If you have ever been at a loss for words before your athlete competes trying to figure out the words to say to build her confidence, yet she is nervous or irritable or not wanting to hear it from you, then today's episode is for you. We're talking about the five pre-game phrases that every girl athlete needs before they compete. That will help them build confidence. So. This is designed to be a quick hit episode where you can take these five phrases and apply it to your athlete's pre-game like tonight. So I'm excited to dive into it so that you don't have to be left with a loss for words or worse, making things even harder for your athlete and harder for yourself before she goes out and place. If I haven't met you, I'm Coach Bre I'm a mental performance coach for athletes and also the host of the Raising Elite Competitors podcast. This podcast is for you. If you are looking to raise a mentally strong, confident girl athlete, and part of that is the words that you say to her in order to try and build her confidence and pre-game is a really important time to do this. And I often find that it's a challenging time because your athlete's nervous. Maybe she is irritable and she's not wanting to hear things from you or the things that you are saying seem to make it worse and then you're kind of stuck in this place where like, do I just. Stay silent. So we're gonna clear all that up in today's episode. But before I do, I wanna get a shout out to a mom in our community. Speaking of saying things and using phrases that are helpful to your athlete, Jamie said this, I used some of the phrases that you taught us with her this past weekend before her indoor game, and she scored a goal. Her coach had her play both defense and offense, and even sent me a text after the game complimenting her on how well she played in both positions. Now you're like, oh my gosh. I could just like say some magic words and my daughter is going to score goals and be amazing. Now, there's a lot of other things that go into great performance from your athlete, but what you say to her before like, Jamie joined a program and her daughter hasn't even actually. Started the athlete trainings yet. Her mom is only actually starting her own part of the program. So when your athlete joins the elite mental game, they get their trainings, but also there's a whole parent side on how to best support your athlete daughter. Jamie was only doing her side and she was like, okay, I can tweak this and tweak that. And she was seeing some results already. So that leads us into this. Whole idea that your words actually matter more than you think. And let's talk first about what your athlete doesn't need before a game. They don't need pep talks. They don't need last minute coaching. They don't need reminders. Like all of these things that we think are really helpful coming from us. Like, Hey, just remember this. Or this team that you're playing, this person, especially if you're like new and you've coached the sport before you've played it, you like wanna give them pointers because, you know, it could be helpful, but honestly it makes it worse and actually adds more pressure to your athlete. They also don't need your nerves. If you're like me, you're probably nervous a little bit yourself, and you can definitely impact how your athlete is feeling based on how you're feeling. They pick up on those things. So what do they need? They need simple. Confidence boosting words to help them actually focus on things that are in their control. What I actually tell parents in our program is you're going to find the phrase that you are gonna say over and over again. And it might be the thing that, like it takes them a little bit to figure out, but it's gonna be like your go-to thing that your athlete is gonna come to expect from you. And it honestly becomes a thing that they can fall back on that they remember eventually. And it's just. Going to be this routine thing that's part of their pre-game routine. But it does need to be short. It needs to be simple, and it needs to be focused on what's in their control. So I'm gonna give you five examples of what you can be saying pre-game. You don't obviously have to use these word for word. There is no magic phrase. There is no magic word that you can say that's gonna automatically make your athlete play better and not have nerves. I mean, There's two parts to it. She also needs to do her work on her mental game so that she's having a pre-game routine and she's locked in like. you can't deny that you can't actually be in her head. But your calm presence and keeping things short and what's in their control is really the best thing that you can do to set her up. So first one, here's a simple one. Trust your training. Okay. I love this one because it reminds athletes that they have trained for this moment, okay, you've put in the work now go play. There's no extra pressure to be more than you already are. Trust your training, so I love that one. You can tweak this and really any of them to fit and suit your style. Number two, nerves means this matters. Okay. A lot of athletes are nervous. A lot of athletes are experiencing anxiety inside the elite mental game, which is our self-paced online