Episode 14 - Coping with Losing Early Games

In this episode we discuss ow to overcome losing games early and often at the beginning of the season causing one to lose hope for a successful season.  We are joined by Shoshana Scheinberg, a Youth Sport Psychology & Mental Performance Coach to discuss these issues and provides us with some great tips to help us overcome these obstacles. 

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If you want to get in touch with her please see her information below:

Shoshana Scheinberg

Sport Psych Shosh LLC

M.S. in Sport Psychology 

sportpsychshosh.com

@sportpsychshosh on Instagram and TikTok

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

On this episode, we are talking about losing games early in the season. How do you cope with these early losses? How do you get over these games and prepare for the next one? And also how do you mentally reset yourself to prepare for the remainder of the season? This has happened to so many of us, to include yours truly. In fact, it's so common that we're going to be joined by a youth sports psychology and mental performance coach, Shoshana Scheinberg. So you're not going to want to miss this episode. You're going to even want to say this as a favor. So sit down, take a breather, grab the gator it, and listen up.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This is going to be a dark side of the mask. We'll give you an inside of the mask. We want you to know that you want to know this fight. So let's fight this battle together.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Welcome to the Dark Side of the Mask. I'm your host, Coach Giggs, and today, as the spring season has officially kicked off for many of you, many of us are going to find themselves on the losing end of the scoreboard. Not just one, but possibly multiple games at that. So the question is how do we cope with these early losses so that they don't affect the way we play and perceive how we see the rest of the season will go? We're also going to address how to assess those losses and how to properly mentally reset our mind so that we can think clearly. To answer these questions and help us with resetting our mind, we're going to be joined by a youth sports psychology and mental performance coach, Shoshana Scheinberg, who specializes in this topic. So if you're ready, I know I'm ready. Let's get after it. We have all lost games in our careers, some more than others, but a loss is a loss no matter which way you look at it. In a perfect goalie world, we accept the loss, try to learn from it, make the necessary corrections, and attempt to move on and put that game in the past. Unfortunately, it's never that easy. Why you ask? I'll tell you why. Because there's always someone who will constantly remind you that it was your fault or that you suck. And you're the one which led to the team's downward spiral. But if you know me, I'm gonna tell you that although there are people who will remind you, you are still a stronger person than anyone gives you credit for. You are the most resilient individual and the biggest team player on the team. It's also unfortunate that no one wants to be accountable for their actions, for the team's losses. And as goalies, we continuously accept the blame because it comes with the job. Like in the real world, there will always be somebody who love to point out the problem, but also not the ones who bring solutions to the table. And that is why many of those players never turn in to become true leaders or head of an organization. Goalies are just natural-born leaders, but sometimes it can be hard to see that from behind the mask. But we continue to fight and we continue to let our light shine. But how? Alright, so joining us today to help us with this topic of coping with those early losses in the season is youth sports psychology and mental performance coach Shoshana Scheinberg from Hoboken, New Jersey. Welcome, Shoshana.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Hey, I saw that in your profile. You graduated from Binghamton University and then you received your master's from Michigan State. Is that correct? Yes. Go go. That's pretty awesome because uh, you know, uh, we given the fact that Binghamton University, we have uh a tie there because of uh our friend Robert Martin, who unfortunately took his life in back in 2022, was a uh uh a uh student at Binghamton University. So there's a connection there, as well as the fact that it's in central New York, where I went to school and actually in western New York at Alfred University. But then also again, uh going to Michigan State. So right here in my local state, and you came over here, and uh, but uh I won't hold it against you because I coached for eight years at the University of Michigan, so go blue. But uh but yeah, it's all right.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

I'll give you a I have a I have our basketball teams meeting in the in the finals.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

So there oh, there you go. All right. I don't know if that'll actually happen, but uh you never can tell. It is it is March Madness. Anything can happen. So anyways, uh welcome aboard. Being that you are our first guest of this podcast, would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do as a youth sports psychology and mental performance coach?

