Do you have an athlete daughter who isn't moving towards her goals? In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to know when to push her and when to back off so that she can play to her full potential. 

The dilemma of, “too much, or not enough?” is a feeling that’s all too common as a sports mom. If you don’t see her doing the things that are required of her goals, you want to step in and help.  You want to encourage her to achieve her goals, but you don’t want to overstep. What do you do?

Step 1: What is your “why”?

• Ask yourself, "why do I feel the need to push her?"
  • What do I mean by “push”?
  • Where is the desire to push my daughter coming from?
    • Is it coming from a self-seeking place? Or a place that has her best interest in mind?
• You may need to dig a little deeper!
  • Our own fears and desires could be creeping into our “why”.
  • Don't make her sports journey about you.
  • Ask yourself, "what would happen if I did nothing?"
    • She will quickly learn that when she doesn’t put the work in, she won’t get the results.
• Are you aligned when it comes to her goals?
  • Do you know what her goals are? Has she defined her own goals?
  • If not, ask her what her goals are! 
    • Help her understand what she hopes to achieve. 

Step 2: Recognize the three things our daughters need to excel 

• To excel, they need three things:
  • Enjoyment 
  • Ownership 
  • Intrinsic motivation 
• All three come from within your daughter. They don’t come from parental pushing. 
• When she feels ownership, she has choices and gets to decide things for herself. 
  • When she makes her own choices, she's more likely to enjoy it, achieve more, and stick with it long term. 
• The best thing we can do is help her feel supported in decisions instead of pushed into decisions.
• Ask, “what can I do to support you?”

Step 3: Consider strategies to encourage (instead of push) 

• Encourage her towards her goals:
  • Make sure she has a plan. 
    • For example, if she’s supposed to be training outside of her sport, make sure she knows how she should be training 
    • This is a great opportunity to give her choices  such as, “which days of the week do you want to train?” or, “where do you want to train?”
  • Some athletes respond well to being challenged.
    • Would she respond well to a challenge from you? 
    • Ensure that challenging her would encourage her and not feel like added pressure.
  • Collaborate with her. 
    • Don’t underestimate your influence - model what it looks like to be disciplined and work towards a goal.
      • For example, if you work out, you can model for her that even on days where you don’t want to go to the gym, you go anyway. 
    • Do things together. 
      • Instead of saying things like, “why aren’t you doing this?” you could say, “let’s do this together."

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Helpful Links:

• Visit our podcast website for more on this episode.
• 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

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