Welcome back to the raising unstoppable girl athletes podcast. I'm coach Bree a. Mental performance coach for a girl athletes. And I am so excited that you're here. Whether you are just getting going on this sports mom journey. With your daughter or you're a very experienced sports mom. This podcast is for you to help you raise a confident, mentally resilient athlete so that she can enjoy her sports journey. And so that you can to today's episode is going to be all about tryouts. A lot of you have tryouts that are right around the corner, or really weren't ever. Listening to this in the cadence of your year. Tryouts seem to be a thing that typically stress athletes out. And stress parents out, So we're going to talk about some ways that you can help prepare your athlete for tryouts. And also some tips for athletes to help prepare themselves. So this is one of those episodes that. Mom's you can be listening to you and start to help implement some of the tips that we're using with your daughter, just as a support for her as she's heading into Trout's. And then athletes also could be listening to this episode as well, just for some ideas of how to mentally and physically prepare it for tryouts. Now, before we get into it, I want to give a shout out to somebody in our community. Her name is Shelly and Shelly gave us a little update about her daughter who is going through the lead competitor program, which is our signature mentor training program for a girl athletes and their parents. And she said that she goes. I already noticed a difference in her when she's at practice, she's more focused and is getting less frustrated with herself. I saw a moment where she had a few mistakes in a row, took a moment to reset and then came back strong. She told me herself that the program is helping and she has more confidence. So congratulations, Shelley, this is so awesome. And I'm really happy to hear that your daughter is taking what she's learning, implementing it, and it's helping her, especially with those mistakes. We're actually gonna be talking about that in this episode today that it really isn't a mistake that matters. It's always the response. So nice job. Okay. Heading into today's episode one last thing. If you enjoy this podcast and you find these episodes helpful, do as a huge favor, we'd be forever grateful. If you would just share this with a fellow sports mom. So. Just grab that link wherever you're listening, texted to somebody who you think would benefit from hearing this. Maybe you have another sports mom who has a daughter who's going into tryout soon. And just go ahead and text her this link to the episode. It really helps us out when our listenership increases so that we can bring on the best guests for you, and also to get into as many years of sports moms as possible. So thank you. Thank you in advance for doing that. If you do have an extra moment to rate and review the. Podcast. We'd also really appreciate that. All right, let's get into it. How to help your athlete crush those tryouts now. Like I said, trials can be age. Challenging stressful time for athletes, for parents, for coaches, for sure. I get to see all aspects of it as well. I am a coach. I'm. leading tryouts just in a few weeks for my team. And there's a lot that goes into it. It's a lot of pressure coming from all angles because athletes feel the pressure to showcase their skills with this limited timeframe that they have coaches face the difficulty of evaluating so many participants. Parents that face the stress of their athletes, wanting to make whatever team they're wanting to make. And, you know, not feeling maybe like they are performing their best or how are they going to make sure that they perform their best. And so that just adds a lot of complexity and a lot of stress in many areas. And here's the thing, the main goal with this episode is to enable and help our athletes exhibit their skills, to the best of their ability, mentally and physically. And if your daughter's tryout is like tomorrow or it's after the weekend, there's not a whole lot that she's going to be able to do physically to increase her skills. Now I'm not saying that she should stop working. She shouldn't. Stop practicing by any means. What I'm saying here is that she is not going to be able to change drastically as a player between now and when her trout is, if it's in less than a week or it's in a few days, The goal is that we are mentally preparing her so that she can show up to the best of her ability, whatever that is, whatever her skills and capabilities are currently right now. We want her to be able to showcase those. To no end. Okay. So that is what our goal here is to prepare her in that way so that she can show up as her best. She's obviously not going to show up better than what she is capable of. So we're going to focus our efforts on making her feel. Confident, you know, reducing that stress, reducing that anxiety so that she can go in there and she can just play, do her thing. And then the rest is, is not up to her. Like she can just relax knowing, Hey, I gave it my all, I played my best. I did. As well as I could, I showcase my skills to the best of my ability. And now it's on the coaches to make that decision. Not on me. Okay. So knowing that we, look at trial preparation in three different phases. So before, during and after tryouts, it's kind of like what we talk about in the elite competitor program for the mom's side, we talk about, enabling and equipping our athletes with confidence before, during and after they compete. So we're drawing on that. If you want more of an in-depth look on. What really moves the needle and your daughter's confidence before, during, and after she competes, make sure to check out our free training for sports moms. So that's a train her game. Dot com that training goes in-depth into, you know, what can you actually say? And do, in those three phases to really impact how your daughter feels