When you join a new team, you want to get off on the right foot. You want to impress your new coaches and teammates. And you want to set yourself up for a fun and successful season.
But all of this can lead to stress and unwelcomed pressure. Stress and pressure that can quickly lead you away from your goal and result in you performing poorly.
I’m currently working with many athletes in one-on-one mental performance coaching who are joining new teams. My work with them is focused on getting them mentally prepared for the upcoming season.
So they can show their new coaches and teammates the type of player they can be.
To get them mentally prepared, there have been some key ideas we’ve gone over. Key ideas I know will help you as well if you are about to join a new team or have already joined a new team and are at the beginning of the season.
What I’ve done is taken those key ideas and turned them into the five sport psychology tips you’ll see below. Tips that, if you stick to them, will significantly help you when it comes to joining a new team.
Tip #1: Focus on Improving NOT Proving
I’m currently working with a football player who’s just moved schools. This is his first fall season with the new program. Now we began working together four weeks before his first team practice to make sure he had a solid mindset going into the season.
Something he and I talked a lot about throughout those four weeks (and continue to talk about) is the idea of seeing practices as a way to improve, rather than a way to prove himself to the coaches.
One of the most natural mindsets to adopt when joining a new team is feeling like you need to prove yourself to your new coaches…because you do.
They will be judging you in a way to determine the value you bring to the team, how they’ll use your skills, and whether or not you’ll be a starter.
Okay, so since we know coaches are judging your game, doesn’t that mean you should try and prove yourself to them?
No. Because what you and I are focused on is how to get you to show them you’re a high value player. Someone who is a strong addition to their team. That typically does not happen by you worrying about proving yourself.
Proving yourself happens naturally through your play. So your job is to put yourself in a position to play your best during practices. Which, once again, usually doesn’t happen when you’re focused on proving yourself.
The football player and I talked a lot about this idea, and he agreed that when he was worried about proving himself in the past, he played tense and stiff. Tension that stemmed from the stress of wanting to prove himself.
However, when he focused on improving himself each day, practices had a lot less stress. Since he wasn’t trying to perform during practice, he was just focused on getting better.
Something else that’s really cool that happens when you focus on improving instead of proving is you come across as more coachable. Which is a trait all coaches love to see!
For yourself, as you begin your new team, focus on improving and getting better each day instead of going out there trying to prove yourself to your new coaches or teammates.
They’ll see how good of a player you are when you allow yourself to play freely. Playing freely happens when you let go of stress and focus on improving.
Tip #2: Communicate Well
Joining a new team is a nerve wracking experience. Especially if you don’t know anyone. All the teammates are new and the coaches are new. If you’re not a naturally outgoing person, this can make it difficult to communicate well.
But communication is vital to getting yourself comfortable on your new team. And the more comfortable you get, the more confident you’ll play. Which, once again, is a way you prove yourself to be the player you know you are.
So what exactly do I mean by communicating well?
Communicating well means you make an effort to talk with your new teammates. This will help you make friends on the team. Which is an important part, once again, to you feeling comfortable.
Communicating well also means having good communication with your coaches. Now, the type of communication you have with them will be different from the type of communication you have with teammates.
With teammates your goal is to learn the team dynamics and learn the systems, and also to get closer with them and make friends. After all, making friends is one of the greatest parts of being on a team.
With your coaches, it’s not so much about making friends with them as it is getting comfortable talking with them and learning from them.
This, once again, will vary.
Some coaches like to have more friendly conversations with players and get to know them personally. If you feel like that’s the case, be open and talk with your coach. That’s a great way to get comfortable talking with them.
Later down the road, this will make it easier to come to them with any questions you have about plays or getting better.
If your coach isn’t much on having conversations, the type of communication you have will be more about listening and taking what they say and the feedback they give you and putting it into action.
Forms of communication vary, but the bottom line is, when you join a new team, you want to focus on having good communication and making good connections with your coaches and teammates. It makes you more comfortable and it helps make you a part of the team quicker.
Tip #3: Be Accepting of Mistakes
Nobody wants to show up to their first practice and make a bunch of mistakes. That’s not exactly what you want to show your new team.
But what’s worse than making mistakes on your first practice is playing scared. Scared of making mistakes.
When you’re scared of making mistakes, the natural response is to play it safe. Now this isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, I am working with a golfer right now who has seen her game transform simply by playing it safe.
But she isn’t playing it safe out of fear. She’s playing it safe because she found herself playing too aggressively, which led to bad shots, frustration, and inconsistency.
For her, playing it safe means going for par. Allowing birdies to happen.
When you play it safe out of fear, however, it’s not a deliberate strategy. It is a byproduct of you being scared of making mistakes. This type of fear results in timid play and hesitation.