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah, thanks for having me. So I'm a mental performance coach and I work with middle school athletes through collegiate athletes through my practice sports psychoshosh LLC, Shosh short for Shoshana, which is my name. Um, and this can be anything from individual sessions with athletes in person or virtually through team workshops and talks. Topics can include anything that affects the mental side of sport. So confidence building, increase in communication, adversity, or injury rehabilitation, and mental preparation to return to sport after injury. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Well, that's awesome because I guarantee you this is gonna hit home to a lot of kids because you know, having starting this podcast, I started coming up with a list of topics and ideas of what's gonna hit home because you know, you can do a podcast on just about anything these days. And my good friend Damon Wilson, Lax Goalie Rat, does a lot of great topics talking to D1 goalies and um, you know, any any kind of goalie, D1, D2, D3, pro goalies, you know, goalie experts, uh, psychologists, mindsetters, you name it. Um, everyone from you know, this from one end of the earth to the other side, and they're literally kind of trying to cover everything in between. So, but the cool thing about, and I've talked to Damon about this a number of times, is the fact that you know, I'm kind of like your counterbalance, like we we work kind of you know hand in hand. He handles everything from the on-field, the physical side of things, and I pick up on the other side, which is the the mental side of things, right? And I'm not, I'll be honest, I've said it to all my listeners before. Hey, I'm not a certified psychologist, I'm not a certified therapist, you know, but I've through my experiences, I've experienced a lot of things. Um, and I there was a whole lot of things that not and what I know now, I wish I knew back then, because it may would have helped my my my performance, my anxiety, and everything else in between. So I'm glad that we were able to get you on as our first guest. Um, I'm looking to get more um more professionals like yourself on this podcast to give their their clinical psychology or their clinical uh expert opinion on these kinds of things, uh, so that they can truly help all of our individuals, all of our goalies out there that are struggling. And it's not just goalies, it's any really any position specific where the stress and anxiety or the results of a of a game can reside solely on the shoulders of one person, you know, pitchers in baseball, quarterbacks in football, um, and then of course goalies across all spectrums that that have a goalie. So so I'm glad that you're on. I'm I'm excited to have this uh this topic today, uh, because as we as we kick things off here, there's uh at least it is here in Michigan, you know, the season just began this past week, uh, and there's gonna be people that are coming out of the gate with early losses. Um, and I know I have a few students right now who play in college, uh, still haven't won a game. Uh so there's I guarantee you they're struggling with these the same things. So I'm gonna I guarantee this is gonna hit home to a lot of kids. So I'm glad that we're attacking this. Um anyway, so if you're ready, I know I'm ready to attack this topic. Uh, and this is like I said, it's gonna resonate with a lot of goalies, student athletes alike, you know, who suffer from these early loss syndromes. Um, so I'll start off with a list uh of what I feel are contributing factors that affect goalies about their mental health. Uh and from this topic's perspective, and then we can dive uh more into detail from uh from your point of your perspective. Does that sound good? Let's do it. All right, so people who know me, I always have my crazy lists. So contributing factors that uh that factor to early losses and our mindset. So number one on my list, I know some people like to go with number 10. This is not like you know, Dave Letterman's top 10 list. He always had his top 10 list, right? So he always started with list number 10. Well, I'm gonna start with number one. So I always like to hit the the the first one right out of the get-go, and that is not being well prepared for the season andor game for your position. Uh, so not being prepared, that's gonna lead to a lot of anxiety, uh, which and and set our mindset in the wrong, wrong path. Number two on my list of contributing factors as those high expectations of winning, coming straight out of the gate, saying we better start winning because if we don't, we're gonna go right down a rabbit hole. Um, and the season will tank and it's not gonna be successful. Uh, so are we setting yourself up for failure if you have to expect winning right out of the get-go. Number three is the myth, and this is the these next two really kill me, but it happens to so many of us, and that is the myth of if we win early, we're gonna have a killer season. And number four, the myth of if we however, if we lose the first few games, we might as well throw in the towel at this point. Uh, and you know, the funny thing is is coaches don't think that way, but a lot of players do, goalies specifically, because it's like, oh, this is how the season's gonna go. Um, because again, some you know, it's easy to think from an adult perspective, from a kid's perspective, it's very one-dimensional, so they only see like in the in the present moment, right? It's we lose, we're done. We win, we're gonna be extremely successful. But as you watch sports over time, even with March Madness, right? You can be mediocre, make it to the tournament, and actually have a killer postseason. So uh, number five on my list is knowing you are playing tough competition out of the gate, right? You come out of the gate. I know I when I coached at Brother Rice and played at Brother Rice, uh, a highly respectable program here in the state of Michigan. Um, you know, we always played the toughest competition possible, and they we figured, well, that's gonna be our stepping stone. You know, when I coached at U of M, we started off with playing varsity teams, and it was like a measuring stick, like okay, if we can hang with them and not get blown out, then we have a great chance of success. Uh because these teams are way far better and superior than maybe some of the club teams that we were playing with when I was at U of M. Um, so when we faced them, we exact we knew exactly what uh you know how we could handle ourselves. Because like if we can handle this team, let's say, I don't know, we'll just throw out their army because one year we played them, uh, we scrimmaged them, and then when we played teams later on the season, we actually destroyed them. So um, so it kind of kind of sets you up for you know, play tough early on so that you can, you know, when the teams that are below you are mediocre, you can actually find success in that. So that's my number five. My number six is the game schedule is stacked with no room for resetting. Um, I bring that up because here in the state of Michigan, our board of the MHSA is a complete joke, uh, and they believe that it's wreck ball. So it's all about games, games, games, games, games with no chance for improvement or seal improvement or practicing or fixing things. It's like game today, practice tomorrow, game the next day. Uh, or if there's a cancellation, like this week, there was games scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday, all got canceled, so now they're playing games today, or they're playing games yesterday, and they play games today. Some might even have a game on Saturday, so three games in a row. It's like, whoa, where's the we just started the spring season last Monday? So, like, seriously, how can you fix things? And you have kids that are seasonal players who you know, like show up on day one, like, okay, I'm ready to go, and then all of a sudden, um, you're into games. So for them, they're excited because oh, cool, this is games, we don't have to do a whole lot of practicing, we can just play, play, play, play. Whereas the kids who play year round, it's like they're they're on the struggle bus trying to deal with the seasonal kids who have you know poor stick skills or uh missing the net, you know, even as a goalie, it's like you're you just don't have the rust isn't kicked off yet, and so it's like a very big struggle bus. So you have that going for you. So the game's stacked against one another. That there's no chance to improve, there's no chance to reset. Number seven is team dynamics and no chemistry that has been established. So you start off like I said, kids just started last Monday, trials were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They get with their team Thursday, Friday, they might have the weekend off. Uh, they come back, uh snow day on Monday. Uh, next thing you know, Tuesday is a practice, or it got canceled, or it's indoors, and then Wednesday you're in games, and you haven't had a chance to establish a rapport with your teammates, you haven't had a chance to um uh really kind of connect with your teammates, especially the seasonal ones, because you those who play year-round are are doing things together as a as a whole, um, or whatever the case may be, and they can gel pretty quick. But the seasonal players come in, they insert themselves, and there's always some sort of like there's like a there's like an in-team rival where it's like, okay, like okay, I'm coming to the I'm coming to the season, but I haven't done anything. I haven't picked up my stick since last May or last June. And then you have the kids who play all year round, so they're used to passing, catching ground balls, you know, goalies, used to seeing shots all the time, seeing shots in good locations, and then you get these new kids that come in and they just start ripping shots five yards away on the goalie and getting nailed in the head. It's like, have you not learned what you need to be doing? That's not scoring goals. You're you're hitting goalies straight in the face. It's not gonna score a goal. So uh there's no chemistry. Um, number eight on this list of contributing factors is this is gonna hit hard for the non-hotbeds more than anything. That is the lack of good coaching that results in poor preparations. Uh, and it might even happen in the hotbeds, but in the non-hotbeds, you know, anything really west of like Pennsylvania or west of the eastern seaboard in the southwest coast, you name it, you know, there's just not the same coaching that you would see on the eastern seaboard where the hotbeds are located. Um, so that can also contribute because you're like, okay, I want to do this, but the coach is like, okay, they show up like practices. Practice is supposed to start at four o'clock. They always tell us to get there ahead of time. They get there at 3 45, let's say. Coach shows up at 4 o'clock. So they get there at 4, they leave right at 5 30 or 6 o'clock right when practice is over. There's no sticking around, there's no helping with students or players. They just in, out, shuffle around, and then that's the way go. But then they want to hold everyone accountable for their actions, but then they can't hold themselves accountable for their team. So uh that can be a rising factor.

