The Mental Game of Kicking in Football

When I’m in my groove there is no thinking. Everything just happens.

Ozzie Smith, in Baseball Hall of Fame

If you start thinking about how you come down the stairs and think about how each muscle is working, you can’t go down the stairs.

Ana Ivanovic, #1 ranked player in women’s pro tennis

The main thing is to try to relax, to stay loose. If I start tensing up or try to muscle the ball, I'll be off.

George Blanda, NFL great, holds the record for most extra points made (943) and attempted (959)

I never think about the mechanics of the swing. I just think about the target and stay focused on the process that I know allows me to perform well, rather than the immediate outcome.

Scottie Scheffler, #1 ranked golfer in the world, winner of two Masters Championships

It won't help to tell yourself, "Don't hit it in the water". Your mind will only hear water.

Bob Rotella, sport psychologist

• Do you have a mental system for being consistent with your kicking?
• Do you know how to bring the best version of yourself to the field?
• What methods do you use to reduce your anxiety and nerves?
• Do you have strategies in place to help you manage your concentration with all the distractions that show up in a game?
• How well do you control your mind and emotions under extreme pressure situations?
• How do you pump up your confidence and self-belief when you need it most?

For decades I have been the mental game coach to football players, coaches and parents at the high school, college and pro level. As a kid, I played a couple years of youth football, and enjoyed it, but I had to face the fact that I didn’t have the body type for it, and then turned to tennis where I made my mark. But I still love the game. Every fall, it’s very exciting watching my students appear on national TV in football games against the top teams in the country.

I've coached players for the NFL Combine, for media interviews, and have helped them transition into college and the pros. I have coached players at virtually every position, but I have specialized in coaching quarterbacks, receivers and kickers. Even though every position has its own form of pressure, receivers, quarterbacks and kickers have their own specialized set of mental obstacles they need to overcome. I have been very successful in helping them reach more of their potential.

I enjoyed appearing on camera as a guest expert on the VICE TV show on the NFL, called Dark Side Of Football: Wide Receiver Divas. I was interviewed on the psychology of wide receivers and quarterbacks. I explained the various psychological approaches NFL quarterbacks and wide receivers use to prepare mentally and to get into the zone.

https://www.mentalgamecoach.com/BillColeOnTVRadioAndFilm.html#BillColeInTV

What Separates Very Good Kickers From The Great Kickers?

What is your specialty? Are you a punter? Are you a place kicker? Are you good at kick offs? Are you good at points-after and field goals? Regardless, part of your challenge is that you are not in every play. You come in to work your special magic. You are often required to perform under the gun, when things in the game are tight, and your team is counting on you the most.

On ESPN recently, I watched one of my kickers on a major college football team run onto the field with a few seconds to go in the game. It was a make it or break it field goal. If he missed the kick his team lost the game. If he made the kick, he was the hero. He was the hero, and I watched as his team carried him off the field on their shoulders.

If a linesman misses their assignment, how many people in the stadium or watching on TV can really identify that error? Not too many. But as a kicker, it’s excruciatingly obvious when you miss. You’re on center stage with a big bright spotlight right on you. That’s a special kind of pressure. Many other positions on the field can make a mistake, and the rest of the team can pull together during the play to make it very successful. But you as a kicker have got to be right on the money. If you don’t hit your mark, bad things happen. You have to become immune to the pressure. You have to perform.

That’s why kickers come to me to work on their mental game.

I’m going to give you five mental strategies that will help you improve your kicking immediately. Be sure to test these out in practice before you use them in a game.

Here we go.

