Encore: Simple Go-To Phrases to Use to Boost Your Athlete's Confidence Today

Have you ever wondered if the words you say to your daughter could help boost her confidence as an athlete? In this episode, I share practical, go-to phrases you can use to support your daughter in her sport and life. Whether she’s preparing for a big game, processing a tough loss, or just navigating day-to-day challenges, these tips will help you build her confidence and strengthen her mental game.

What’s Covered in This Episode:

• How your words can shape your daughter’s confidence on and off the field.
• Simple phrases to boost confidence during:
  • Day-to-Day: Highlighting her positive qualities beyond her sport.
  • Pre-Game: Encouraging focus with short, impactful phrases.
  • Post-Game: Supporting her through wins and losses with the LOVE framework.
• How to validate your daughter’s feelings without reinforcing negativity.
• The importance of combining parental support with your athlete’s mental skills training.
• Practical examples like the “snapback routine” to help her bounce back from mistakes.

Ready to Learn More? Listen to this episode for actionable strategies that will make a real difference in your athlete’s confidence and resilience. Plus, find out how you can get access to a free training and a cheat sheet with 25 confidence-boosting phrases!

Episode Highlights: 

[0:00] Introduction to boosting athletes' confidence through simple phrases.

[01:00] Shoutout to Renata and her success using mental training tools.

[02:00] Importance of combining verbal communication with athlete mental skills.

[03:00] Overview of the key focus: day-to-day, pre-game, and post-game confidence strategies.

[04:00] Encouraging athletes to develop self-trust and skills for overcoming setbacks.

[05:00] Highlighting positive qualities outside of sports to build confidence.

[06:00] Simple strategies like sticky notes and verbal affirmations for day-to-day encouragement.

[07:00] Using the phrase "I believe you" to validate athletes’ feelings.

[08:00] Adjusting responses to support athletes without reinforcing negative self-talk.

[09:00] Playful ways to engage teens and tweens in positive conversations.

[10:00] Pre-game strategies: keeping phrases short and focused on what's in their control.

[11:00] Examples of pre-game taglines and humor to ease nerves.

[12:00] Post-game reflections: emphasizing effort and controllable factors over outcomes.

[13:00] Supporting athletes' emotional processing after wins or losses.

[14:00] LOVE framework for post-game confidence building: Let her lead, Open the space, Validate feelings, Encourage inward.

[15:00] Examples of post-game questions to foster self-reflection and learning.

[16:00] Athletes' post-competition routines to build confidence objectively.

[17:00] Recap of day-to-day, pre-game, and post-game strategies with key takeaways.

[18:00] Reminder to download the free PDF with 25 key phrases at trainhergame.com.

Next Steps:

• Join our FREE Training for Sports Moms - How to Strengthen Your Athlete Daughter's Mental Game so She Believes in Herself as Much as You Do
• Visit our podcast website for more great episodes

Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission and leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the racing elite competitors podcast. I am coach Bree, a mental performance coach for girl athletes. And I'm so excited that you're here with me for today's episode. We're going to be talking about. Go-to phrases that you can just have in your back pocket to boost your athlete's confidence. I'm really excited about this is going to be a shorter episode because I really want this just to be to the point and actionable and things that you can just grab and apply, but we're going to actually be talking about, pre-competition post-competition and then just day-to-day how we can be using our words to increase our athletes confidence. Now. Backing up a little bit. If you are a sports parent, you are in the right place. Now, whether you are just getting, going on your daughter's sports journey, maybe she's a little bit on the younger end or you've got a lot of seasons under your belt. This podcast is for you. To help, you know, how to raise a confident and mentally strong girl athletes. And before we get into today's episode, I want to highlight a mom who was doing just that inside our signature self-paced mental training program, the elite mental game. And this program is for girl athletes, proven to increase their mental strength and confidence. It's accessible through an easy to use and totally athlete friendly platform that she can access wherever she wants. And Renata is the mom that I want to give a shout out to. She said that she goes to this program is amazing giving her space just to be sad and labeling her sadness and disappointment helped her so much. Then when she was ready, we talked, we revisited her snapback routine and we did visualizations every day. This week, her coach said yesterday, she was much better. And my daughter texted you on her own and read me the response this morning. It's so hard to be a girl in this world sometimes so grateful for this support. So we're not a, it's highlighting a couple of things that actually we're going to hit on today. And that is how do we help build confidence in our athletes, by what we say, especially when they are disappointed or they are sad, or they're not happy with their performance. And Renata was able to use one of the strategies that I'm going to talk about today to help her daughter navigate that. But then she also helped her daughter access the tools that she already has available to her in the elite mental game, her snapback routine. This is our. Quick routine. The athlete's used in order to come back from mistakes in seconds, top, get them back in the present moment visualizations, which we know is proven, rooted in sport psychology to help athletes compete and perform their best. And what was really cool was that her coach notice her coach is noticing that her daughter is better and that's because we're not are, is using a two-pronged approach. Renata herself is knowing what to say and what to do to help her athlete. And then her daughter has skills that she's leaning on to help her as well. So when those two things come together, that's where the magic happens. So congratulations, we're not, I'm really happy for this win for you, for your daughter and keep sending in wins and progress. You're making. All right. Let's get into the episode for today. Talking about phrases that you can use to boost your athlete's confidence. Like I said, it really, when it comes to building confidence, your athlete, two things are what needs to come together in order for this to be most effective. The first is what you are saying. Your words are really important. Your verbal and your nonverbal communication is super important today. We're talking more about verbal and then her skills, or lack of determine her confidence. When I say skills, I mean, yeah, she's putting in the physical. Physical skills in her sport, but is she also developing the mental side of her sport as well? How is she talking to herself? What is her self talk? Like? What are her routines before? And after she competes to get herself ready and to process, does she have skills to come back from mistakes and setbacks in her sport? Because those are going to happen inevitably. And just telling her to shake it off or move on is not actually a mental framework for her to be able to work from. So does she have a skill, like the snapback routine that Renata was talking about? Does she have these skills that can help her through the ups and downs of her sport, because you're not going to be with her through everything. You're not on the court with her. You're not on the field with her. So she needs to have processes. She needs to be aware of when she's talking to herself in an unproductive way and a simple skill to shift that. So. When those two things come together. That's really where the magic happens. So in this episode, I'm talking about what you can do, your role and your verbal communication. But if you want to know more about how your daughter can develop these skills, that we could, the other half of this equation, make sure to check out our free training for sports moms. This is our quick, it's about 45 minutes of training. Plus I have some Q and a at the end where I lay it all out on how to strengthen her mental game. So that's that train her game, a.com you can register for your date and time. And it's just where I really laid it all out. So head there to get the other piece of this puzzle as well. All right, let's get into it. I have this divided into three sections. I have day-to-day confidence. Pre-game and post-game, those are kind of like the, three bigger buckets when it comes to your verbal