15 Resilience Skills to Teach Your Athletes
Resiliency is the ability to adapt to difficult and stressful situations.
With the overwhelming stresses of competition, teaching players resilience skills is essential for their individual success and keeping the team together during challenging moments. Studies have even shown that resilience is the key skill for athletes to be successful in sports (Holt &Dunn, 2004; Hosseini & Besharat, 2010; Meggs et al., 2016; Mills et al, 2012; Van Yperen, 2009).
To be resilient means we may experience unpleasant emotions – anxiety, fear, anger, pain – but we are still able to function and compete at a high-level — both physically and psychologically.
Just like players practice their serve before a tournament, players must practice and build up these resiliency skills before they are needed in competition.
1) Shake It Off
Excess energy can get stored in our bodies. Moving our bodies around (or shaking parts of our body) can help get this energy out and calm our nervous system.
Shaking out our hands or arms is a great physical representation of shaking off a bad play – getting rid of bad energy and refocusing on the next point with better intention.
Example: Zulal, a libero, gets aced on a hard serve. Instead of dwelling on it, she shakes out her arms and focuses her attention and energy on the next serve.
2) Focused Breathing
When we are in a stressed state, our breathing unconsciously becomes shallow – excess carbon dioxide builds up in our lungs, and our brains and muscles do not get enough oxygen to function at a high-level.
Deep breathing relaxes our muscles, allowing them to move and respond quicker. A relaxed muscle is a strong muscle.
Focusing on our breathing also brings us back to the present moment, reigning in an anxious mind that may be worrying about future points or replaying past mistakes.
- A powerful technique is square breathing (4 seconds inhale, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds exhale, 4 seconds hold).
Example: It is 14-13 in the finals of a U12 tournament and the other team takes a timeout. Instead of a traditional huddle, you have your players close their eyes while you lead them through square breathing. The team goes back to the court relaxed, connected, and focused on the upcoming point.
3) Take It One Point at a Time
The score does not matter. Past errors (and successes) do not matter. And the future does not exist.
All of our attention must be on the upcoming point.
Each point is its own separate battle. It is a powerful tool for breaking an opposing team’s momentum, as well as motivating our team to keep pushing points with our serve.
The expectation is the team plays at their highest level for every point.
4) Positive Self-Talk
We deserve to have a really great relationship with ourselves.
Our internal voice should help us through our lives, supporting and encouraging us to accomplish our goals. Positive self-talk improves self-esteem and stress management, and has a huge impact on our thoughts, mood, actions, and motivations.
Engaging in positive self-talk can encourage us to be the best version of ourselves regardless of the situation and can help us persevere through even the most challenging times.
Example: “I can do this. I trust myself. I believe in myself. I am proud of myself. I am trying my best. I will get the next point.”
5) Be Your Own Best Friend
We are often kinder and more considerate to our friends than we are to ourselves.
We are also more realistic with them. Sometimes positivity isn’t the thing that will motivate us – maybe we need to buckle down and get focused. Or hold ourselves accountable. What things would we say to our best friend who was going through the challenges we are facing?
We can learn to coach ourselves by discovering what we need to hear (and tell ourselves) in order to perform at our best.
Example: “I know I’m tired, but I can dig deeper.”
6) Stay Connected to Others
Volleyball is a team sport, played at the individual level.
The best teams win, not the best players. And the best teams stay together through everything – every ace, every error; every kill, every missed call. Never isolate yourself and do not allow teammates to isolate themselves.
Example: Konst misses his serve into the net on game-point, forcing a fifth set. He is upset with himself and walks off to be alone. His teammates follow and pull him into a huddle, rallying around him, and restore his confidence in himself. They win the fifth set.
7) Remember What Is Controllable
There are very few things in this world that are actually under our control.
We cannot control if our teammate making an error, but we can control how supportive we are in helping them bounce back.
We cannot control the referees’ or line judges’ missed calls, but we can control how we respond to it.
We cannot control if we win, but we can control how much we want to win, how hard we work to prepare, and how determined we are to fight for each point.
