The Importance of Soccer Psychology
Jaki Hitzelberger, co-creator of SoccerPsychologyTips.com, grew up in Orlando, Florida where she played competitive soccer throughout her life. Jaki played both division 1 and division 2 college soccer and was a scholarship athlete. Jaki earned a masters in Mental Health Counseling and specializes in Sports Psychology. Her lifetime experience in soccer has given her the awareness of how the mental aspect of soccer can either help or hurt performance. Jaki’s goal for Soccer Psychology Tips is to give all athletes the mental edge they need to compete at their best and get the most enjoyment out of sports.
When I played competitive soccer in college, sports psychology was not as well accepted or utilized as it is today. Now that I’ve earned my masters in counseling and specialize in sports psychology, I realize how important mental training is to players’ performance. Throughout club and into collegiate soccer, I was exposed to many different facets of training, such as speed, strength, fitness, technical, and tactical training programs.
A missing link in my training was sports psychology for soccer. Coping with pressure, blocking out distractions, reducing anxiety and tension, believing in your ability are super important to a player’s success.
Why are these factors so important?
Well if you’re a competitive soccer player, you may relate to my story. I really wanted to WIN! Winning was so important that it created a lot of pressure to play great every day.
Why is Sports Psychology for Soccer Important?
I personally was very hard on myself, expected perfection, and was often unsatisfied with my performance. The same mental game qualities that push soccer athletes to become successful, such as dedication and competitiveness, can turn into mental barriers to success. Many soccer players focus too much on results or outcomes, perform with low confidence, do not mentally prepare well, and are afraid to fail.
If you want to perform your best, you must have a good mental game. The pressure I put on myself did drive me to work very hard and earn a college scholarship. However, at times, the harder I tried to succeed (because I wanted it so badly), the more my performance would suffer. My lifelong involvement in soccer was an amazing experience and has taught me many valuable lessons, though sports psychology for soccer would have really helped me and should be an important part every athlete’s training.
At SoccerPsychologyTips.com, Dr. Cohn and I will provide cutting edge tips and strategies for competitive soccer players. Competitive soccer can sometimes feel like a battlefield because of the amount of training and pressure you feel to succeed. You want to learn how to overcome mental game barriers so you can perform your best and get the most out of your soccer performance!
~Jaki Hitzelberger, MA
Download our free e-book, “7 Mental Game Challenges that Block Soccer Player’s Success”, and learn how to overcome other mental game barriers soccer players face.
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- How to Overcome Mistakes in Soccer
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