Have you ever seen your female athlete get demotivated? Do you see external factors causing her to be demotivated? 

It’s painful to watch your daughter get demotivated, especially when the negative feelings are caused by external factors such as her teammates, coaches, etc. We feel the urge to do something at these moments when the coach seems like the reason why the whole team is feeling down.

“My daughter receives your texts and takes a lot of the messages which is great. But her performance anxiety isn’t self-inflicted; it's more of a domino effect. I say this because she goes in confident and she will make a mistake. She's 15 BUT her coach will berate her and her teammates on the court in front of the other team members. She loses motivation because if there is a moment when things are falling apart the same coach will sit on the sidelines and sulk. What tips can you offer so kids like mine can be ‘the mature’ individual and keep their team spirit alive when the coach is the one driving it down?”

This is one of the questions I got from ECP moms. A lot of moms could relate to this and if haven’t experienced this— there’s a possibility to experience this in the future. So what do we do as moms when a coach is demotivating?

Focus on what’s in their control.

We can't control how their coach responds to a mistake. There's a lot that's out of our control and wasting time and energy on what the coach is doing is just making the situation worse.

It could be true that the stimulus to be unmotivated is coming from the outside, but how she responds is coming from what’s inside her— that’s in her control. 

Acknowledge that there's a lot that's out of our control, and empower your daughter to come up with solutions. 

There are a lot of things in your daughter’s control. 

• Her mindset is in her control
• Her ability to stay focused is in her control 
• Encouraging her teammates is in her control

Brainstorm and then have her pick one that she is going to focus on. The best thing your daughter can do is go in feeling confident, empowered, and with a plan. 

Go in with a plan! 

Athletes in our Elite Competitor Program have reset words and mistake rituals that they can use. 

We have them:

• Identify the situation
• Identify what skill they're going to use
• And visualize it

As moms, we can support them by guiding them.

• Avoid going into that victim mindset and blaming other people for her lack of motivation. Blaming other people won’t do you good.
• There's a lot that's out of your control, but what is in your control?
• Brainstorm what's in her control in this situation and then equip her with a plan.

Here are the key things you can do, so when she goes into that situation, she’s ready. All these are important in facing any problems in her athletic journey.

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