unknown 14:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Number nine on this list is talent on the team. We kind of talked about that with the seasonal players versus year-round players. Obviously, seasonal players who don't pick up their stick till the season uh aren't keeping the skills sharp. So when they get there, they're rusty, the balls are flying away. Um, even if you're a goalie, right? Uh, and you pick up the stick for the first time. Uh, and of course, I'm hoping to try to get ahead of the game with this, with my uh initiative with goalies matter, uh, and with my own goalie business, six by six goalie academy, and that is to make sure kids are always keeping their skills sharp throughout the year. Uh, they don't have to play like every single day or every other day, or at least just once a week, pick up your stick, see shots, um, so that you keep your skills sharp. Otherwise, um, you know, they're you're just as rusty as the as the seasonal players. Uh, and that can also lead to uh losses down the road because every other team that's working hard in the offseason, um, you know, whether it be on their own, it's all based on coaching and expectations, you know, they come in, they're ready, they're fired up, and you know, that's gonna lead to you know to possible losses as well because kids are throwing balls away, they're not hitting the they're not hitting the net, they're not hitting making quality shots, um, and goalies just aren't seeing the ball enough. So and then last but not least on my list of top 10, and then there's a bonus one, don't forget. Uh number 10 is getting lit up and the lack of support from teammates, coaches, and parents. Uh, that is a hard one to deal with. Uh, I know a ton of goalies are dealing with that um because they it's an unavoidable area. Uh, it happens all the time. Like you get, you know, you just go into a practice or a game and you're just not seeing the ball, and you're like, okay, I'm just having a bad day. It's already we are it's in our DNA as goalies to already beat ourselves up over the our performance. However, we don't need to hear it from the coaches and from the player, from our teammates, and from our parents. They should be the supporters, right? I get coaches are gonna be crit critical and and give some sort of negative feedback because that's in their nature as well, versus you know, finding the good in them. Um, but not supporting the goalie, the one who's supposed to try to keep them in the game. Um, you know, have some sympathy a little bit. You know, it's not easy being a goalie and getting shot on every single single day. Um, but it comes with the territory, and people will tell you that all day long that uh hey, your job is to stop the ball. If it doesn't, well, you're failing to do your job. So uh that pressure alone right there can either cause goalies to go down a down spiral, or even worse, quit the sport altogether. So that's something we don't want to have happen. Uh and then last but not least, the bonus number 11, uh, and it's unavoidable. I probably should have put it as number one, and as being seen as weak or as a weak team on social media, I feel like many of our mental health issues all can all come back to social media as a contributing factor, and that is absolutely awful. But unfortunately, it's unavoidable because that is the world that we live in today. You know, I grew up in the 90s, uh, 80s and 90s, and we didn't have we didn't even have cell phones. We didn't have, you know, internet wasn't as prevalent as it is today. We didn't have YouTube back then. Um we don't have we didn't have social media, obviously. So, you know, we don't have to look out there and compare ourselves to, you know, you know, Tom and Jane, you know, from across the from you know, from the hotbeds saying, Oh my gosh, they're amazing, but we don't see that. So um that's always going to be a contributing factor. But anyways, that is my list of factors I've seen both as a goalie, as myself, um and as a goalie coach for the last 26 plus years. Um, I've seen it, I've heard it um over and over. And then lately reading about these these same issues on the lack of schoolie rat Facebook forum literally can like drive me uh into a tizzy and gets my creative juices flowing because I need to get this out there because this is such an important topic. And if kids don't understand the factors that are leading to their uh their anxiety or their panic attacks that they might be having, um, or something down that line, we're literally going to find ourselves uh, you know, either falling out of love with the sport, which is not what we want to do, um, quitting, obviously, and then even worse, more psychological or uh mental issues that can arise from all this stuff, you know, kind of like that PTST moment. So now we're gonna bring you in, Shoshana. Uh, how can we avoid some of these factors and issues we're seeing today? Uh, what is your take or your opinions based on your research and experience of these factors that I just mentioned? Um, how do you see these things?

