Are you starting to notice your daughter’s love for the game decrease? What used to be so fun is starting to feel like a burden.

A lot of athletes struggle to overcome mistakes. Some female athletes over-critique themselves and get drowned by the stress and pressure of things outside their control. And sometimes, moms/parents contribute to their pressure, overwhelm, and waning love for their sport. 

As moms, how can we reignite the spark and joy that our daughter once had with her love of her sport?

Our guests today are Mia, a 15 year old competitive swimmer, and her mom Shenique and they will talk to us about their experience and how they cope with all the struggles we've mentioned. Mia and her mom joined The Elite Competitor Program. And both of them have some wonderful insights from their sports journey before and during ECP.

Here's how both of them rediscovered fun and joy in their sports journey.

What was your experience in swimming before ECP?

When Mia started ECP, she had just gotten out of her main competition season.

She was competing for her country, the Bahamas, and there was a lot of stress. It was her time for a break and she was trying to relax her body and mind from all the stress during those 6 months of competition.

Mia was in the resting phase before joining ECP, but her mom was admittedly at a point of frustration before joining ECP.

Shenique always wanted to make sure everything was done right, and after joining ECP, she realized all her wrong ways of supporting. Although Mia didn't notice it coming from her mom, she was more stressed out and she blamed herself a lot when she made mistakes.

It came to a point where swimming doesn't equate to fun or passion but instead equates to stress.

What are the changes after joining ECP?

Competitions are hard, but after joining ECP Mia learned not to beat herself up too much. She learned to take a second to breathe, take a break and refocus. She rediscovered the joy in doing her sports and did not dwell on the pressure and stress of it all.

The ability to take a break and breathe is a skill. Most athletes just kind of go with their brain's natural way of keeping themselves safe, which is beating themselves up and criticizing.

Shenique started to notice Mia not being so hard on herself when she started ECP. Mia would ask for feedback but she is good at taking constructive critique now and isn’t holding on to the mistakes like she did before.

"ECP is eye-opening" - Shenique

Having the right mental skills will help her realize that her self-worth is not attached to her outcome in sports. And it will help female athletes learn to focus on things in control rather than other things that are outside one's control. 

It was exactly what Shenique needed at the moment. Especially because nobody coaches the parents in this sports journey. ECP was a way for Shenique to notice where she had opportunities to better support her daughter. She learned a better way to help Mia improve versus criticizing and complaining about mistakes or underperformance.

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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

If you've been following our podcasts and blogs for a while, you'll be familiar with this retreat that we host with our Elite Competitor Program's female athletes and their moms! The retreat is made for us to unwind and strengthen the mom-daughter connection.

This time, we spent 10-11 days together in Costa Rica, surfing, doing yoga, having mindset lessons, and more activities that reinforce the mom-daughter connection. We had the great time of our lives, as well as the moms and the female athletes who joined!

Are you curious about it? Let me share with you some sneak peeks about what we did at the retreat together with some thoughts and lessons our female athletes learned on this trip.

5 Female Athletes from our Elite Competitor Program

The behind-the-scenes that I'm going to share with you guys today will be presented from the perspective of some of our participants. They're female athletes from our Elite Competitor Program who joined and enjoyed the retreat with their moms!

We have Amelia, 15 years old, who plays volleyball. Kylee, also 15 years old, plays both basketball and soccer. We have Melissa here, 12 years old and plays both volleyball and basketball. Taylor, 16 years old, also plays volleyball. And lastly, Ava, 15 years old, plays volleyball and just started doing track.

From the 5 participants of the Elite Competitors Program Retreat:

How has this retreat impacted your mindset around your sport? (Amelia, Kylee)

It made me more confident. Learning how to surf and also being able to successfully do yoga made me realize that I can do anything I put my mind to. I just kept telling myself that I could do it. So, I've implemented that in my sport. And I've noticed that I've been more confident, more consistent, and I'm able to move on from mistakes better. Learning a new thing helped me with that. - Amelia

I realize that fear cannot hold me back. Being scared doesn't affect me anymore. And I can still do it. - Kylee

How did the retreat impact your life since you returned? (Taylor, Amelia)

I've gotten a lot more confident in everything. Like I speak up more in class now and around other people that I wouldn't normally talk to you. I started talking to them and just trying to be more social and outgoing.  - Taylor

I've also become more confident and I find myself kind of like moving on from the things that used to upset me. It has helped me lead, go and be more competent. - Amelia

What would you tell other athletes or moms who are considering coming on this retreat? (Everyone)

Have a lot of fun spending time together. Surfing isn't as bad as you think it is. Once you get it, it's pretty easy from that. - Melissa

I would tell them to do it. It's worth it. It's fun memories that will last forever. - Kylee

I would just say be ready to make a bunch of fun memories. And honestly going to Costa Rica has made me change my plans (not fully) for the future. I've always been set on being like a medical person, but lately, I've been questioning that. - Ava

When you're there, I would say do "everything". Don't let your mindset or what you think you can do, affect you. Just do everything because you will regret it if you miss out because you think you couldn't do it. - Amelia

I would say "just do it". There were so many unique experiences when we went there. And it was a fun way to bond with your daughter. - Taylor

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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

Most female athletes exhibit some level of perfectionism. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of how much. 