Attention is energy. Emotions are energy. Focus energy on things within our control and let everything else go.
8) Non Judgemental Awareness
Non judgemental awareness is the ability to consider our thoughts, feelings, and actions without judging them as good or bad.
It is the ability to accept the reality of the situation and say, “it is what it is.” Accepting reality does not mean you like it.
Example: Players serve 10 times and reports to the coach how many were successful
- A player may feel dejected if their expectations do not meet up with reality, or embarrassed if they were less successful than their teammates
- Remove the moral judgement and do not attach emotions to the result – “It is not good; it is not bad. It just is what it is. And now that we see what it is, we can take steps to improve and get better.”
9) Identify (Name) Emotions and Accept Them
Increasing players’ emotional intelligence helps them understand how their emotions affect their performance.
Players who are more aware of their emotions are better able to recognize negative (unproductive) emotions and take steps to manage them better. Identifying and naming the specific emotions that come up creates space from them, allowing us to coexist with them peacefully.
Acceptance means being aware of our emotions and accepting them for what they are right now, knowing that they will pass.
Example: Christina is a setter competing in the state finals tomorrow. She talks with her mom about her feelings, sharing that it will be the biggest game of her career and that she is both nervous and scared. Christina goes to sleep peacefully, with her feelings and thoughts in alignment.
10) Change Nervousness to Excitement
At every level – whether it is a local U12 tournament or the State Championship – there will always be a rush of emotions leading up to a competition.
The physiological responses that our bodies go through (butterflies, sweaty palms, attention fixation) are signals that something important to us is coming up and to pay attention on it. These are the same bodily responses for when we feel excited – the only difference is how we choose to interpret the signals.
Instead of thinking you are nervous, tell yourself you are excited for the upcoming challenge.
11) Journal Before Competition
Journaling is a great outlet for identifying and naming emotions before a competition.
Writing down our emotions creates distance from them, allowing us to see them objectively and not be overwhelmed by them. Using a prompt can be helpful to get started, but allowing player freedom to free write (or draw), lets them process and move through their emotions in their own way.
Journaling is also very useful for tracking a players’ mental strength progress, letting them look back on how they felt before previous competitions.
12) Don’t Believe Everything You Think
Just because a thought enters our mind does not mean that it is true.
Most of the time, our thoughts are just a story we tell ourselves to make sense of our conscious experience – our brains trying to make sense of the stimuli that our sensory organs are receiving from the external world.
Example: Bella has a thought that she won’t play well in her game tonight. She recognizes that it is just a thought, dismisses it, and moves on with her day.
13) Reframe Problems as Challenges
We struggle with problems. We rise to challenges.
Reframing problems into challenges will activate a growth mindset, changing our attitude and motivation to overcome them.
14) Change the Story
Everything is a story.
Increasing players’ self-awareness helps them understand how the story they tell themselves affect their performance, motivation, and over well-being. When we become aware that the story we are telling ourselves is not a positive one, (“I can’t serve over the net”) we can choose a better story.
2 Changes for a Growth Mindset
- “I can’t serve over the net, yet.”
or - “I am currently struggling with serving over the net.”
- “I can’t serve over the net, yet.”
Example:
- Michael Jordan once told a story of how, before an important playoff game, an opponent was disrespectful to him, and he took it personally, fueling his dominating play the next night
- The twist? It never happened. Jordan created a make-believe story (and convinced himself it happened) in order to bring out the competitive side of himself
- The greatest athletes know themselves and consciously choose stories that make them better
15) Remember the Journey
The greatest skill a player can have is a growth mindset.
A growth mindset enables players to be coachable and curious; to keep perspective and remember that we are building toward something bigger than just today.
A growth mindset allows us to enjoy the struggle. Struggle is just another word for growth. The journey is better than the destination. And those who love the journey will go further than those who love the destination.
You have a long career as a volleyball player, as an athlete, as a human being. Always be growing, always be evolving, always be striving to be better than you used to be. Never be a finished product. Keep learning. Keep trying.