Mental training in soccer: Long-term motivation

A guest contribution from our expert and soccer mental trainer Patrick Thiele on the topic of motivation in soccer

“How do I stay motivated in the long term?” — This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions on Google in the area of training and goal achievement.

But why?

Because long-term motivation is so difficult? Because not everyone can be motivated in the long term?

No

Because we often take the wrong approach to our goals and don't know exactly how motivation really works in soccer.

So let's see together what you can really do to stay motivated in soccer and training in the long term. Let's improve your performance on the pitch together with mental training in soccer.

Do you always have to be highly motivated?

But before we start, you can say goodbye to a belief: “I always have to be highly motivated!”

No, you don't have to.

Motivation comes and goes, and even the best players in the world aren't highly motivated every day. They have only learned not to make excuses and still train even on days when their motivation is not as strong.

That is exactly the difference:

We often use our lack of motivation as an excuse.

But with the right goals, techniques and mental strength, you can do your thing without much motivation.

Mental training tip 1 for motivation in soccer: Set yourself intermediate goals

Let's start with your goals. Why do you even play soccer? What do you want to achieve?

You'll probably be able to answer these questions relatively quickly because you're not asking yourself them for the first time.

How do you set yourself intermediate goals?

But how does it look with Interim goals off? What about monthly, weekly, and daily goals? What about goals away from goals, points and titles?

Motivation depends on your “why,” the reason or the big vision why you play in the first place and want to be successful. But you have to feed this motivation again and again with small goals.

It is not enough to say: “I want to be a professional soccer player!” or “I want to be top scorer this year!”

You need to know how to achieve these goals in practice and set yourself small interim goals over and over again to ensure that you are moving forward. This is how mental training works in soccer.

Intermediate goals explained using an example

In the example of the top scorer, it could look like this:

So you set yourself your big goal and then think about it very carefully:

What do I have to do every day/week/every game/every training session to achieve this big goal?

In this way, you can break down any goal, no matter how big, into small steps and achieve small goals almost every day. Because that is exactly the positive effect of small goals.

Step by step towards the big goal - systematic mental training in soccer

Every time you've achieved one of these goals, you've taken a step forward and that feels good. Every goal achieved, no matter how small, is a success and motivates you.

It is therefore also important to recognize again and again that these small successes exist.

My tip: Introduce Success Diary. In the journal, you only answer two simple questions every day:

Which three successes did I celebrate today or what were three things that I did really well today? What can I do even better tomorrow?

This not only increases your motivation, but also demonstrably your concentration and self-confidence — as brain researcher Ian Robertson has proven. Mental training in soccer therefore also works excellently from a scientific point of view.

Mental training tip 2 for motivation in soccer: Set yourself goals for action

But it goes even further.

In addition to setting intermediate goals, you should also make sure that your goals aren't just designed for in-game results. You can never 100% control the outcome of a game and the course of a season yourself.

It can therefore happen that your goals suddenly disappear because games are canceled, your coach benches you or you are unable to play due to an injury. What then?

Action goals explained using an example

Many players lose their motivation at this very point because they were not prepared for it.

However, you can easily avoid this by, in addition to your results goals, Performance and action goals Set up.

You have the latter under your own control and are therefore independent of external factors.

Here is a small example:

How do you set goals for yourself?

Result goals therefore relate specifically to your games. Performance and action goals are independent of your game stakes and fundamentally make you a better player.

Die Objectives for action are automatically derived from the performance goals.

If you know which performance you want to improve, this immediately results in a concrete action for your training plan.

Your goal should always include all three types of goals. This means that even with game postponements, cancellations or the like, you still have goals that you can focus on and that motivate you.

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