communication. And when you're talking to your daughter, so day-to-day, this is where she spends like most of the time she's actually not spending most of her time actively in her sport, actively practicing and competing most of the time, she's just. Day-to-day hanging out doing the things that she does going to school, interacting with you, interacting with her friends all of that. That's her day-to-day time. And the big thing that we want to highlight in this time are her positive innate qualities. If you just did our, what to say, challenge with us a couple of weeks ago. You heard about this, this is basically who is your daughter outside of her sport. And one of the big ways that you can build her confidence is by highlighting who she is, not just what she does in her sport. A lot of athletes get this kind of cross. They're like I am my sport. I am what I do in my sport. And then their competence is tied to the ups and the downs that happened because when she does well, or she, when she's feeling really good about herself, she's feeling confident. But when she does it, which is inevitable, it's going to happen from a week to week basis. Likely she then is feeling really not confident in herself and in her abilities. And we don't really want her confidence to have those big dips. We want to kind of make that if we're looking at like a wave of an up and a down. We want the ups and the downs, the peaks. To be shortened, right? We want her to be able to have an underlying steady state of confidence that will guide her through those moments doesn't mean she's going to feel good all the time. Competence is not feeling good, but it's this sense of, yeah, I, maybe I did not practice well. However, I am confident in my ability to tomorrow go in and work on my weaknesses. I'm going to keep showing up. Not I didn't practice well, therefore I am not a good person or I don't deserve to feel good about myself. I'm just gonna be moping around for the next day and a half. Okay. Which I'm sure some of you have seen. So one way that we can build her confidence is by recognizing what she, who she is outside of her sport. So just even pulling those out, we tell moms like put a sticky note on her window or on her mirror. That says, like what something I love about you. Okay. I love your smile. I love how you can, bring humor to any situation. I love that you work hard, even when it's not easy. I love that you are a great teammate. You're an incredible listener. What are those qualities that you see in your daughter that are just who she is and pulling those out, sending her a text. You know, Dropping those in conversation. You might get kind of a like, what are you talking about, mom? Okay. But that's okay. Right. Our kids are always listening. They are sponges. They're picking up the words from their environment and included in that are your words to them. So. Highlighting her positive inequalities, finding ways where you can infuse just dropping those around is key another like day to day thing. As she's talking to you, another phrase that you can use is very simple. It's. I believe you. Okay. Now I believe in you. That's important to you. You can say that all you want, but I believe you is such a good competence building freights when your daughter's coming to you. And she's saying like, oh gosh, I had such a tough practice today. It felt like nothing I could do was right. I feel like my coach was being super hard on me and she was picking on me. Sometimes it's our nature to say things like what really was going on, or I'm sure that it's not as bad as you're making it sound. And we try and convince her out of this feeling. I mean, We all know why we do that. It's hard to see our kids not be positive and we don't want him to go down this route of like beating themselves up. But if we pause to say, I believe you. That is such an incredible competence building phrase because at its root competence is self-trust. So she's coming to you and she's saying like her perspective and how she sees it. Right. She's kind of flexing her confidence. She's trying to flex her conference method a little bit. Like I felt like I was being picked on, I felt like nothing I could do is write. Just saying like, I believe you, that sounds tough. I believe you. Is like such a game changer when it comes to those conversations. And I will say, you don't want to, if she's totally beating herself up and saying something like, I'm the worst one on the team, I absolutely suck. Everybody hates me. Saying, I believe you is not great in that moment, but things, something like you and I both know that's not true. Like you're not actually the worst person on the team, but I believe you, that that would be a tough feeling to feel. Okay. That's tough. Like you are then validating the feeling underneath what she is saying without actually agreeing with her that yeah, you are the worst one on the team and you do absolutely suck, but see where you can sprinkle in that phrase. I believe you, when she is trying to share her perspective. The other, just like really, easy one that you can drop in, again, depending on the age of your athlete. You know, She might roll her eyes at this, but. Just saying like, you know what I love about you? Or, you know, what I noticed today at practice or, you know, what I noticed about you and your game? Automatically we perk up when we want to hear things about ourselves. Right. So, you know, I'm sure she would say, she might be a little bit hesitant at first, but she's going to want to hear what you're going to say. Right? What you notice something about me or what, what is it? And so just dropping those things like, you know what I love about you. No. What