As moms, we are aware of the difficulties that our daughters face. And it's difficult not to be concerned. I get a lot of questions from parents about how to help their athletes be less critical of themselves and focus on the positive rather than the negative.

Although perfectionism is a very normal thing that we see in athletes, sometimes this points to a deeper struggle. There are some underlying negative reasons why perfectionism pops up. 

It’s important to recognize the signs of perfectionism in your daughter such as; setting unrealistic standards and procrastination. These signs point to a deeper  emotional regulation struggle. Athletes have these underlying reasons behind perfectionism that could affect their goals and impact their self-worth. They only feel good when they’re winning and achieving.

One of a few strategies that you can be doing to help your athlete with perfectionism is to be aware of where you're placing your praise and your recognition when you're talking to your daughter. This will help build self-confidence and self-worth outside her sport, or the outcome of her games. More than just talking about normalizing imperfection, show them how you model imperfection in your life. Lastly, you can help her recognize that perfectionist voice inside of her and tame it. 

It’ll be great if your daughter knows what to do and has the right skills to be able to manage her perfectionism. To better support your athlete’s needs you can provide opportunities for her to learn through mental game training. That's what we do inside the Elite Competitor Program. We have a whole training section on perfectionism, where they learn how it shows up for them in their lives, where it shows up most loudly, how they can recognize it, and how they can use the good parts and help shift some of those negative parts. 

As a mom, your goal is not to get rid of perfectionism, but to help your athlete use it to her advantage.

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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

Do you know that some identity struggles go along with being an athlete-minded person? Being competitive and outcome-driven has always been a part of athlete culture. And achievement-driven female athletes have not been exempted from the dark side of this culture.

There's this constant pressure of hustling to be at the top. And it's not about enjoying the sport anymore, it becomes all about survival and being able to catch up or you'll get left behind.

As a sports mom, it'll be of great help to notice and identify these dark sides earlier and help our female athletes get out of this culture for them to continue enjoying their sport while having their own identity.

We're going to discuss all of that today together with Nikki Kett, life coach for athlete-minded women. Get ready to learn from her insights!

What are the three categories of struggles most athletes struggle with?

Here are the three categories of struggles our athletes face:

#1. Externalized validation

It's about athletes creating their identity based on external things and putting their self-worth based on it. External things could include validations based on the outcome of their performance. It's putting self-value based on wins and losses instead of who they are within or outside their sport.

#2. Self-Doubt

Self-doubt or just doubt in general is the belief of having to always work hard for good things to happen and not trusting that just putting in enough work would make good things come in time. It's the belief that failure is a failure, and not trusting that failures will give so much learning. It's doubting that there's a reason for everything that happens.

#3. Unhealthy Competition/Comparison

It's about athletes constantly trying to compare themselves to other people. They're putting pressure on themselves from an unhealthy place.

"I have to do this"
"I have to fix myself"

This kind of motivation is not healthy. They're motivated because of negative reasons instead of deciding to work out because their body feels good about it.

Culture impacts motivation.

For example, there's the "you got to push through, no excuses" culture, that even if your female athlete's body needs rest, she'd feel the pressure of missing out on her workout or training. That pressure gets bigger depending on how coaches could act in a certain way, or how athletes would internalize that pressure. There's a chance that it could influence their well-being outside of the sport as well. 

Realizing the importance of other things in life outside of sports is key to finding the right balance. It's about developing that identity outside of sports. Allow them to process their emotions and make their own decisions. People's thoughts and belief patterns are what bring them to the right balance.

By assisting your female athletes in understanding who they are outside of sport, you can help them avoid unhealthy patterns. Help them separate their self-worth from their successes and failures. Instead, focus on their values, the process, and how they work toward their goals.
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Helpful Links:

• Hang out with Nikki Kett on social @nikkikettcoaching and learn more about working with her!
• Join our FREE training for Sports Moms - How To Strengthen Your Athlete Daughter’s Mental Game Without Being Pushy Or Saying The Wrong Thing.

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on

The importance of mental training to your female athlete's career is undeniably important, but what if they don't see its value? How can we help female athletes see the importance of mental training?

As moms, we see what's going on with our athletes. We see her out there. We know what she might need at the moment from a different perspective. But knowing doesn't mean your daughter is on the same page as you.

Here's a question we got from one of the moms in the Elite Competitor Program.