mental training program for girl athletes. We talk about reframing nerves from this is bad to nerves mean that I'm ready and that registering that as excitement in your body. So nerves means matter. Like If you're feeling nervous, that's energy. Use it. And so just reminding them of like, Hey, your body's actually preparing you. For this moment, and then it's really helpful when athletes have skills to use if they are super nervous. So we teach athletes breath work routines that they can use. We teach them simple visualizations. We teach them a pregame routine so that they can actually utilize those nerves and it's not too much where it's impacting their performance negatively. Okay. Number three. I love this one too. You're not alone. Your team, your coaches and I have your back. Sometimes just a reminder of like, you know what? You've got this and we've got you, is just a great reminder. Go out, do your thing. Is really wonderful on the do your thing. I also love that like, just do you we teach athletes in our program like to be brie or be whatever their name is, and that has meaning to them because they get to decide the athlete that they want to be and what it means to be Bre or be Laura or be Charlie. You like that means to them like, okay. Yeah. This athlete that I am is aggressive, fierce, comes back from mistakes and just a reminder of I just need to be me out there. Four, I love to watch you play. If you haven't already heard that one, add that one to your repertoire because that's always a great one. Just, I love to watch you play. Go out there, do your thing. I love to watch it. Okay. No pressure. Just enjoy the game. And that doesn't mean that there's not like. Standards and expectations. Like your athlete already knows the weight of the game and how important it is, especially if it's a big game, and so just kind of saying like, I'm here to just enjoy. Watching you is wonderful because a lot of athletes tie how they feel about the performance to what their parents think about them. And a lot of parents that I talk to are like, I would've never put that, I would never put that pressure on them that they do it themselves. And so just reminding them that no matter what you do out there, I love you. No matter how, like if you win or lose or whatever, like not my love for you does not change. Okay. And then number five. I just love this one. Don't suck. Okay. If that's not your vibe, don't say it. But humor goes a long way. And if so, if you have something funny that you like to say to your daughter this is a good time.'cause humor is great to help her kind of refocus, like laughter is a really great. Stress reliever as well. So if you have something like that to take the edge off, and again this is why I say like, tweak this because maybe your relationship does have some sarcasm and some humor in it, and just saying something like, Hey, don't suck is a good thing for you and her. So those are five. I'll run through those really quick. Trust your training nerves mean this matters. You're not alone. Your teammates, coaches, and I have your back. I love to watch you play. Be Bre or do you don't suck. I think that's about six. Okay. So those are things that you can take, you can tweak. The key premise here though is that she doesn't need long pep talks. She doesn't need reminders, she doesn't need coaching. She just needs you, your calm presence and simple words that are focused on what's in her control. Now, I will say that post-game is actually more important than pre-game. So what's going on with you and your athlete after the game in the car ride home? This is actually one of the most. Essential times for her and for her confidence. A lot of athletes remember that car ride home and not for a good reason. So if you wanna find our, quick tips and the things that we recommend that you say, and actually our love framework, LOVE, is a framework that we recommend that you use. In that post game time and especially in the car ride home, check out our free training for sports parents. It's at train her game.com. And so we break that framework down, but also when you join that training, we give you our list of 25 key phrases to say. Now we give you a list of phrases to say before game. A lot of. Those that I talked about today were pulled from that cheat sheet. And then also post game, we just give you like a cheat sheet that you can take with you to the game, kind of like look at them before your daughter gets in the car so that you're prepared. So, That's at train her game.com to register for that free training. And when you join live, when you join that training, you get that 25 key phrases. So definitely check that out so that we can close the loop on this and you can also be supporting your athlete postgame. All right, moms, I hope that this was helpful. Let me know how it goes. Like Are you going to try one of these? You can DM me. I'm at Elite Competitor Coach on Instagram. So you can find me there. You can email me at hello at Elite Competitor. I would love to hear, how's it going? Are you gonna shift some of these things? And how does your athlete respond? All right, moms, I'll see you in the next episode of the Raising Elite Competitors podcast.