with, however developed you are in your skills or whatever you've got, that's just what you're going to do, and so I want you to take a little bit of the pressure off of tryouts, because sometimes athletes feel like they need to go to tryouts and be something different than they already are. You just go in, you do your skills, you play your game and the rest is really out of your control.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Okay, so a couple of things. Prepare as best you can, depending on how long you have before trouts. Maybe you're watching this and you're like you've got a good solid two or three months. You're thinking about the trouts. You have a little bit of a longer runway to prepare. Maybe you're watching this the night before tryouts and there's not a whole lot more you can do on the physical training part of it. Your goal is just to show up as mentally strong and as confident as possible so that you can just do your thing. Okay, so, prepare as best you can, depending on how long you have.

Speaker 1: 3:26

Give yourself permission to have fun and play free. Sometimes athletes get so uptight when it comes to tryouts because they're so nervous about other coaches watching and what other teammates are doing and their brains going to all these different places, and then all of a sudden, you're not playing well because you're not having fun, you're not playing free. Yes, there is some pressure and you really want to do your best, but give yourself permission to play free and perform free. When it comes down to it, this is your sport, that you've played thousands of times before, likely hundreds of hours that you've put into it, and so you just need to let yourself go and do what you know how to do. Let it go, okay. I love this advice because, ultimately, the decision of the coaches and the decision of what team you make is out of your control. You can only control what you can control, which is showing up, doing your best, working hard, preparing as best you can, and then, after that, you've got to let it go. Stop worrying about what the coaches are thinking or what you think they're writing down, or what how this person is doing or how that person is doing. Focus on yourself. Let go of the outcome and move on. You're just going to be so much in a better place and be able to play better.

Speaker 1: 4:30

If you remember that, the last thing I'll leave you with in this goal part is it's just another turkey dinner and I love saying this because my college coach actually used to tell us this before bigger games. You know situations where we're maybe experiencing more pressure, and she would always say it's just another turkey dinner. And what she meant by that is when you eat turkey and mashed potatoes. If you eat those things, you could eat them any day of the week, any random weeknight, any weekend. Throughout the whole year you could eat that. But then, all of a sudden, when it becomes Thanksgiving, if you celebrate that, you have a bigger whole hoopla around it and we've got all of this excitement around it. But when it comes down to it, it's just another turkey dinner. It's just turkey or mashed potatoes or whatever else to eat on Thanksgiving. And if you celebrate, it's just another turkey dinner. And so she would tell us that to remind us that this is just volleyball.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Volleyball was a sport. You play volleyball every day. You could eat turkey dinner anytime you want, all right. And today it's just like what you do any other day. So it's just another turkey dinner. Go in, play your sport. You know what you're doing and I want you to remember that as you think about tryouts.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Okay, let's talk about before, during and after tryouts. I've broken this up into three phases so you can really prepare. So, before your tryout happens, if you do have months to prepare it, then have a plan to work on your skills. If you need to head to the off-season training plan inside EMG to have more of a structured plan on how you're going to improve for tryouts, then you can follow that. But if you have months before your tryout, this is the time where you're gonna put in the work. You need to get yourself into a place that's out of your comfort zone and you need to work hard, because when you are working hard and you are putting in that effort and really just getting better and improving, you are going to become more confident because you have been training at a higher level. This means put in the physical work, but make sure you're working on your skills. Just become a well-rounded player or an athlete, maybe working on your weaknesses a little bit in this these months prior as well as your strengths. I'll talk about the balance of that. But if you have months before, then you should have more of a specific plan on how you're going to make sure you show up to tryouts in the best possible shape as possible.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Okay, weeks before. If you've got a couple of weeks, this is where you really want to hone in on your mental game. When it comes to specifically tryouts, you should be working on your mental game really all year around. But if you're like within weeks of trying out, then you can kind of shift your visualizations to be more specific to your tryout. So you want to see yourself performing your skills well If possible. If you know what the training facility looks like that you're going to try out, or maybe you can go visit it, or even if you have the luxury of being able to train in the facility that you try out in, then you can add that to your visualization. And so I recommend, if you have within two weeks of your tryouts maybe three weeks even that you are visualizing at least two minutes a day how you want to play at tryouts, so see yourself playing well, you know, maybe rotating through a couple of skills every day, like see yourself getting available and taking big swings at the ball. See yourself like playing aggressive defense and what that looks like and how it feels, and really put yourself in that tryout facility. If you need some help for a visualization, head to the visualization section inside EMG and just play one of the pre-competition guided visualizations and because that will help you really prepare for a competition I mean a tryout really is a competition and so that visualization would be great for you. Just make sure that you put yourself in that tryout facility as best you can. Okay, so that's weeks before Now.

Speaker 1: 7:41

I also suggest you just have a mantra for tryouts that you start to develop a few weeks before. So something like do you do your best, let go of the rest, maybe things you wanna focus on, like hustle focus, leadership Just a really simple mantra, something that you can say to yourself when you start to feel nervous or you start to doubt yourself. Then you can come back to that mantra. So I suggest that you come up with one of those or use one of these right here. Okay, now before tryouts, let's talk the day before.