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah, I mean, you you brought up so many good points, and these are all topics that really affect athletes, especially goalies. What I'm noticing is a lot of these aren't actually separate. They're obviously there are different subsections of of these bigger issues, but they all come down to mindset, your preparation, and your environment. And from a mindset perspective, and this applies to all athletes, but goalies too, we have to shift what success looks like. So I'm thinking about those myths that if you lose early on in the season, it's gonna affect the rest of your season. And those games are determining how you're gonna play in the future. If success is only winning, then yeah, those early losses are gonna feel like failure. But if success is based on execution, effort, improvement, how you're showing up every day, then athletes have something that they can control and they can kind of reframe that to have little successes even within the bigger losses.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

No, you go.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

No, what I was gonna say is, and that's so true because here's the here's the funny thing. So I'll, you know, again, I have a lot of experiences. I have a lot of students that I work with. I have instructors that have that worked for me for my summer camp and are still in college. You know, and I had a long talk with one of my great instructors, Maddie Porter, who plays for Eastern Michigan University, uh, straight out of New York, Montrose, New York. Um, and you know, she had a she she was finding herself in a small slum lot not too long ago. And so she came to me and she talked to me, and we talked things through. And I said, here's the thing I go, it's not gonna matter, and I and I've said this before, and I think other people have said this on the Lax Goalie Rat forum and in his goalie summits as well, and that is you can't define success based off the scoreboard. And I think that is 100% true in what you said. That success has to be in the small wins that you can create amongst your within your team. And I gave her that advice, you know, like you know, uh one of my longtime coaches, uh John Paul, who he was my head coach at the University of Michigan when I was coaching with him, always said, Hey, we gotta win the we gotta win the quarter. Win the battle. If we win the battles, we're gonna win the war. So if we win the first quarter, awesome. Then we're we're down the right path. If we win the second quarter, great. If we lose the third quarter, okay, not a big deal, because so far we've won two, we've lost one. If we can win the fourth, there's a good chance we're gonna win the war. So if we you know, and that's another way to look at things. So after we had that conversation, uh, I talked, I told Maddie, I said, Hey, go out there, play with joy in your heart, you know, be grateful for what you have, for being able to play in this moment, playing the sport that's that's amazing right now, uh, that you absolutely love and enjoy, that you're in the crease, and do it for yourself if you have to, right? Find, you know, if if people aren't gonna be there for you, at least be there for yourself and just go out there and just play why you play, why you chose to play lacrosse in the first place for fun. And don't worry about what the scoreboard says at the end of the game. And she went out there and she literally crushed her career saves uh at Eastern Michigan. She had the held the record of 20 saves, she made 21 saves in that game, and she played out of her mind. You would have thought from the announcers that they were that they were beating their uh their opponent, Vanderbilt, by like 15-20 goals because how well she was playing. Um, the unfortunate thing is they didn't loot win that game, but at the end of the game, everyone cheered her around, hugged her. You would have thought they won the game. And then and and Maddie told me afterwards, literally, that it literally felt amazing that uh like regardless of what whether we won or lost that game, I played out of my mind, and my performance was where I wanted it to be. That was championship performance. And I was like, that's the thing, it doesn't matter what the scoreboard says, it's about performance. And I tell kids this all the time people are not gonna remember the game you played yesterday or the game that you played two years ago on the third week of April. They're they're gonna remember you that hey, you played lacrosse, you were a goalie, and you did well. That's all they're gonna remember. You know, you're going to remember games from the season, sure, but like what you did seven years ago, six years ago, or even a year ago, they're going to forget about those kinds of things. But it's about those small wins that can kind of change a perception on success over failure.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah. Taking your attention away from the scoreboard is huge. And that's something that all athletes should do, but especially goalies, because it's so easy after a goal to keep replaying that in your head. And once you get stuck in that, in that system or you start spiraling, replaying your mistakes, then it impacts how you're going to play moving forward. Um, I actually played floor hockey in high school and I was a goalie. And something that my coach, my goalie coach, um taught me to say is zero, zero. You want to have this zero-zero mindset where you don't care what the scoreboard is. In fact, you want the scoreboard to be like the closest game ever, and you just want to focus on the next play. It doesn't matter if you're up eight, zero. You don't want to get in your head that way. You don't want to get it too arrogant and start playing a little bit looser and letting things in that you shouldn't be letting in or get distracted. And you don't want to, if you're down by a lot, you don't want to be thinking about that because then you might start to give up.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of funny because it's like my golf game. Bringing golf into the into the into the mix right now. And that's funny because when I go out and play golf, and I and I could I took a long hiatus playing golf for a while. Then I had couple buddies that got me back into playing golf again. And I was a relatively good golfer. I'm not saying I'm like phenomenal by any stretches of means. I'm not going to join the PGA tour anytime soon. But when I started to come back to start playing golf again, they said, Why don't you come out? Let's go play golf. We're not even going to take a scorecard, we're not even going to keep score. We're just going to go out and play. And if you miss, if you lose the ball, eh, whatever. Throw a ball down. Just play. If you, if, if you if you if you only took if you took five strokes or you took six strokes, seven strokes, nine strokes, whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter. You're not counting the strokes. Consider it practice. And then and and it and it's a great visual, it's a great concept to think of, like you just said with the zero-zero concept. Imagine the scoreboard's not lit up. The best time I ever played golf was when I didn't have a scorecard. The best time I ever played in a game is when the scoreboard wasn't on or it was stuck or was behind me. So I didn't see the scoreboard at all. So if I wasn't keeping track of the score, I just went out there and played. It's like a pickup game to me. So yeah, that's when I felt looser. I felt more relaxed. I felt more comfortable. When you can put that into your brain and not glaring in the background and said in this giant scoreboard, I mean, even if they had a scoreboard, it was tiny, fine. I just it wasn't in like bright lights. I didn't have to worry about like, oh, what was the score?

