Self Concept

Self Concept

As an athlete, student, and person, I believe that there are three main areas of self that I need to prioritize to achieve success in my life and career. These areas (self-confidence, self-worth, self-esteem) are crucial not just for my success, but also for my overall happiness and well-being. One of the most important skills that I can develop is a healthy self-concept, which I will consistently work on strengthening.

I believe that developing a strong and healthy self-concept as an athlete is just as important, if not more important than developing my tactical and technical skills on the field as a goalkeeper. I can only excel at my craft if I have confidence in myself and my abilities. Talent and training are not enough and do not guarantee that I will perform well in high-pressure matches or situations. Even the slightest amount of self-doubt or thoughts about the score can negatively affect my performance.

Over the past few years, I have been actively working on improving my self-concept and redefining what success means to me. I have also realized that my identity as a person is not solely tied to my role as a goalkeeper and athlete; I have many other layers and aspects to my life beyond sports.

My self-concept has everything to do with how I perceive and value myself, my motivation, how I behave, and how I carry myself. What makes me has everything to do with how I see myself. All superheroes have their “thing”, their one “power” and for me as an athlete and person having a healthy self-concept is what I make my superpower.

So how does one work on developing a healthy self-concept? Whose responsibility is it to help foster this and what resources are there in this area? I’m definitely not an expert but feel it should be a “team” effort and for me has been a team effort approach.

The Coach & Club:

Part of the role of a coach, the club, or sports program should be creating a climate where the focus is on developing the whole player. Help develop and foster mindset and mental skills to strengthen a player mentality, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem. And mistakes are encouraged and promoted. They are seen as part of the training and preparation, not as failures. Lost matches are opportunities for growth, and wins are tied to not only goals scored but also efforts and attempts to get out of comfort zones to build confidence. This is a huge one for me.

Parent & Educators:

Parents and educators should encourage and teach children to have open conversations involving self-confidence, self-worth, and mental health issues. Help foster this as well. My parents instilled in me and fostered two important messages that really got me through some of the toughest times in my life and made me who I am today. The first is that the mind is everything. What my mind thinks, my body hears, and what my mind hears, my body physically reacts to. If I am habitually critical of myself or don’t actively work at filtering out others' critical comments or opinions of me, my self-worth, confidence, and self-esteem will be negatively impacted. I work at trying to ensure my inner voice, my thoughts, beliefs, and self-talk is constructive, forgiving, encouraging, productive, and positive. This helps me cultivate more of a growth mindset culture vs. a fixed one. The second message and something my mom tattooed on her wrist for me as a visual daily reminder is, “Mind over Matter.” This powerful mantra helped me battle through some of the difficult medical challenges I had as a child. It’s similar to the first message by parents taught me and as Buddha shared, “Rule your mind or it will rule you”.

The Athlete:

Obviously the key word in self-concept, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth is “self.” Working on oneself requires constant, consistent work. For me, I utilize self-talk, mantras, daily motivational quotes, journaling, and use resources like Female Footballers Mentorship program and a mental skills coach. I do have bad days, negative thoughts, doubts, but what I actively work on is avoiding this to be prolonged or spiral out of control. 

Self-concept (self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem), especially in women's sports, are important factors that affect a female athlete’s performance on and off the field. With societal pressures and trying to overcome biases female athlete are often up against, having a healthy self-concept to demonstrate my competence and abilities is when having my superpower will matter the most. My hope is that over time, and with all the recent advocacy efforts, and now available resources like Female Footballers, that other athletes can also strengthen their self-concept, confidence, self-worth, their superpower.

Guest Blog by Aubrey McLin