Daydreaming

Another technique I learned to improve my mental part of the game is to think and visualize what I am going to do in my next game before the day of the game. By doing this I can have positive thoughts instead of negative thoughts. This will also help me remember my mistakes and if I know the mistakes I have done before, I will most likely make less mistakes. In the book Soccer Tough, Dan Abrahams said, “But the group that used both practice combined with “picture throwing” improved by up to 165 points: an incredible improvement and a remarkable difference between the mentally trained group and the group who just trained physically” (Abrahams 28). This quote helped me realize the importance of both training physically and mentally because before I started reading this book I was only doing physical training which helped me improve my skills but not my confidence but now that I am learning techniques to help my mental part of the game my confidence has also improved. Abrahams also said in the book that Wayne Rooney, a professional soccer player was probably imagining himself scoring goals and making runs the day before the game (30). Because of this quote I started using this technique before my practices and games because if a world class striker is using this technique and it’s helping him than it can really help me improve my physical and mental game. In the picture below I am thinking about how I am going to play at my practice tomorrow, like what are the things I am going to try to improve on.

Do you think imagining yourself playing in game a day before your game will affect you in a negative or positive way?

Abrahams, Dan. Soccer Tough: Simple Football Psychology Techniques to Improve Your Game. Birmingham, UK: Bennion Kearny, 2012. Print.