"My daughter would benefit from mental training and increasing her confidence. How do I approach her about this in a way that will help her see the value and want to do it?"

Today, we're going to shed some light on these questions and share with you some easy tips to help your daughter see the value of mental training in her sport. 

We learn as we walk through this sports journey with our female athletes. If you notice that adding in more physical activities without having the right mental skills didn't work, then maybe it's time you introduce your daughter to mental game training. 

To seamlessly introduce mental game training you can:

• Connect the mental game's relevance to her goals. 
• Show her examples of athletes who've been doing the mental work and help her feel inspired to work on her mental game too. 
• Ask her plans to improve and suggest mental training. 
• Listen to other athletes' recommendations regarding the mental game

You don't have to 100%convince your daughter to get started with mental training. Just take the steps that you can and it's more than enough to help your female athlete gain the right mental skills to build self-confidence.

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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

"Hard is good. When you're going through the hard stuff, that's when you know you are growing." 

As adults, we have all our life experiences to understand the context of this quote, but what about our young female athletes? How do we help them handle the pressure of sports?

Today, we're joined by one of our sports moms, Ashley. Ashley is a certified soccer mom with her twin daughters both playing soccer. 

Here is Ashley's sports mom's journey and her insights into teaching her female athletes how to handle pressure and be consistently confident.

How's your and your daughters' sports journey?

My twin daughters, Ava and Addison just turned 11 years old. They will be starting sixth grade, and they both play competitive soccer on the same team. My girls started soccer when they were young, and they've been consistent with this sport ever since. 

Sports became such an important part of their lives, on and off the field. I've noticed them grow into confident young ladies through sports. And they've learned how to deal with some difficult things at a very young age. 

Why did you decide to work on their mental game?

One of the main reasons why we wanted to join ECP was to give them a solid foundation and more of the tools they might need to handle pressure. I want them to have the skills in advance and the ability to deal with it, not just in sports, but also in school and their other relationships.

As a mom of female athletes, it's a helpful thing to be more proactive and to look and notice what's going on. Are they having a difficult time handling the pressure of sports?

Just like a goalkeeper, our female athletes will go through a tremendous amount of pressure as they grow older. It's going to be hard if they have never been trained in how to handle pressure if they don't have an idea what it feels like, and are clueless about what to do in those situations. 

So, provide opportunities for them to work on their mental game. It will give them the right skills to become more self-aware and acquire a process to navigate through their way of thinking. You can start young and prepare them to face difficulties before they start to inhabit limiting beliefs. Working on their mental game will help them be more confident, thoughtful, and focused on the process rather than the outcome. 

Work with your daughter through this. It will be great if you also have the right skills to be there for them and encourage them. 

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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

Have you caught yourself using repeating strategies in an attempt to encourage your female athlete to believe in herself, only to be unsuccessful?

Today, we'll discuss "doing something new."

Stop doing the same things and expecting different outcomes, especially when it comes to our daughter's self-esteem. I'm going to share a technique with you today that will help your daughter believe in herself and recover from mistakes.

Here's an in-depth look at the system I developed after years of training female athletes.

Doing Something Different

"You're enough."
"You have the abilities."
"They chose you because you belong on this team."

Those are the things we want our daughters to remember as female athletes. We want our daughters to believe in themselves. We want them to play confidently and enjoy themselves.

These are the pleasant things we usually say when things go wrong. It might sound right, but experiencing obstacles is an important part of your daughter's athletic path. She is bound to make errors. She will feel pressure to be flawless. She is concerned about what other people are thinking. She will feel inadequate, and without the necessary mental skills to deal with these issues, your daughter might be stuck.

The majority of coaches are not taught how to teach the mental aspect of the game. As a result, we cannot rely on your daughter's coach to handle this for her.

That is why I developed a method to assist athletes with the mental side of the game. I'm going to go into detail about one aspect of the process that is critical to your daughter's self-confidence - overcoming mistakes.

The Unstoppable Athlete Method

The method I'm referring to is known as the Unstoppable Athlete Method. It consists of three elements, each of which reinforces the others. As a result, when one aspect of the approach improves and expands, the others do as well.

Part #1: Overcoming Mistakes

The first part is overcoming mistakes.

It is important to understand how your athlete reacts to adversity. How does she deal with setbacks and mistakes? Does she punish herself after making a series of errors? Is she able to overcome her flaws?

Part #2: Releasing The Pressure

The second part is releasing the pressure.

Many athletes put themselves under a lot of stress. They feel the strain of their sport, as well as the expectations of their coaches, teammates, and parents. However, some athletes add additional strain to the mix.

And if they don't already know how to deal with the first layer of pressure, they're not going to be able to deal with the strain they're putting on themselves.

Part #3: Flipping The Negative Mindset

The third part of the method is flipping the negative mindset. 