Speaker 1: 8:06

I want you to get prepped as best you can so you don't have to waste any time or stress or mental energy trying to figure out what clothes you're going to wear, what you're going to eat. So just get prepped with what you're going to wear the night before. Like, lay that out the night before. I suggest you wear a bright shirt just to stand out a little bit. It's not going to make or break you. But if you're on the bubble and coaches are talking about players and they're like, oh, who's that girl? And if you're wearing a bright yellow or bright pink shirt it's like, yeah, she's the girl in the bright whatever the bright yellow that you're going to stand out, just that little, tiny bit Okay. So if you have that, you know. Just a little tip make sure your food is kind of prepared ahead of time so you don't have to think about that timing wise, like how long does it take for you to get to tryouts? Let's make sure you're not rushed in the morning. So have that kind of all figured out on when you're gonna leave, all right, right before, so maybe you're getting closer to trash within 24 hours.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Remember, nerves are good. Nerves are a sign that this matters to you and nervousness and excitement actually register and feel the same in your body. It's all with how you think about it. So when you start to feel those butterflies and you start to feel nervous, I want you to tell yourself my body is preparing me for my tryout, my body is doing what it's supposed to do, I am excited for this tryout. Like, continue to tell yourself those things. That self-talk is so important.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Now, if it gets to be where itition routine, so if you're not quite that far in EMG, where you've developed that a pre-competition routine can be just as simple as you're going to listen to a song. That's really going to pump you up, make you feel good before tryouts. Maybe you're going to do that two minute visualization again and then have some sort of breath work that you can do. So there's some breath work activities that are pulled out inside EMG for free to access right now. But box breathing is a great one. That's an inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, that's great. Even just the three inhale, three, exhale, just so that you can calm yourself down a little bit.

Speaker 1: 9:51

Remind yourself of your mantra get to the tryout facility early and introduce yourself to the coaches. Okay, that's going to help you stand out as well. Give a nice firm handshake, okay. Like, really make a good impression. Good body language when you walk into the triathlete facility. Do not be on your phone, okay. Have your head up looking around, engage, connect with teammates. All of those little things really matter when it comes to helping you stand out at tryouts. So making sure that you are not on your phone, that you're engaged, you're introducing yourself with strong handshake and confident body language with coaches, that's going to help you really get off to the right foot.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Okay, during tryouts this is what I was mentioning earlier focus on your strengths. Yes, you as an athlete do have weaknesses Everybody does but I really want you to go into tryouts focusing on what you're good at, because when it comes to tryouts especially if you're trying out for, like a team sport, coaches are looking for specific players that fill specific roles. So, yeah, while it's great to be a good all-around player, typically coaches are looking for players that are good at specific things. So, for example, they're looking for people who are really good blockers to fill that spot of a middle blocker okay. Or they're looking for a really strong defensive player it's okay. If you're not as strong offensively, they're not looking at you for that. Focus on your strength so that you can go in knowing like, hey, I'm totally going to crush it in this one area or these two areas. That's really what I'm going to be known as when I go into this tryout.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Take risks, right. Coaches love to see you going for it and taking risks rather than being hesitant. So, whether that means like you're going to swing at a ball rather than take the safe route, okay, take those risks and then, as a result, like inevitably you're going to make mistakes whether you take risks or not. So you might as well be taking risks to show that you are a risk taker and that you go for it. But when you make a mistake, recover quickly. Do your snapback routine. If you've developed that in EMG, that's what it's there for.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Coaches aren't looking that you never make mistakes. They're looking for how you respond to mistakes. So do you put your head down? Do you have bad body language after a mistake? Do you blame other people? Or are you like hey, my bad, I got the next one, and then you're back in it, going after the ball again. Hey, control what you can. Control your attitude, your effort, your leadership.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Be the player that is hustling between stations, not walking, okay. Be the player that's first back. Be the player that volunteers when they ask for volunteers or people to demonstrate. Be the player that's high-fiving other teammates and encouraging other people. These are things that are gonna make you stand out during your tryout. All right after tryout. So you've done the thing. You've done your best. You can. You bounce back from mistakes. You're focusing on your strengths. You're being a great teammate. Good energy.

Speaker 1: 12:14

After your tryout, go up and thank the coaches, give them another handshake and say thank you for the opportunity. Then I want you to personally reflect what are three things that went well, because your brain's going to go to what didn't go, that's just normal, but three things that went well, and then one thing to improve on. And then I'll say it again let it go. Let it go. Now the decision is out of your hands. The hard part for you is done. Everything is on the coaches and let them make their decisions and there's really nothing you can do about it at this point.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Okay, you did your best, but I want you to remember this the team you make or don't make does not define you as a person. Whether you make the team you wanted to make or you don't make, the team that does not say anything about you as a human being. I want you to hear that loud and clear. A lot of times, we tie so much of our how we feel about ourselves and our self-worth to the team that we make. Okay, that team does not define who you are. It's part of who you are. Your sport is part of you, but it's not. All of you Know that you are much more than your sport. You're much more than the team that you're on, and whatever team you make or whatever opportunity presents itself after the trials, I want you to see it as that. See it as an opportunity.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Whether you made a team that you wanted to make, there's an opportunity there. Maybe you made a team that was lower than you were anticipating. There's an opportunity there, right. Where's the opportunity? Probably to be a leader, for you, to lift other people up. Maybe you didn't make a team? What's the opportunity there? Sometimes it's harder to find that, but there is an opportunity. Maybe there's an opportunity for that to open up other chances for you to participate in other things. Okay, so see whatever the result is as an opportunity and information for you to make your next step All right.

Speaker 1: 13:44

In this training, you learned how to prepare for tryouts that you can go in confident, feeling your best. Here's your next steps. Create your plan depending on how long you have. If you've got months, I suggest you create a plan for yourself to really put in the work. Get confident because you're putting the physical training and mental training in. Follow the offseason training plan if you need to, and then visualize your tryout success if you're within a few weeks of your tryout. Okay, use that pre-competition visualization inside EMG if you need something just to play, so that you can create that image of you being at that tryout and then go out and crush it.