On a new team this can manifest itself in you not going to the front of the line for a drill, not driving to the basket as much as you want, avoiding the ball, not going for tackles as aggressively, playing back on the ball, and much more depending on the sport you play.
Put simply, being scared of making mistakes alters your play in a negative way.
By accepting mistakes, you begin to remove this fear.
Now accepting mistakes doesn’t mean you want them to happen. That’s not the idea. The idea is that by accepting mistakes you take away resistance toward them. This means you no longer have to think about not making mistakes and how embarassing it will be if you do make mistakes.
You can simply play!
In addition to reducing fear and timid play going into a practice or game, accepting mistakes also sets you up to handle mistakes better when they do happen.
If your focus is solely on not making any mistakes, when you do make a mistake, it will feel like the end of the world. But your reaction to one mistake can quuickly lead to more mistakes if it’s a negative reaction.
By accepting mistakes, you don’t react as negatively. Instead, you accept that mistakes will happen and you use them to learn and grow. Taking more of a learning approach when it comes to mistakes allows you to move on quicker.
So when joining a new team, accept the possibility of mistakes. Not because you want them to happen, but because you know how hurtful it is when you play scared.
Tip #4: Work Hard For You
I was talking with a baseball player the other day who I’ve worked with for a while. He is about to begin his freshman year of college. On the call he asked me, “Should I put in extra work to try and impress the coaches?”
I felt like I was asking myself that question. Only, it was me from years ago when I was a freshman in college, getting ready to begin fall practices.
The question was a natural one. He wants to make a good first impression and he wants to start. But instead of answering his question, I replied with a question of my own…”Don’t you want to work hard because you want to be the best player you can be?”
Of course, he said. But I also want to start…
When you join a new team, it’s natural to want to impress your coaches. But what did I say in tip one?
Your goal is to improve, not prove.
Putting in extra work and working hard to impress coach, while not the worst thing you could do, can easily do more harm than good.
Yes, coaches love hard working players. If you show up to a new team and put in a ton of extra work, coach will take notice.
But the harsh truth is, coach will play the best players…not the hardest workers.
Now a lot of times the hardest workers will be the best players. But that’s not always the case.
Coach will play who he or she believes is the best for the team. Who they believe gives the team the best chance of winning. Who they trust the most on the field or court. Even if it’s not always the player they admire or the hardest working player.
I’m not saying this to get you to stop working hard. Hard work and putting in extra time is how you will get to the point where you’re the best option.
I’m saying it because you need to put in extra work for the right reason…because you want to be the best player you can be!
Work hard for yourself, not coach.
Because let’s say you put in extra work with the goal of impressing coach and starting. What happens when you don’t start? Well, you may get disheartened and lose motivation.
When in reality, you need to work even harder at that point if you want the chance of starting. Not because it will impress coach to the point where you’ll be chosen as a starter. But because it will get you good enough to be a starter.
When joining a new team, the goal is to reduce as much stress as possible. If you put in extra work and work hard to impress coach, that only increases stress. Work hard for yourself, no one else.
Tip #5: Have Fun
Joining a new team is nerve-wracking and scary. Especially if you don’t know anyone on the team. And even if you do know someone, it’s still a tough experience.
Don’t make it harder on yourself by losing sight of the fact that you love your sport.
I know thinking about having fun seems cliché. But I’ve worked with many different athletes from all over the world in one-on-one mental coaching, and if there’s one over-arching mindset I can point to that they all have when they play their best it’s having fun. They were enjoying the game!
What having fun means to each athlete varies. For example, some players have fun by being lose and joking around. That’s fun to them. Others really enjoy being serious and aggressive during the game. That may not look like fun from an outside perspective, but it’s fun for them.
You have to know what it is that’s fun for you about your sport. What do you enjoy? What is it that makes you look back and think, “I had fun today…”
Focusing on having fun strips away fear. It removes a layer of pressure, since you’re not purely fixated on how you do. There’s another reason you’re there besides impressing other people or playing perfectly. You’re there because you love to play your sport.
When you approach games and practices with that mindset, it’s crazy how much of a positive impact it has on your play.
By having fun, you play will increase. And that will impress coach.
Final Thoughts
Joining a new team is fun and exciting…but it can also be stressful. There are so many new faces you want to impress. But by focusing on trying to impress everyone, you lose sight of how you play your best.
Instead, when you join a new team, focus on improving. Know you’re there to continually get better every day.
Also, be sure to communicate well and accept the fact that mistakes will happen.
Lastly, work hard for you, not anyone else, and always focus on having fun.
With these five sport psychology tips, you can make joining a new team a fun and successful experience for yourself.
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