I noticed today about you and your competition. Okay. Or even saying like, oh, I don't know if you're going to want to hear this, you know, especially if you have like a teen or tween, I'm not sure if you actually want to hear this, but nah. Oh, nevermind. You know, And then kind of like playfully getting back into it. That's something, a strategy I learned from Dr. Becky Kennedy. She is a researcher around parenting and that's one of her kind of, one of her strategies. So, those are just like really simple things that you can be dropping in. Day-to-day to kind of strengthen her confidence. Now let's talk pregame. Okay. We're going to fast forward a little bit to before your daughter is competing. This is a really. Could be vulnerable time for her. And I hear from a lot of moms that were like, ah, she gets like mad. You're irritable. Like she's biting my head off now. You don't have to stand for any of that. Right. You can say like, you can be nervous. You can be uncertain of hacking during the code, but you can not be mean to me. Of course you can always say that, but let's just talk about some things that you can be saying before she could piece to build her confidence as well. The framework that we use to guide this is keep what you're saying short and focus on what's in her control and even better. If you can come up with your own little tagline. That you say every single time, something that you're known for something that she can count on when that I'm playing with around with my daughter is have fun. Be yourself. It doesn't have to be complicated, right? Doesn't she doesn't need your coaching. She doesn't need any of that stuff. She just needs you to like, probably give her some space and then just give her something short. A lot of moms in our program have actually like special handshakes and like a pregame routine that they have with their daughter. That's very short. But some other things that you can say, you know, do your best, let go of the rest, trust your training. Be you. A lot of moms in our program also add like humor. If you've got something funny that you can like infuse before a game humor adds levity and allows us to breathe a little bit. It can be really helpful for your daughter. But actually I have a whole list of pregame things that you could be saying, pregame phrases, and go to things that you could say to build her confidence before her game and after her game. When you register for that free training that I was talking about. So we have our 25 key phrases cheat sheet. So to grab that, just go to train her game.com register for the training. And we give that as a. A little free gift when you come to our training. So if you want this all just in a form like a cheat sheet that you can go to like a PDF. Then go to train her game.com register and I'll give that to you for free. Okay. Let's talk post game. Post game is another tricky time when it comes to confidence win or lose. It's a really good opportunity to build confidence. Now, if she wins a lot of times, we just like move on really fast and we're like, okay, great. Woof. We won. Moving on. Okay, but this is a good opportunity for her, for you to reflect back. What you notice about how she got that accomplishment. So moving away a little bit from like accomplishments and outcomes. Not that we need to ignore them, but like what was in her control and what is a PIQ about her that led to that accomplishment. So, say she did have a phenomenal game. She got a PR or she was working really hard towards achieving a certain stack goal and she got it. Right. We want to say what happened congratulations I'm so happy for you, right? I'm happy for you as a great one to say. Another thing is. Going back to this, like what was in her control? Like I know how hard you were working to achieve that. So it's, yes it's seeing the accomplishment, but it's also underlying like, Hey you created that yourself. Okay. You did that by working hard by being coachable, by being a good teammate by putting in the hours, not giving up when it was hard, like whatever it is that you noticed. Okay. That's in her control that she can replicate. She might not always be able to replicate a PR or an all-time stat high, like that pressure actually lowers athlete's confidence, but she can replicate those things that are in her control. Like her effort, her attitude, her work ethic, like all of those. And that's really what we want to highlight when she is in. That that excitement of winning or doing well. Okay. Now sometimes when. Actually some do well, or they feel like they didn't do well, or they lost. That can be the hardest for us as parents. Like how, what do we say where you like, want to try and fix things? We want to. Help her see the bright side and we're just going to pump. Put pump the brakes on that. And one of the ways that we can build confidence is just by letting her feel what she's feeling. What you've heard from Renata in the beginning, or she said, You know, just giving her space to be sad and labeling her sadness and disappointment helped her so much when we can just pause where more confidence and self-trust. So she's feeling how she's feeling. And if she's coming to you and she's saying like I'm super frustrated and super disappointing, another disappointed in other phrases. You really know, you feel that way. That's a great competence building phrase as well. You really know you feel that way. Hey yeah, I do. It's going to like strengthen that muscle of like, yes, I know I feel this way and I am feeling this way. That's gonna help her process. That feeling a lot faster than you being like, Hey well, let's be positive. Let's not focus on that. Let's focus on the