Why are we here?
We want to discuss and help you on your journey in life and give you the best chance of success. Everyone is here today because they have a fantastic opportunity to play football and be educated in a sector they enjoy, but who has thought about the what-ifs?
What if I don’t make it? What if I get injured? What if it gets too much?
The reality is you have minimal time to achieve your goals and we want you all to understand how to cope with these pressures.
Mental Wellbeing
With everything that is going on around you and the pressures and strain you are under; it is important more than ever to take care of your mental wellbeing.
Your mindset and how you feel can impact your life more than you can imagine.
Look out for signs in yourself and each other. It is a lonely and dark place to feel isolated, anxious, depressed etc. and can lead to a much worse problem.
What if I don’t make it?
In academy football, you’re up against the odds before you even kick a ball. Only 1% of players will go on to make it in professional football. That is only 1 in
every 100 players.
Don’t think you can wait or hold anything back. Do everything you can to give yourself the best chance to achieve your goals.
Have no regrets! Every young player dreams of playing at the highest level, but out of the 1.5 million players in youth football only 180 players will achieve the dream of playing in the Premier League. That’s 0.012%!! That’s not to say you’re going to fail. You have limited time to achieve your goals. WORK HARD and never give up!
In our lives, we think that just getting by, just doing the bare minimum, and cutting corners, will bring us success and happiness. But by doing this we always fall short! We get found wanting and always stumble. There was always a hurdle too big!
Though we tried as hard as we could to get ourselves over the hurdle, we never succeeded. In the end, we realised that we lacked the power or the mindset; it would take us changing our ways and accepting that
sometimes when there is a wall in our way, we must go through it rather than over or around!
No cutting corners, No cheating, just pure hard work, grit and honesty. So, we altered our mindset, and we stopped trying to fill the emptiness in our gut with things. We started doing the right things that would bring us success, strength, and direction. We surrendered to ourselves to begin the process of filling our inner void. We stopped grabbing things and started receiving the free gift of love and pride we have for ourselves, the respect we deserve to show ourselves. Slowly, our inner emptiness was being filled.
Now that we have this mindset, what do we do with it? We must remember that love grows only when it is shared. In which world do we choose to live? One in which we help ourselves and others become better, striving to be the best we can all be every day. Or a world where selfish actions and minds allow things to happen, cheat, cut corners and ultimately stumble
at the first hurdle?
JUST FOR TODAY…………
Each morning we will spend 15 minutes focusing on mental health and having a positive mindset. We will do this by completing a series of small tasks and reading a short passage from the “Just for Today” book.
Each of you will write down “Just for today I will…………….” and finish the sentence with 3 of your own promises. We will discuss everything in the group openly.
We will also be focusing on your WHY.
Why you chose the course?
Why do you strive to achieve your goals?
Why do you work hard?
Why do you want to be successful?
Why are you motivated?
At the end of each day, we will discuss if you have kept the promises made to yourself and if not why, and what can we improve individually and collectively.
Give yourself the best chance to succeed
You are all here because of 2 things.
TALENT and POTENTIAL.
However, neither of these things determines whether you become successful or not. We want to give you the tools and hopefully help your mentality on what it takes to become successful.
Never judge your own success against someone else’s or you just set yourself up to fail. The only way you can truly achieve your goals is through HARD WORK and maintaining the correct mentality.
During your time in football and education, things will go wrong, as they will no doubt in your entire life. But it’s how you react to mistakes and failures that will determine how successful you become.
Group task
Make a list of everything you believe success to be.
Write down next to these things what you think you have to do to achieve this.
Work as hard as you can for as long as you can and use your TIME wisely because it passes in the blink of an eye.
Our aim here is for you all to have a bigger picture. A different outlook on life, because the football world is in its own little bubble. Whether you are or are not successful here, will not determine how successful you are in life. After this is over, you will either progress to
professional football, further education, or university or you will have to face the world.
DO NOT let the hard work stop. Because for you, THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING!!!!
Find reasons not excuses!
Write down a list of all the reasons you can think of to
succeed and all the excuses that you have given yourself.
TIME is the most precious thing in life, no matter what journey you are on, or what profession you choose.
It’s the biggest thing that when used wisely and productively gives you the best chance of success and enables you to help others.
Think of TIME as an investment and as a gift! The biggest investment you can make is in yourself and the greatest gift you can give someone is TIME.
Be honest about your day
Individually write a brief summary of your average day. From waking up in the morning to going to bed, including your daily routine and habits.
What could you do to utilise your time better?
How could you gift time to someone to help them?
Reflection
If you think of your life as a journey, when you look back at your achievements and everything you have experienced, can you reflect and say that each day you got the most out of yourself, can you say you did everything you wanted?
Did you work as hard as you could to achieve your dreams?
Life can be taken away in the blink of an eye. Don’t wait for tomorrow, do it right now!
Regret
Don’t wait for something to happen! You must be decisive and believe in yourself. Mistakes will happen, but you are more in control of the outcome than you think.
Sometimes things will happen that go against you, in football or in the real world. Look back and have no regrets because everything you do or don’t do now will impact you for the rest of your life.
Work hard but more importantly, work smart! By being
ignorant to the ‘What If’s you are gambling with your future. Use your time wisely, reflect on each day and
make sure you regret nothing!
A loser
Points finger
Makes fun of winners
Moans
Blames others
Doesn’t change
Lazy
Doesn’t do extra work
Thinks everything will happen for him/her
Driven
Motivated
Works hard
Works extra
Makes things happen
Doesn’t wait for others
Looks in the mirror first
Gets on with things
Accepts setbacks
Resilient
Leader
A WINNER!!!
BE A WINNER EVEN WHEN NO ONE IS
WATCHING AND You’re SURROUNDED BY LOSERS!
Ask yourself 3 questions
Am I doing everything I can today to succeed?
What can I do better?
Could I do more?
Set yourself achievable targets
Educate yourself and plan for your future.
Football will not last forever.
Take time for yourself and focus on your mental wellbeing. Spend time thinking about the positives rather than dwelling on the negatives.
Final word
Don’t gamble your future, leave nothing to chance.
Don’t wait for tomorrow or for someone to do things for you.
Take control of your life and do things today that will have a positive impact on your tomorrow!