Unstoppable Athlete - Mental Resilience for Teen Athletes

Sara and Michelle turn their camera on while they debrief from the past weekend. A few themes came up around team dynamics and the potential appearance of mean girl behaviour. What can parents and coaches do about it and what can an athlete recognize as her own responsibility in team relationships?

Attitude and Energy are what you are in control of. 

Connecting with teammates doesn’t mean you need to be besties with everyone but it does mean leading with kindness and respect. 
Team culture of playing for each other and making the people around you better, vs playing for yourself will payoff on and off the court. Giving shout outs!

Parents - be aware if it might be your daughter engaging in mean girl behaviour. 
- Ask the coach how to help with bonding; mixing up who drives with who, team dinners, crafting clips or bag tags

- ask questions and be curious if they are complaining about another

• Help them reflect and look deeper, how is it for the other person
• What part can they own?

Top 3 Take Aways

1. Team culture - a focus on kindness and respect on and OFF the court
2. Parents - recognize your role and ask questions. Also create situations for all to mingle.
3. Players - self reflection, how are you showing up?

Visit ⁠www.skool.com/unstoppable2026⁠ to join our community, watch the Parent Intro Video, join a workshop or have your athlete on our waitlist for upcoming Unstoppable Athlete Program offerings.  

Sara has a question for Michelle about when players choose to quit playing. What can we do as coaches, and what part can the athletes take responsibility for?

Top 3 Take Aways

1. Coaches care a lot but we can’t be everything to everyone. Parents are biased in their expectations and coaches can have a strong boundary to not take on coaching advice from these parents.
2. Find your support with others who are on the field (or the court). Mastermind with coaches support - coming soon to our Skool community!
3. Communicate our plans and expectations to the athletes often. And athletes if you are uncertain about your role - ASK! 

Visit ⁠www.skool.com/unstoppable2026⁠ to join our community, watch the Parent Intro Video, join a workshop or have your athlete on our waitlist for upcoming Unstoppable Athlete Program offerings. 

Michelle shares her key takeaways from the Empower Her Sport Summit she attended in Calgary, Canada this past weekend. https://www.empowerhersportsummit.com/

Visit www.skool.com/unstoppable2026 to join our community, watch the Parent Intro Video, join a workshop or have your athlete on our waitlist for upcoming Unstoppable Athlete Program offerings. 

Develop the habit of goal setting. 

Start by writing them down. This will give you a map of where you want to go and also helps you keep your intention and motivations clear. You will build confidence as your stick to your plan, and can also notice when you might need some problem solving to get you back on track.

Start with performance goals - This is what you want to achieve, include both sport, school, relationships…

Then move to process goals - there are the efforts, habits and behaviours you can control and need to engage in on a daily basis to move you towards you goals. Make them measurable. 

Find an accountability buddy who can support you. 

And each night do a quick reflection of how today went, maybe a score from 1-10, or a celebration of something you did, or an area you can dial up tomorrow. 

Top 3 Take Aways

1. Process AND performance goals
2. Reflection - follow up each day with how things went
3. Accountability - enroll someone in the version of yourself that you want to be

Visit skool.com/unstoppable2026 to join our community, watch the Parent Intro Video, join a workshop or have your athlete on our waitlist for upcoming Unstoppable Athlete Program offerings. 

Habit of goal setting. 
Process vs performance goals.
Bounce back - the skill of recovering from a setback.
For perfectionism - focus on effort and know that change comes from stretching the edges, not staying safe in the middle. Fail fast so you can learn more and go further

Top 3 Take Aways

1. Be an example - lead your athlete by doing your own goal setting and tracking where they can observe your actions
2. Keep your language growth focused -define success as more about becoming and taking risks and less about outcomes. 
3. Create a structure - have a vision board session, use prompt questions in the car
   1. What did you learn?
   2. What felt good 
   3. More on www.skool.com/unstoppable2026

Visit skool.com/unstoppable2026 to join our community, watch the parent intro video, join a workshop or have your athlete on our waitlist for upcoming Unstoppable Athlete Program offerings. 

Celebrating the journey and not just the final result. Sara and Michelle riff on the podcast and their volleyball seasons both club and high school. 

Highlights include - shining your light, focusing on the things we can control
 - redefining success - instead of winning we made it about trying new things and the success was in being brave and making the attempt to try something new (not the result!)

Our goals and intentions for the upcoming year. Doing more athlete interviews and improving our consistency (especially when life gets busy and throws us curveballs)

We invite feedback! Please leave a comment or send us a message to share what is insightful and maybe what you’d like to hear less of.

Check all our programming out at www.skool.com/unstoppable2026 and join our community to be part of the conversations.

#17 -  Importance of Self Talk - winning the mental game -

Our call to action for athletes - DON’T IGNORE THIS CONVERSATION! You have to do the mental work. Learn about self talk, recognize when what you tell yourself is not helping, RESET, and choose a different story. Become accountable to yourself and also to your teammates. If you notice them being hard on themselves, invite them to reset. "I can do this." Or "I don’t have this, YET." Do the mental preparation, visualize how you would like it to go. Then practice that. 

Top 3 Takeaways
 1. Awareness of 1st thought, in control of our 2nd thought and choose to make it affirmative
 2. Notice the opportunity to practice. Hold yourself and your teammates accountable. Don’t say that to yourself, choose positive self talk.
 3. Speak kindly, show up as our best selves. Parents be the model for this behaviour!

Check out our upcoming dates at www.unstoppableathlete.ca

Parent Intro Video, Workshop and 12 week Unstoppable Athlete workshop waitlist open now at www.skool.com/unstoppable2026

Michelle surprises Sara with a prompt about playing time philosophy which leads into a conversation about the different strategies coaches may take. They also touch on all the ways coaches are considering different perspectives and maybe where both parents and coaches can become aware that their beliefs colour their reality.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. There is no right answer
2. Confirmation bias can cloud your perspective and its important to be aware that you may be filtering out facts that don’t support your opinion
3. Learn and grow from your experience by analyzing and reflecting on the process

Check out our upcoming dates at www.unstoppableathlete.ca

Parent Workshop and 12 week Unstoppable Athlete workshop waitlist open now!

Check out our upcoming dates at www.unstoppableathlete.ca

Parent Workshop and 12 week Unstoppable Athlete workshop waitlist open now!

Is not keeping score or giving MVP awards actually a good thing?

Are we allowing our girls to change, learn how to embody their competitive fire. Can we teach them to find their people who inspire and support excellence within them? You can be competitive and kind at the same time.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Competition is not a dirty word
2. If everyone gets a medal it doesn't mean anything 
3. Inspire excellency versus mediocrity

Check out our upcoming dates at www.unstoppableathlete.ca

Parent Workshop and 12 week Unstoppable Athlete workshop waitlist open now!

Michelle and Sara know what its like to watch athletes underperform, end up in tears and struggle to let go of perfectionist tendencies. Learn what this may mean and where you can go to learn how to support your athlete.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Parents can embody a growth mindset

2. Emotional regulation happens when we can regulate our nervous systems and physiology

3. Embrace failures as opportunities, notice when perfectionism is creeping in and help your athlete reframe