before she goes out and compete. So that would be a really good thing for you to go check out before she has into her tryouts, because all of those things that we talk about in there. Would apply to this situation as well. So that's that train her game.com. Okay. So let's talk first about before tryouts. What we tell athletes is that we want you to go in. Feeling like you are comfortable and confident with your surroundings and that you have a plan. And obviously your athlete is going to just follow the lead of whatever activity she's going to be doing in her trout. But there are some things that she can do to prepare. So we utilize visualization and just the familiarity of wherever she's competing in. Is actually very helpful to help put our athletes in the situations that they're potentially going to be in. So research shows that athletes can actually recruit the same neurotransmitters and fire, the same neural pathways. When they're visualizing as if they're doing it in real life. So we can actually pull on the research in this area to help prepare athletes mentally for what they're about to face. So if your athlete knows where she's going to try out, I find it helpful to actually just orient herself with her surroundings. Meaning if, you know, go to the gym, go to the place, like just kind of. Be there. And I know this isn't always possible, but if she can just know, like, all right, I'm going to be trying out in this gym or on this field, like do a drive by just get a sense of what it looks like. So that, that stress isn't. Layered on, you know, the stress of the unknown. And once we know kind of what the environment looks like, I tell athletes spend just, you know, two to three minutes leading up to your tryout, just visualizing yourself, going through. The skills that you're going to be doing in that tryout and see yourself performing them confidently. To the best of your ability, see yourself even recovering from a mistake. High-fiving your teammates. Having a lot of energy. All of those things that coaches are going to be looking for, which we'll talk about during the tryout, see yourself doing those things. Because when we do that, our athletes, and this is a skill that we utilize a lot inside our program for athletes. But when your athletes do that, they're just setting themselves up to replicate what they saw in their mind when they're out there competing. Okay. And so that is just a simple thing that athletes can be doing two to three minutes as they're leading up to their tryout. The other thing, if your athlete is struggling with maybe some feelings of stress anxiety, as they're leading up to this training. One thing is parents. We just want to make sure that we are not adding on extra pressure and extra stress. So you can infuse, as leading up to the trout infuse as much. Support and positivity as you can. And this could be as simple as reassuring her of her positive innate qualities. We talk about that in the program too. So things that you know about your athletes. That aren't related to the outcomes or really even her sport in general things like, Hey, I know you're a hard worker. I see you're preparing for this tryout, go out and do your best. Let go of the rest, things like that. And then also. I can't overstate this enough, but your athlete needs to know that no matter what team they make, or if they make the team or not, that you love and support them. Regardless. That nothing that they can do out there can change your love for them. And I know that might sound obvious. But I hear from so many athletes who have this enormous pressure from their parents and their parents are kind of unknowingly putting this on them. That I need to make this certain team or else, or, I need to make varsity or else. And oftentimes athletes are saying things like, I just want to go out and I just want to play, they might have goals of what team they want to make, depending on the level of competitiveness of your athlete. But. We don't need to be our extra expectations onto our athletes. And honestly they're going to play better if we're not adding on that expectation. So things that are in her control, like her work ethic, her attitude, her preparation, leading up to tryouts, all of those things. We want to infuse into our athletes as they're preparing for this moment. Okay. so that's kind of the, before tryouts, also kind of a buckets into us before trust is kind of a tangible thing is just arrive early. You know, that just helps with the stress of the tryout. Get there early athletes should introduce themselves to the coaches, helps establish that connection, ensure they're on the coach's radar. Maybe make sure that you're connecting with a few teammates. Coaches also love to see that you are a good teammate and that you are connecting with other people. Another, just like tip. Now, this is not going to obviously put your daughter on a higher team than potentially she's capable of. Like, that's not what this tip will do, but it's helpful as a coach myself, if athletes are wearing. You know, a bright color shirt or something that identifies them so that they stand out a little bit. Again, just a little tip because as coaches are doing kind of that evaluation. Things like that actually stand out like, oh yeah. The girl in the bright pink shirt. Yes. Oh, Kelly. Ah, yeah, I remember her. She was doing a great job of, showing effort in that place. So just a little tip again. It's not going to put her on a team that she. Like a higher or lower or anything like that, it just helps her to become easily identifiable. All right. Let's move to during the tryout. So your daughter has prepared, you know, you have been infusing this positivity, this support, maybe even beforehand, I forgot to mention this, but level set, some expectations for your athlete sit down with her. Hey, what are your goals for the trout? What team are you trying to make? And again, not putting your expectations on it, but