Five Elite Mindset Tips for Young Athletes (and Young Athlete Parents and Coaches)

While most of my business is with high school age to adults, I recently had a conversation with my neighbor Kenny about his very young kids, who are involved in tons of youth sports. Kenny is a former excellent NCAA I football player and has a great perspective on sports. When I told him what I do, teaching and coaching elite mindset and mental toughness skills, he was very interested. He is already striving to teach his kids proper mindset, and he set about asking me a bunch of questions so he could take it to the next level.

His awareness of the importance of Elite Mindset, even on young kids in youth sports, is very impressive. His desire to learn more is even more impressive. It inspired me to put together a short list of five Elite Mindset concepts that parents, and youth coaches can and should emphasize with young athletes.

In fact, I would say that learning and growing an elite mindset as a young kid is more important than how many wins or statistical success they have. Their future athletic and life success will be far more impacted by the implementation and application of Elite Mindset concepts than anything else they do.

Here are 5 areas a parent or coach can teach and guide their young athlete to help build Elite Mindset:

1. Focus on effort over result and always use every result, win, or lose, as an opportunity to identify areas of improvement.

This gives kids control, since they can control their effort level. It also reduces fear of failure and uses every result as an opportunity to improve.

2. Focus on effort over talent. Talent is a mostly made-up concept that changes over time. This is especially true for young kids who are physically developing every year. Nobody has control over “talent”. Everyone has control over effort.

When you praise kids for talent, something they have no control over, you take away the motivation and direction to use whatever they have to its fullest. When you praise kids about how hard they work, something every single kid can do, you get the best and give them the best opportunity to succeed.

Besides, superior effort can beat superior talent!

3. Listen to your words and to their words. Words have Power. What you say is truth to your mind. So, when a person says, “I can’t”, they almost certainly won’t. When a person says, “I hate this”, they will.

This means there are no unimportant words. Every word carries a meaning and an expectation. Every word creates a reality. Take this lightly at your own peril. Pay close attention to the words you and your child say and make sure they are positive, motivating and unlimited.

4. Do everything the same all the time, only better. The best way to fail in the big game is to suddenly do something you haven’t done before. Mentally and physically, we respond best to what we have worked on, over and over and over. Figure out what you need to do to be the best athlete and team you can be. What are the basic requirements for success, even in the biggest game? Now practice those basic requirements in practice and in competitions. Have the goal to get a little better at the same things every time.

By working on the most important things for success the same way all the time, you reduce confusion, increase control, improve skill, and build confidence. Then the big game doesn’t seem big. It’s just another game that we do X and Y. The chances of consistent performance go way up.

5. Always build belief. No matter the result today, no matter how far-fetched it may look right now, always pour into them the assurance that they can and will get better over time, with hard work. Make sure they always know that anything is possible.

Who knows just how good anyone can get if they put in the work and believe over the long haul? I’ve seen amazing transformations that only happened because the athlete had or was given belief that with effort and determination, they could rise to great levels over time.

These are five quick areas of focus that will make a huge positive impact on your youth athlete, especially over the long haul. I am certain they will perform much better than they otherwise would. If they like what they are doing, they will like it even more. More importantly, these points of emphasis will help your child establish Elite Mindset thinking that will be of immense value to them throughout their life. At the end of the day, that is the real purpose of sports.