SPEAKER_02 24:43

No, if I don't see it, knowing that it's there, just like your eyes keep going back to like a magnet. Um, and it not thinking about the scoreboard doesn't mean that you're playing like you don't care. Right. You're playing to play, you're playing to be your best version of yourself and the best version of you as an athlete. And it doesn't matter what's happened in the past because you can't change that. You just want to focus on what the next play is.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

100%. Like you can't, like you quarter goal. You could argue all you want. There ain't no replay in high school lacrosse, you know. There kind of is in college across, but like that's a whole nother topic for another day. But you're not, I've if for as long as I've played, as long as I've coached, even today, you're never going to get a a ref to change a score. There's just it's not gonna happen. Maybe nowadays in pro lacrosse because they have all the fancy cameras and whatnot, but outside of that, you're you're not gonna change a score, you just gotta live with it and move on. So, yeah, so yeah, this is all great stuff. Um, one of the many techniques and methods that I've grown to adopt, I know over the the my last five years, um, is become that I become more involved with and understanding mental health and not only you know mental health for myself, um, but that is understanding what is that we can control and what we can't control. I know it has helped me better understand my struggles and life in general. Um, but what do you think uh, or what are your thoughts about what we can control affect or what is that we can control affecting how we cope with these, these, these losses?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah, this is huge. Um, and it's honestly one of the things that I work on with athletes a lot of the time, because a lot of the time athletes are getting completely consumed and so anxious and so stressed about things that are out of their control. It could be the weather, it could be what their coach is thinking, what their teammates said to them before practice or their game, um, or what their parents might say to them later. And focusing on those things, it doesn't actually help their game if you think about it. It pulls their attention away from what does matter. It's kind of like noise on the sideline that's distracting. Um, but focusing on what you can control is how you show up. It's what effort you put in, what where your focus is, how you respond in the moment. Um, something that I like to do with athletes. And I'm actually creating a goalie mindset workbook that I'm finalizing right now, but we can talk more about that at the end. Sure. Um but I have this exercise in it, and it's really easy. Any athlete can do it. People listening to this podcast, you draw a circle inside the circle, write down everything you can control. And then outside the circle, you write down everything you can't control. And the goal is to bring your focus back to the inside of the circle, focusing on what you can control, where that's where your focus should be. Things on the outside, that's the noise, it's the distraction, and we want to try to keep that out of our attention.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I like that. It's kind of like creating a paradigm at some point, right? Where you where you're crossing your two different circles too at seem at some point.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yeah. Another way to do it also is if you're if you're goalie or an athlete and you're feeling really stressed or really anxious, just write down a list of everything that's stressing you out, and then go and circle all the things you can control and try to let go of the things out of that. It's not gonna help you to focus on that.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, that's some things I've I've told some of my students in the past. I said, writing things down, I know it sounds really crazy, but you know, back then it was like a crazy thing to like to journal stuff. Well, nowadays you're getting a lot more kids that are understanding that if you write things down, write the things that are bothering you, they of and and then, like you just said, circle the things that are like, okay, this was bothering me, this was bothering me. And when you look at it and you take a step back and you see, I well, I couldn't control that one. That was a coach thing. That was that was something I couldn't do. The players were giving me negative feedback. I couldn't do anything about that one. Um, but all those things that you just mentioned at the you know, about you know, effort, attitude, those kinds of things. There's some great, there's some great quotes that go on social media about people who post things that go, those things cost nothing. That's the thing. You don't have to spend money on those. It's not like you have to go get private lessons, it's not like you have to go to like you know camps or clinics or anything like that to learn how to you know give 100% effort. That's all free. That's all just in time, that's an internal clock there, internal uh motivator for you to kind of keep getting better. That's you put those things together, you don't it doesn't matter your skill level, if you have those things that you that you can control um that cost nothing, I mean you'll you'll make more teams than you ever thought you ever ever been on, um, and you'll probably get even better over time with skill improvements and stuff like that. Because it's that motivating factor.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

And some of the most naturally talented athletes, if they don't put in effort, if they don't have a good attitude, if they don't have a good mindset, you're gonna go farther than they do, even if they might be at first in the beginning better on than you on paper.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah, it really is and attitude is one of the things that I pride myself on with my goalie camp. You know, my goalie camp, we talk about four pillars, which is um resilience, character, uh, respect, and discipline. So though if you carry those four things with you throughout life through as a goaltender, uh it's gonna carry over into the real world. Uh, you have those four things nailed, you're gonna go real far. And character, attitude, attitude goes hand in hand with with your character. So if you have a good attitude, you know what more people are gonna like you and they're gonna want to hire you down the road when you look for good jobs. So uh all right, those are pretty cool. Um, now I usually like to give a list of things that we uh since we have a list of what we can control, we want to focus on some things that we can't control. Um, so I was thinking about doing this together since we've already done this once. Um, but I'll let you kick things off and I will let you kind of point out some things uh that you feel are some areas that we can't control. What are some things that we can't control?