just having her kind of. Work through that and okay, well, why do you want to make that team, you know, just have her explore that a little bit so that she could go into tryouts feeling prepared. It's okay for her to have a goal. And it's okay. If that goal maybe is a little bit, if in your eyes you're like, Ooh, that might be a little bit high that's okay. Like, that's the goal. Now we move it to a right. What's in your control as you work towards that goal. So instead of like, I only want to make this team it's all right. What work can I put in? As I lead up to that tryout mentally and physically. Physically so that I'm prepared to do my best and control what I can control. Okay. During the tryouts, I tell athletes, focus on your strengths. Okay, your athlete is not going to be perfect in every sense of the game. And that's actually not what coaches are looking for. They're looking for somebody who is strong in certain categories so that they can fill their team if we're talking a team sport. And so rather than focusing on your weaknesses or getting like bummed out about things that maybe you're not good at, I tell athletes like select two or three skills that you can now even like one to two that you now and Excel and showcase them confidently. I'll tell you just from like the volleyball perspective. If I have somebody that I'm looking at for like the Libera or defensive specialist position, I'm not as concerned that they're a, great hitter. You know, I want to see that they can swing at the ball. They're taking risks and being aggressive, but really I'm looking at their pursuit. I'm looking at their attitude. I'm looking at their leadership and in the back row, I'm looking at, their serve receive platform, you know, things like that. So don't get hung up athletes if you're like, well, I'm not great at this part. That's okay. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't still work on it, but really decide like, what are those two to three or even. One skill that I'm really going to nail and showcase confidently in this tryout. Also taking calculated risks is something that we encourage. It helps athletes stand out. And demonstrate to go beyond their comfort zone. Remember, it's not the mistake that matters. You're going to make mistakes and try outs athletes. Okay. It's crucial though, that you take risks and you make those mistakes. But what coaches are looking for is how do you respond to the mistake? Do you get beat up? Are you down? Do you make more mistakes afterwards? Do you kind of turn your back on people or do you take that risk, take that mistake and then you own it. And you're like, Hey, I got the next one and you're backing it and taking that swing again or taking that risk again. That's what coaches are looking for because they can coach you on the technical part, but you are in control of your response to mistakes and how quickly you bounce back. And so we teach athletes a snapback routine. That's really helpful in these situations inside the program. We also touch on that inside our free training for sports moms. So check that out as well as sports moms, if you have time before her tryout so that you have some tangible things that she can do. That's at train her game.com. Okay. Let's see what else during tryouts? obviously like these intangible things that coaches are looking for hustling is critical. Running between stations, being the first to volunteer, displaying that strong work ethic and dedication simple things that are like not directly. Her skill are the things that will help her stand out. So the great part about that is that's totally in her control. Your daughter can't control what the coach's decisions are. Can't control, you know, the other people on the team and how their trout is going. You know, all of those things are wasted effort. If she's choosing to put her energy there where she can put her energy and where it does make a difference is showing that she is coachable. That she's a good teammate, that she works hard, that she takes risks, that she responds to mistakes. All of those are the things that she can a hundred percent control and actually positively influence in her outcome. So the during tryout phase is just making sure that. Athletes are showcasing their strengths. They're working hard. They're resetting from mistakes and setbacks or being good teammates. Like all of those are going to be really key and tryouts. Okay. After tryouts. What I tell athletes is thank your coaches. Thank your trout evaluators. taking that time, demonstrates their respect and, you know, effort for putting in and leading these tryouts as well. It also is one of those things that helps them stand out. You can if it's appropriate ask for feedback, but right after trout is typically not an appropriate time to say, Hey, what can I improve on and less, coaches open up that opportunity to do that. tryouts are typically something where coaches are making tough decisions and they're really working through a lot of what they're seeing. So, asking for feedback after a trial in less it's like sometimes I've been at tryouts where it's a formal or it's a set up situation where feedback is given. You know, sometimes athletes or coaches give athletes and evaluation of their skills. And that would be an appropriate time for asking, asking for feedback, but I wouldn't go up to a coach right after trial and just say like, Hey, how do you think I did. Type of thing. Okay. Now reflecting more on the athlete side of things on what they can do. Reflecting after that is important, your athlete is going to pick out all the things that she did wrong in that trout. She is going to be like, oh my gosh, you messed up. And the coach was watching me, all of this. Okay. Your job as a parent, talking to the parent now is just to let her vent, let her get it out. Don't try and fix it. Don't try and like tell her, oh no, that's not true just listen and validate and say, you know, I