What To Do If You’re Not Playing Well

Every athlete goes through slumps where they aren’t playing well. This can be a bad practice, a bad week, a bad month, or even a bad season. This is just a part of being an athlete. But what separates the good athletes from the great athletes is how they respond to these slumps. Here are some tips to help you deal with a slump and get you back to playing well again.

1) Continue to play with passion

I think the biggest thing to help you get out of a slump is to not overthink it and continue to play with the same passion, fight, and aggression as you would if you were playing well. Actually, you should be playing with even more passion when you’re not doing your best. If you become overly aware that you’re not playing well and start to second guess yourself, it’s only going to get worse. The times when I’ve played the worst were the times when I thought things like, “Oh no, I’m playing bad. What is my body doing? What’s going on? That was a dumb mistake.” The times when I was able to come out of a slump the quickest were the ones where I knew I wasn’t playing my best, but I didn’t dwell on it and instead played as hard as I could and continued to have fun despite not playing how I wanted to.

2) Pick one thing to focus on

Sometimes when we’re playing poorly, we want to change everything about how we play and try to focus on too many things at once. What I have found helpful is to focus on one thing and try to do that one thing as best as I can. For example, if I’m not hitting well, instead of focusing on being open, good hand contact on the ball, my spacing with the setter, my spacing with the net, what my arm swing is doing, etc, I’ll focus on just having an explosive approach. I’ll focus on one thing that will have a positive effect on all the other aspects of my technique if I do that one thing well. Being explosive and quick helps me play with more aggression, which usually will help me play better.

3) Realize that it will pass

The more you tell yourself that this will pass and is just a phase, the quicker it will actually pass. If you dwell on it and get overly concerned every day that you’re still not playing well, then you will prolong the slump. Your level of play will go up and down day by day, but will get better over long periods of time. So your slump today might actually be a much higher level of play than you were 2 years ago. You are still getting better as long as you are putting 100% effort into your training. It will pass and you will be playing well again sooner than you realize.

4) Have positive self-talk

Be kind to yourself. It’s hard enough not playing as well as you want without telling yourself harsh things like, 'I'm a bad player, I’m not good enough, what’s wrong with me?” Make sure you’re saying kind things to yourself, staying as objective as possible, and being your own cheerleader. Imagine how a nice, supportive family member or teammate would talk to you. They would be encouraging, cheering you on, and focusing on the positive. Be an encouraging person to yourself!

5) Realize you are more than just an athlete

Sometimes we get so caught up in winning and losing, how well we’re playing, and our sport in general that we lose sight that it really is just a game. 20 years from now we won’t be dwelling on each individual performance we had, but we will be remembering all the fun times we had playing sports. So try to put it into perspective that just because you’re not playing well or your team is losing, you are still an amazing person and have so much to offer the world. Outside of training and games try to focus on your hobbies, surround yourself with positive people, and do things you enjoy doing to keep your mind off of how you’re playing. We are complex beings and sports are only a tiny part of who we are.

I hope these tips helped! Trust me, I’ve been in many situations where I haven’t played as well as I wanted. Sometimes I got out of it quickly, sometimes it took a while, and once the season ended without getting that closure of playing well again. So be kind to yourself, keep playing hard and focusing on what you can control and you’ll be back to your old self before you know it! I believe in you and am here for you! 

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