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Yeah, the biggest or one of the biggest ones to start with is other people, their actions, decisions, reactions. It includes your parents, your coaches, your teammates, the officials, that's a big one, and your opponents. While you might think like my actions influence them and their behaviors, they still at the end of the day make their own choices. So that comes into play with playing time, feedback you're receiving from parents, coaches, teammates, the ref's calls, your teammates' mistakes. Those are all things out of your control. Then we also have things in the environment too. So we have the weather, you can't control the weather, um, crowd noise, hecklers, you can't control the scoreboard. We talked a lot about that, and the playing surface. Um, but one of the biggest ones also is the past. So that goal you just let in, the game last night, the conversation that happened before the game, once it happens, like it's done. You can't go back, you can't change it. Even if it was something that was in your control in the past, the fact that now it's in the past means that it's out of your control. And I think that that's something that's really hard for goalies to let go of. It's like, oh, I I should have done this, I could have done that, because yes, I was in your control in the past, but now the fact that it happened means we're done, we're letting it go.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Right, exactly. I mean, and when I talk to kids too, it's like, all right, so you have the things that you can control. There's some things that, and there's things you obviously can't control, like weather. You can't control the referees, can't control the players, can't control their reactions, can't control a lot of things, right? But what you can't control, do your best to influence. And that's the thing, right? So if you you know, you may not be able to like here's a great example goal goes in, you didn't agree with it, you thought they were in the crease, you're probably not gonna get that goal back. However, it's your reaction, your response, and your approach to the official saying, excuse me, sir, like you could attack them, like he was in the crease, or she was in the crease, like, how'd you not see that? Or you could be like, Excuse me, sir. Uh, I just want to let you know that on that last goal, I saw them, you know, put their foot in the crease. I know I'm not gonna, I'm not asking for the goal back, but could you pay closer attention if they're getting close to the crease? So it's how you approach those negative issues, you know, and because he's not gonna change it, she's not gonna change that call, but how you approach them, they may say, Okay, like they may not nod or or acknowledge it, but the way you approach it and the way that you have again your attitude, if it's a good positive supporting attitude where even you're supporting the officials and you're not trying to attack them, just like, hey, could you be more aware of the you know, when they come around the crease, then be like, Okay, I can I can do that. You're not asking a lot of me, you're not you're not coming at me, you're not trying to attack me, you're not trying to ask for the goal, but you're just asking, could you pay more attention? Okay, again, they're humans, they're not robots, they're gonna do the best they can, they're gonna they'll try to pay more attention to it. And who knows, maybe the next time down, they actually see the foot go in the crease, and next you know, bam, they just changed the call. And that's all stemming from influencing, but goes back to what you said about controlling, and that is your attitude, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Yeah, and that all the time. And with that, too, it's oh sorry, it's you're forward thinking when you're doing that in that example that you just gave. The first way is um when you're gonna go and attack the ref and yell at them, you're stuck in the past and you're like mad about the past play what just happened. But your good example of going up to the ref and saying, Hey, next time please watch out for this, their foot was in the crease, that's focusing on the next play and focusing on what you can do to help in the future.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Right, right, absolutely. So, again, you're making an impact on something for the future, and that's great stuff. And that's what we got to do. We have to start thinking. We can't think, we can't think in the past, passes the past, can't change the past, but you can influence the future and the future outcomes and the results. So awesome. Uh, again, I think you nailed those as well. Um, it truly helps anyone knowing what you can't control as it should, uh, ease the anxiety of knowing what is out of your control. So now we're gonna start bringing this all together. And this is the reason why I truly ask you uh to join me on this because this is where you can share with our listeners uh regarding what you can do to help with resetting your mind and forgetting about the losses and negative comments about performance. Shoshana, the stage is yours.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah, so I'll focus on two main things here. The first is your self-talk, how you're talking to yourself in crucial high pressure moments. And the second one is creating a personalized reset routine. So, first, when we talk about self-talk, you have to build the strong foundation for how you speak to yourself because after mistakes, it's really easy to become your own worst critic. And the problem with that, as we talked about, is it keeps you stuck in the past and the past is out of our control. So instead, we want to turn that inner critic into our inner coach. So instead of beating yourself up, I should have done this, why did I do that? I'm such a bad player. You need to ask yourself, what would help me on the next play? Is it giving myself instruction? Okay, square up, come take a step forward or be more communicative with my teammates. Um, but is it going to really help me on the next play to be beating down on myself? No. So treat yourself like you are your inner coach. You want to be giving yourself advice, giving yourself reassurance, giving yourself positive reinforcement, like, hey, I tried my best. It's in the past, we're moving forward. And that's the difference between what we call feedback and feed forward, which is language from Positive Coaching Alliance that I work with. And it's where you're focusing on what's next instead of what already happened. And that shift alone can completely change how you respond, whether it's in a game or after a game after a few tough losses in a row. So you can do um that kind of reflection both in those game settings after, let's say, you let two or three goals in, maybe you're really upset in that moment, but you can also do it if you're having that early tough start to the season. Um and then once the mistakes happen, and they will happen because mistakes are a natural part of sport, you need a reset routine. And that's something that I help athletes create, something that's quick, simple, and automatic after mistakes. So for the reset routines, I go through three steps. The first is a physical cue. So it's something that signals I'm letting this go. It could be tapping your stick, maybe touching the pipes, what wiping your hands, um, something physical to reset that resembles I'm letting this go. Okay. Then I like doing a breathing exercise. I like the double inhale. So this is when you're doing two sharp breaths up your nose, um, like this, and then one longer exhale through your mouth, and it helps release that buildup frustration. So this is what it looks like altogether. And I mean, there are other breathing methods like just taking one deep breath, but I like that one because I mean you can try it. If you do two, the double inhale through your nose, it kind of feels like you're very tense and like you're up. And then when you release it, it's kind of relaxing. Do you want to try it?

SPEAKER_01 37:09

I can try it. Yeah. I mean, I was kind of going along with it while you were saying it, but yeah. So Yeah, you can feel you can feel that pressure coming out of you a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