know you really wanted to perform your best at that tryout. Oh. And you were bummed that in that moment, maybe you weren't performing your best. Okay. Like just report back. And then we simply move to this. Okay. Yeah. There are some things that maybe didn't go how you wanted it in that trout, but what did go, how you want it to go? What went well? Where were you doing a good job where we proud of yourself and, getting them to just appropriately evaluate their performance is a skill. And, ,because we automatically, our athletes automatically will go to all of the negative. Okay. So having your athletes. Just reflect. Okay. Yeah. There were some things that didn't go well, there ways that I messed up. This is what I would do differently next time. But where are the things where I did really nail it? And then ultimately it's out of her control, like after a trial, your athlete should be experiencing like this big relief, like. I put it all out there. I did all I could do. And now it's up to the coaches to make that decision. And no matter what team you make, or if you make the team or not it honestly does not make you less of a person or more of a person, depending on what happens. All you can do is control your effort. Your training, all you can do is take that feedback of whatever team you make. And if athletes make a team that they didn't want to make, then that's a great opportunity to then ask the coach. Where were my skills coming up short so that they can really be focused on where they improve. Every single opportunity. Like this is a really great way for your athlete to learn a skill of how to navigate disappointment, how to navigate. Achieving goals, you know, all of these things are huge life skills that we don't want to skip out on. And if your daughter doesn't make the team that she wants to make, I want you to pause. And before you jump in and. You know, trying to email the coach or talk to the coach or whatever. Or blame other people. I want you to pause and just take it as, okay. This is an opportunity for my daughter to grow as an athlete and as a person, where's the opportunity here. And in a lot of times, the most growth from athletes comes from those times where maybe they don't make the team that they want to make. And they're having to really look at, okay, where can I improve? Where could I do better? Where can I reevaluate my goals? So this is a good learning opportunity to now, if your daughter does make the team, she wants to make, that's a good opportunity to, so we have to ask like, what prepared me to achieve that goal, to get what I wanted to get. And we celebrate that, but then also as parents, we're going to move it back to what is in your control. What is in her control that led to making that team. Cause sometimes it's like, oh, we made the team and then we move on and you know, oh, great. Okay. Let's not move past this without recognizing what she did, that was in her control. Okay. So that's after the tryouts, and kind of, depending on what happens there. Now again, parents, you play a big role in just supporting your athlete through this whole process. Ensure that they have a plan that leading up to the trout where they feel confident. If you have more of a runway, then you can actually sit down with your athlete and say, okay, I hear you. Your goal is to make varsity this year. What do you think you need to do in order to put you in the best position to do that? Okay. We have four weeks. What are your ideas? How can I support you? To prepare you for this and really work with her to come up with a plan. Because if you just hear, I want to make varsity and then you see she's not putting in the work. Now you're getting frustrated and you're like you said, you want to make Farsi, but you're not doing anything. She likely doesn't know what she's supposed to do or needs to do so brainstorm with her. And also it's her goal, not yours. If she's not working towards her goal, then she's going to have the natural consequence of not achieving that goal. And that is okay too. You don't need to take on all of the stress and everything that's associated with that. Asking her, how can I support you? Or I noticed that you said you wanted to make varsity, but I also noticed that you're having a hard time sticking to the schedule that you set out for yourself. How can I support you? That is your role. It's not to take over her goal and come up with exactly how she's going to achieve it. Okay. So, reminders there, and then also don't add that pressure onto her to make a certain team reminding her that you love her, regardless of what happens out there. And can't overemphasize that enough just because of this. Landscape that we have right now. Where athletes are feeling so much pressure from a lot of different areas, but sometimes from their parents where they feel like they have to make a certain team in order to not let their parents down. And sometimes parents are like, I never said that, but they're sending some cues and some messaging around that. Okay. So I hope this was helpful as a start. For parents. How you can help support your athlete. She has into tryouts for athletes. If you're listening some cues and some tips that really can help you. Navigate tryouts. Remember just all that's in your control. When it comes to a tryout is how hard you're working, how great of a teammate you're being. Your skills. Your effort in demonstrating and showcasing your skills. And then at responding to mistakes and failure quickly. Other than that it's not in your control anymore. So let go of that stress and don't compare, don't read into things of what you think your coaches are writing down on their clipboard or anything like that. All of that stuff is actually going to make you play worse. So you got to put the blinders on, do your thing, and let go of the rest. All right. I am coach Bree, and I will see you in the next episode of the raising unstoppable grow athletes podcast.