How to Start your Individual Player Development

So it’s time to take off the kid gloves, remove any soother out of your mouth, and it’s a good idea to sit up straight because I’m not going to baby you. I’m going to tell you the truth. Here it goes.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is in charge of how good of a player you become, besides you. You are the be all end all of your improvement. You determine your future. You’re the one who chooses each and every decision that you make. Not your parents, not your friends, teammates, or coaches.* You do. If you want to improve, the person to start with is in the mirror looking back at you. You are responsible for yourself. As you stand in front of a door that is locked, you have to realize that you are the key. You have to shape yourself accordingly in order to fit the lock and access your dreams. 

At the end of the day, you decided what you want, how much you want it, and how you’re going to get there. Your development depends on you. You are in control.

*of course you can obtain valuable resources and knowledge from coaches, mentors, and others, and this is very important. Learn as much as you can from these people along your journey.

Many people say they want to achieve greatness, but they do not want it bad enough. They don’t take responsibility for it. Then, they find external things to blame when they don’t get it. Those are the challenges that serious players look back on at the end of their career and appreciate for the lessons and trials learned and the experience gained. Experience it, learn from it, and get on with it. You can’t expect your coaches to do all the work to make you better.  And you can’t blame them. You have to become your own personal coach in order to get your own personal results. 

Playing in games is the #1 best way to improve your football actions. Yet there is a lot more to training than being thrown into an 11v11 game and expected to improve. Yes, in games, you’ll be training within decision making and execution based on different position, movement, direction, and speed which is exactly what you need to improve. But this is not a viable option for most amateur clubs who don’t train accordingly several times per week. So to offset the lack of training effect from not having enough game situated training, he will have to train as efficiently (and as close to game situation) as possibly. 

In the future, I'll give you a run down of exactly which areas you’ll need to be developing individually.

If you spend time on the pitch in an efficient, effective way, your improvements will translate directly to your gameplay ability and help you to reach your potential. This is where you’ll start seeing your development.  

This deliberate training will separate you from those who only focus on training what they’re already good at, or repeating the same on stuff. You’ve always to to push the boundaries and ask more of yourself. If you aim for even just 1% better each day, that interest is going to add up! Excellence is just a habit that you can develop.

-z