If you're feeling very tense, it like makes you feel more tense for a second, and then you release. Um, and the last part of that reset routine is your verbal cue. So that's a short phrase to refocus. This might be, in my opinion, the most important part. And it can be any any phrase that's meaningful to you. Some of the ones I like are flush it. You can see my flush it toilet right here on my bookshelf. Um, zero, zero, like I mentioned before. Other ones could be slingshots, you're pulling back before you're uh shooting forwards, um, which just kind of resembles like a short setback isn't the end of the world. It's not determining your season. Maybe you need to pull back a little bit and then you can go forward and have great success. Um, other ones I know from Ted Lasso, we have be a goldfish, because goldfish don't have long memory. They're not going to remember what happened longer than 10 seconds ago. And as a goalie, you should also be like a goldfish.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah, that that's that resonates a lot with uh with a lot of the goalie rats, uh, the lax goalie rat summits. You know, everyone, every I swear every single presenter he gets on there will always say, you know, have a mind of a goldfish, you know, forget about the past. Um, no, those are some great absolute reset routines. Like the self-talk, you know, I've I've heard that so many times, and in just in different just in different forms, uh, one way or the other, you know, and I like the feedback is is in the past. And one of the things that I I try to promote is look, you're not gonna get, like I said, you're not gonna get the goal back. You can think about it if you can't figure out what happened in the last five or ten seconds as to why that goal happened, forget about it and move on. Because I can tell you this nine times out of ten, if you go back and watch film on it, uh, for those who are fortunate to have to have film, if you go back and look at it, you'll be like, I really couldn't have done anything about that goal. So why was I stressing over it? Um, because you know, when I was watching Maddie in that one game against Vanderbilt, I you know, I was tracking every one of her goals. So when I watch kids in in games, I track every goal they give up, and I'll mention good or bad. Good meaning there was nothing they could have done about that because there was other uh extenuating circumstances that caused that goal to happen, which we all know as good coaches, you know, five or six different things happened because that goal uh happened. So it wasn't entirely on the goalie's fault. Now, they gave up like a 20-yard shot and there was nobody in front of them. Like, okay, now we gotta check on your focusing skills, or maybe you need glasses because that's 20 yards is kind of far away. But outside of that, you know, nine times out of ten is is if there's nothing you you could do about that, forget about it and move forward, right? Because, like you said, you have to start thinking, get the next one. And and Chris Buck, who wrote the book, uh Thinking Inside the Crease, is a great book, it's like 120 pages, fastest read. I call it the goalie Bible, and I literally I I I live and die by that thing. So a lot of things he says in there is is you know, you get like you said, you get yourself in a routine, um, and you you have that self-talk and you forget about the past and you move forward. You take your deep breaths, all the things that you mentioned, you know, touch something, touch the touch the pipes, um, breathe in, say a keyword, but you're not gonna get that back and start thinking get the next one. His thing is get the next one. So if you think about get the next one, you already have forgotten about the past. And after the game, people people don't know what happened on the third goal versus the sixth goal versus the 15th goal. If you give up 18 goals, let's just say yeah, people are gonna forget which one of those goals were. They just they're just gonna see the final result, and good or bad, it it's it is what it is, you're not gonna get those back. So, um, I mean, you can use it as feedback to say, okay, there's some things I need to improve on, but when you look at the goals, and let's say three of the goals were bad goals, like you should have had those. And I I kind of told Maddie that said two of the goals that you gave up were bad goals, but were there were they gonna be the deciding factor from winning and losing that game? No, they still lost, I think, like four or five goals. So though it may have helped a little bit, would have kept it closer, but it wouldn't have been a big deal, right? And if you're giving up 18 goals and your team only scored five, and then you look at how many shots they had, even if they scored 100% on their shots they took, they still wouldn't have enough to beat the competitor. So it just kind of goes to show you when you when you refer when you phrase it like that, like forget about the past, yeah, think forward, right? I like the things with the touching because the touching stuff helps handy with a lot of ADHD kids that are their goalies these days because there's a lot of that going on. Um, and the touching thing will help them kind of like take their mind off of what just happened and start moving forward with that. So the breathing helps, and that's what I tell kids too say, hey, take a step outside the crease, you give up a goal, take a quick walk, go five yards out, five yards back, take a breath, reset yourself, and then that's usually and that was my routine. I walked out for five yards, I walked back in. Okay, now I'm good, I'm ready to go. Where's the face-off? I was all set, okay, I'm ready for the next opportunity. And that's kind of like that. Was my routine, but it seems to be consistent among a lot of these presenters that I've seen. The forum the forum, the lack of rat summits, um, even the talk things that you're talking about right now, all those things are gonna help with that reset because we get so caught up on thinking about what just happened and how can we fix it. And then they and then what ends up happening is they think too much, and this is not a position for thinkers, it's supposed to be reaction, yeah, and that eats you up inside. And I wish I had known some of these when I was growing up because I was the I I still live to this day with the disastrous uh I call it a disease of perfectionism. And so my whole entire life, I grew up as being as perfect as I possibly could, and that we all know that we can't live that way, live that way for whatever reason, uh, for a lot of reasons, I should say. And when I felt like I I should have stopped every single shot that came my way, I started to lose it. I literally started to like hit, you know, bang crossbars, yell at myself, you know, everything that was toxic you can think of. I pretty much did. I blew up. It I was not proud of myself. I I use that as a learning experience now. Um, and I use that as uh something that I've learned and that I can you know pass on to students who like this is what you shouldn't be doing, because is only gonna lead to uh further disruptions and more blow ups and and more mental health issues down the road.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

So yeah, and with that, it's recognizing that mistakes happen and they're part of the game, and no person, no athlete, no goalie is going to be perfect and stop every single shot that comes their way. That's just not the way that the sport works, and that's not how you get better. Exactly. Because if you're if you're having zero goals go zero goals scored on you, that means that you're not in a competitive enough environment and that the people that are shooting at you aren't good enough for what you need to be doing to get better.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Exactly. And you know, that's and that goes with any sport, right? You know, and the thing is is like I wish more coaches would listen to podcasts like this, right? Because they don't get that concept. I get it. You want to win. That's your job. You you're hired to bring this team, you know, success and whatnot. But is that really your job? I think the true coaches in life are really mentor, you know, the true coaches are more mentors and role models. Um, other than that, I think you know they're they're not just coaches, they're beyond that, right? Uh, a lot of coaches today are literally X and O coach. It's literally we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, and we're gonna win. If we don't win, then you're gonna get punished. Like, yeah, so they already have these high expectations and said, Wait, wait to set us all up for failure or set us up for mental health issues down the road because you want us to live up to this expectation, and I get it, you can have high expectations, but don't lose it if we don't meet your expectations, you know. Where's the there's the medium? And so I tell kids this too sometimes is like instead of setting high goals, set smaller goals that you know that you can attain that might give you a little kind of a challenge, but if you can attain those, again goes back to the winning the battles. Win a battle here, win a battle there, you know, they all add up to possibly winning the war. But if you lose every single battle from the get-go, um, because your mind is set up that way, then you're gonna lose the war and it's just gonna, you know, have lasting effects on you.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Yeah, there's a win at all cost mindset is really dangerous. That if you don't win for a failure, you're setting yourself up for failure because the second that the scoreboard doesn't look how you want it to, yeah, that's it. You're done. So I agree with you that you need you can have these bigger, lofty goals, but you need to have tangible, smaller steps to get up there. And sometimes you might need to set a goal that you know is super realistic and might might even sound silly to you, but that's what builds your confidence is having these smaller wins, smaller steps, like making one save. Okay. Maybe your team lost by a lot today, but what what are two things that you did that you did well that you feel like you implemented from our practices?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah, absolutely. Set those small goals, I think, is huge. And I think, like uh, like you know, like I said, winning the battles, but like set those small goals and and find find something that you can attain so that at least you can walk away at the end of the day. Small wins, find the small wins. And I'll tell kids that when they journal too. What were your small wins of the day? Is it the day? Is it the practice of the game? What were your small wins? Like you had a good warm-up. Great, that's a win. Like you had a great warm-up, right? Uh, the team came fired up, they were all excited, they got out there, we said we were running all over the field. Okay, there are some days that kids don't understand this that you might just get beaten by a better team. It's gonna happen, right? I mean, it's just you can be outcoached, you can be outplayed. Um, and that's fine. That's part of the game, that's part of learning. I mean, sports are meant to be fun and to learn life lessons. And yeah, I wish more parents and more coaches would would learn that and understand that.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