Our minds have a negative bias. Focusing on the negative is an evolutionary and biological response. But if our athletes are not aware of how their brains respond to situations and can't adjust their thinking to be more productive, they will be locked in this negative mindset.
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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

Supporting female athletes' mental health can be very challenging especially if they're in their teenage years. 

A lot of them are very good at hiding their struggles. Some have difficulty communicating their feelings with the people around them. And it's overwhelming. 

So, how can a mom support their daughter's mental health, especially in her struggles during her athletic journey?

Let's get answers and shed light on that question today with the help of our special guest, Sadie Sutton. Sadie is a 19-year-old student-athlete from the Bay Area, currently studying psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She hosts a mental health podcast called She Persisted, which she started after a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety.

In our latest podcast, Sadie shares helpful insights on how parents can better support their athletes' mental health based on her personal experience as a teenager.

Here’s a sneak peek into our conversation:

What can parents be doing to help support their athlete's mental health? 

As a mom, you can support your daughter's mental health by learning the skills yourself and showing up as a good example for them. 

Observe and notice changes in their behavior and routine. And if they come to you for help, listen and validate their feelings by treating every emotional conversation seriously. To do that, you must take care of yourself.  Your daughter isn't the only one that needs to learn how to cope with these big, overwhelming experiences in life. The emotions that you feel as a result also need to be coped with and, and not dealt with, but worked through. 

Are there any common things that parents do that aren't beneficial and that we should avoid?

Don't rush into problem-solving. Aim to be your daughter's safe space first. Take it one step at a time and help them have the skills to cope by standing up as a good example and having the skills to support mental health for yourself too. 

Invest in yourself.  Your daughter picks up on what you're modeling and you have to know how to support them too.

Any form of mental discomfort or mental health problems would provoke powerful emotions in the parents. So it's advantageous if you can manage your emotions as they occur, whether they're feelings of guilt or shame, perplexity or overburden, sadness, loss, or loneliness.

You can help provide the opportunity for your female athletes to have the skills and improve their mental health on their own, but it's not just them who have to learn these skills. You need it too. 

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Helpful Links:

• Hang out with Sadie Sutton on social @shepersistedpodcast and learn more about working with her!
• 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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

As a mom of female athletes, we always try our best to say the right things to our daughters. We've all been learning to show up and influence them in a good way, but what do we do when other people say unhelpful things to our daughters? 

Here's a question from one of our sports moms.

" I agree 100% with you when you say. And that our words become our thoughts. But how do we approach what our athlete daughters hear from close friends and neighbors?"

This isn't an unusual thing to worry about since we don't know what happens outside, or when we're not around. Today we're going to talk about the answer to this concern and what we can do about it instead. 

What We Can't Do:

We don't have control of the people around us.

So, what can we do? How do we approach the conflicting messages they hear from close friends and neighbors? Can we do something to stop them from hearing it? 

The answer is WE CAN'T.

We can't control what other people say to our daughters. We can't just pick and choose what goes inside our daughter's head.

What We Can Do:

We can only control what we say. We can only control how we can empower our daughters to receive the information that she is hearing from other people. So, we can't control what other people might say, but our daughters can be very intentional about what they choose to interpret from what they hear. 

That is what's in our control in this situation.

3 Levels To Help Her Shift Focus

You can't control what other people might say. There's nothing we can do to stop it. All we can do is control ourselves and empower our daughters with the skills that they need. We can use these three levels to help our daughters strengthen their thoughts and shift focus.

Level #1: Ensure you are focusing on the process

Level #2: Talk to your daughter after about what you heard

Level #3: Talk to the person about what the goals are & set boundaries

As a mom, you have all the power to give opportunities for your daughter to learn and be equipped mentally. It is simply because you're the biggest influence in your daughter's life.

In The Elite competitor Program, we teach moms what they can be saying and doing to ensure that their athlete daughters are developing confidence in the long-term. So make sure that you're doing that work and just be aware of what you're surrounding your daughter with. It's also really important that she has the mental skills to be able to distinguish between thoughts and words that are helpful to her and thoughts and words that are not helpful to her. 

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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

The BEST way to help us spread the word and get this information into the hands of millions of parents, coaches, and female athletes is by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you in advance for joining us on our mission!

ICYMI: Awesome interview with softball mom, Angela talking about her daughter's experience inside The Elite Competitor Program!

Listen to learn..

👉 What was going on for Amy before joining ECP (think: pressure, nerves, big emotions on the softball field..)

👉 What changes Angela started to notice in Amy only weeks after joining

👉 How Angela and Amy's relationship changed while going through the program

👉 The moment that made it all worth it 💗

I also answered some common ECP questions after!

Enrollment for ECP is open now! 

www.kristinabreanne.com/ecp