positive, like. she's going to shut down. She's not gonna want to talk to you anymore. And really you want to be her safe space in that moment. And so give her space to feel sad, as frustrating as it is, as hard as it is. We got to deal with our own emotions when it comes to that as well. That it's okay for my kids to be disappointed. It's okay for her to be sad right now. It's actually healthy for her to feel those emotions. Okay. So we actually take a framework called love. It's an acronym, L O V E. This is what we teach inside the elite mental game on the parents' side of the programs, because we give you resources to when you come through EMG, right? Cause. You're not alone in this sport's journey and it's hard for you to so, love is what we use and it's an acronym. L is let her lead, oh, as open the space, vias validate her feelings and he has encouraged inward. Okay. And so we have parents just follow L O V E. L let her lead does she want to talk about it and even ask her do you wanna talk about the game or not? And honor her answer a lot of times it's no, I don't right now. Okay. Okay. Where do you want to eat? That's great. Oh, open the states have routine with her. If you can have a routine where you guys are going out to dinner, or just getting something quick to you, don't have to have a fancy meal after every game, have a routine, whether that's a car ride home or you're going to Starbucks or whatever. Open the space so that if she does want to talk, she can. V is validate, this is what I just talked about, if she is feeling whatever it is that she's feeling just see it. Okay. You don't have to try it and explain in a way or get her to feel something different. Like just be like, yeah. Okay. You're feeling that way. You really know how you feel that way, or you really know how you feel. Okay. He is encouraging where this is, where some of those questions can come in. Some of those things that you can say to help encourage inward when she is feeling that so that she can process. Okay. So things like what went well, what was surprising? What didn't go well, what are you going to focus on in the next game? How are you a good teammate? Who helped you? and who did you help? All of those have the questions are actually competence building because she is then evaluating her performance and she's in the driver's seat. It's not like you're telling her how to feel or how to process. What she just went through. And so. like I said, if you want a cheat sheet PDF version of this, go to train her game.com register for that free training. And as a bonus, when you show up to the training, I give this to you all for free, but it's, cause I know I'm throwing a lot at you. I'm throwing a lot of these phrases. So if you're walking or driving and you don't, you can't write them down we put it in a nice, simple PDF for you. Okay. But post game, really just, following that love framework will allow you to, first of all, feel confident that you can navigate it, but also it gives her space to be able to process which builds confidence. She builds confidence when she can look at how she did, she can recognize like, yeah, this is how I'm feeling, but now I can. Looking at a little more objective really and separate my emotions from it. And then look at it as like, okay, this is a learning opportunity. There are some things that did go well, there are some things that did not go well. And here's the action that I'm going to take moving forward. Athletes inside our program also have a post-competition routine to help guide them. After every competition. I tell them to complete it within 12 to 24 hours while it's still fresh. And it's a very short routine that they do, but they do it every time so that they build confidence in how they can objectively look at how they did without adding in all the layers of like, I'm the worst teammate I suck. I shouldn't be on the team anymore. Like. All of that because that's not really helpful. That's also really great. This is where, two pieces of the puzzle. Like you can have your part, but she also needs her part. On, how to navigate these situations as an athlete. All right, moms. I hope that this was helpful. Another way to look at things. We went over day to day. A key thing for that, her positive inequalities recognizing what's in her control, use phrases. Like I believe you drop in, you know what I love about you, you know what I notice in practice today, or you noticed in competition about you and then bring it back to things that are in her control. Pre-game keep your words short focused on what's in her control. Do your best to go to the rest, trust your training. Be you add humor, like find what your tagline is going to be, because likely that's going to stick with her for the rest of her life. No pressure. But it can be something that actually is like, my mom always said this and this helped me. And it's also something that she can come to. To expect. Okay. Post game use that love framework. Let her lead open the space, validate her emotions. Encourage inward. Where do you want to eat? Do you want to talk about the game? What went well? What was surprising? You really know, you feel that way. Okay. What are you going to work on for next practice? If you could do that competition over, what would you do differently? Who did you help? Who helped you? All of these things are ways to build her confidence. All right, moms. Like I said, hopefully this was helpful. If you want that PDF of the 25 key phrases, go to train her game.com hit register. When you show up live to that training, you get that PDF straight to your inbox. And I will see you in the next episode of the racing elite competitors podcast.