But you're gonna remember the losses and the mistakes a lot easier than you're gonna remember your your small wins. So it's important. I mean, you can write down after a game, here are some things that I messed up on that I want to work on in the future, as long as you're thinking for the future, how can I make adjustments next game, next practice, but also remember to write down your small wins or just little things that you did well.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah, because when you when you're when you're going down a downward spiral or you feel kind of down upon yourself, you look back at those things that you wrote down and realize I did that. This is what I was doing. Why did I get away from that? Like you know, writing down these little techniques of doing this and doing that, like the the touching and the breathing and the keywords. How did I get away from that so quickly? Refresh your memory to go back and do those things because that's what's going to help you to get through the rest of the season. So, like if you lose five games in a row, six games in a row, you know, how can I get out of this funk? But is it your funk or is it a team funk? Like that's the thing that I think kids don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah. And um, like you were mentioning earlier when goals happen, it's not always sometimes it might be fully on the goalie, but a lot of the time other people are at play as well. Maybe your teammates, your teammate made a mistake down the field, and then that resulted in a goal happening. Sometimes it's hard to to zone, zoom out and see that.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

Goalies might think that it's all their fault, but then kind of zooming out a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Yeah, it goes back to the whole game film, right? You go back and look at it, like oh, that was not my fault. Like the defense was not there, they didn't slide. The guy was wide open, the girl was wide open on the crease. Watching yesterday, I was watching a D1 game, and the number of times the girl was wide open on the crease, like there was no defense, like they're in the 90-10 zone, which is like three yards off the crease. Like, she should score. There's nobody on her, no defense, wide open. Your D one clear, you should be scoring that goal. And if that's the case, like there's only so much a goalie can do about that. So cool, that's awesome. Well, hey, I I truly feel that uh that these things, the these techniques and methods that you came up with are going to help so many goalies and student athletes uh get through these tough times of the season. And I'm so glad we had you here to discuss this. Um, these are real situations, people, and they happen to everyone. So losing early on could potentially send you and your team into a downward spiral, but if we don't approach them the right way, then we'll never truly you know find success. And that's the key. Anyways, so uh hey, this was a great topic today. Um, I couldn't be more appreciative. Thank you, Shoshana, for joining us. Talk about these issues facing the goalie community and another student athletes. Uh, you don't have to be a goalie to take advantage of these techniques and coping methods, doesn't matter the sport, doesn't matter, matter the position, these can help anybody really in the in the sports world. So um, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I did, and hopefully, we're able to provide you some guidance when it comes to losing early in the season, uh, as we are still in the early parts of the season. So if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at goaliesmatter at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. Uh, would love to hear your feedback regarding uh this topic uh because you are not alone in this fight. We have all experienced losing in our careers and in our lifetime. Uh, but like I've always said, it's how you respond to adversity that defines truly who you are, defines your character. So uh think about that for a moment. So, Shoshana, thank you again for joining us. Any last words of advice before we get out of here and uh how these kids or parents or coaches can get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. This was awesome being here. For anyone listening, I just want you guys to remember a tough start to your season doesn't define how it's going to end. You get to decide how you show up. You control your actions, you control you. Focused on getting just 1% better every day. And if you want to connect, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Sports PsychShosh, Shosh short for Shoshana. And that's also my website, sportsychshosh.com. And as I mentioned, I'm also finishing up a workbook for middle and high school goalies. It's full of exercises to help with mindset, especially around mistakes and tough games. Um, there are like over 10 different activities and worksheets to go through. So if you're interested in that, you can DM or email me the word goalie and I'll send you the info when it's live. Yeah. And I'm also working on other ones for not just goalies, so it it can apply to all athletes too.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

That sounds awesome. Make sure you uh you get the give me a link or something to that, and I can post it on the uh the episode details as well and put on our website as well. Yeah. I'd love to do that. Awesome. All right, thank you. Couldn't be more grateful if to have you on. We're gonna be in touch soon. Uh, to everyone listening, look, the lacrosse season can be long and grueling. However, there's no time to sit and reflect on just one loss or a couple of losses in the beginning of the season uh for that matter. So all we can do is look forward, you don't think forward, um, you know, feed forward to the next game, to the next opportunity, the next shot. And remember, this is still a team sport, and it does take all of us. So, as always, be grateful to play this sport. Enjoy the time you have because we're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time. So let's find the good in our lives and live our lives with joy in our lives. Thank you. We are on