1. Don’t Tell Yourself What Not To Do: Kickers frequently ask me how they can prevent shanks and pulls and pushes and misses. They worry a great deal about messing up. Unfortunately, some kickers tell themselves what to avoid. They hope they don’t make mistakes. This negatively-focused thinking will actually produce the very mistakes they’re hoping to avoid. Every time you tell yourself what not to do you’re actually programming yourself to fail. How? You’re implanting the wrong images and movies in your mind. You think to yourself, “Don’t pull this kick. You’ve been pulling left way too much this week”. Guess what? You have a high likelihood of pulling the kick. Paradoxically, the very thing you dread tends to happen. Instead, use the principle of intentionality. Ignore what could go wrong and focus on what you want to have happen. Focus on your process. You have a sequence. Focus on that. Focus on the attentional cues that you know will make you successful. Remind yourself of all the times you’ve made this type of kick before. Having a positive mindset is not a 100% guarantee of success, but having a negative mindset is a virtual guarantee that you will fail. I’ll take my chances on a positive mindset any day. Intentionality rules the day.
   
   
2. Don’t Overthink: If you know what you’re doing, is there really any need to think about things? When you’re playing your best, and even when in the zone, don’t things just happen automatically? When people learn a motor skill in a sport, the early phases require a great deal of cognitive activity. As the person moves through the different phases towards owning this skill, their mental activity decreases. Once they have the skill mastered, a prime feature is that they no longer need very much cognitive activity. The skill is “in their muscles”. Muscle memory has been achieved. Remember, the part of you that can talk about it, is not the part of you that can do it. Get out of your own way and let your skills happen naturally, without thinking.
   
   
3. Don’t Get Caught Up In The Excitement: Football players will sometimes characterize the atmosphere on the sidelines and on the field during a game as being like a big party or a circus. It’s nonstop action, everyone’s talking at once, things are unpredictable, and the energy is palpable. Add enthusiastic and even rowdy spectators to that mix, and it can be seen as an overwhelming environment for some people. Instead of viewing that high-charged environment as a problem, and you as a ping-pong ball bouncing off of everything in it, choose to view it as exciting. Make up your mind that you appreciate it as “a happening”. An experience. And you’re in the middle of it. Soak up all the action, and enjoy it, but don’t react to everything. Stay self-contained and focused. Know your job. Know what you have to do before you get on the field. Do that and you can simultaneously enjoy the raucous atmosphere, and also perform to your potential. Be grateful that you have the opportunity to participate in such an amazing sporting spectacle.
   
   
4. Know Your Attentional Cues: The word attention is the scientific term for concentration or focus. Kickers who have mastered a kick know exactly what they’re doing. They know exactly the proper distance from the ball before they start. They know the proper angle to come into the ball. They know the exact spot on the ball they’re going to place their foot. They know the exact spot on their foot they want to make contact with the ball. All of these attentional elements are honed in practice. A lower-skilled kicker may accidentally or even intentionally look at the wrong attentional cues. Maybe they’re looking at the placeholder’s hands. Or they look at the top of the ball. Or they’re looking at an incoming rusher out of the corner of their eye. Or they look up at the goal posts prematurely. Looking at any of these incorrect visual attentional cues can cause mistakes. If you don’t yet know precisely where you should be looking during the execution of a given kick, you need to work these out in practice. If you don’t know these attentional cues, these are currently dangerous variables in your technique. Variables are random and erratic and inconsistent. You want to turn these variables into constants. That’s what attentional cues are-constants. They are predictable, correct visual cues you rely on during your process of kicking that lock you in mentally. Once you know the proper sequence of intentional cues during a kick, this takes you down the success pathway. We’ve all heard the expression, “Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong”. Lower-skilled kickers can certainly get some kicks correct. But only higher-skilled kickers get the vast majority of their kicks correct. That’s because they have worked out the kinks in practice. They know what makes a kick go wrong. And they have worked out fix-its for those mistakes. They also know their attentional cues that make the kick go right. They have their proper kicking technique “memorized”. This leads to high confidence levels and high levels of consistency.
   
   
5. Trust Your Training: Do you second-guess yourself in the game? Are you confident in practice, but when you get in the game, do you have doubts? It’s a terrible feeling to be unsure of yourself in a football game when it counts. But why do you practice endless hours during the week, only to get in the game and second guess yourself about technique? Isn’t part of the reason you make sure to get a lot of practice repetitions in is to make things automatic? Do you believe in muscle memory? The sport psychology literature doesn’t say that your muscles actually have a memory, but the concept is still valid. Muscle memory actually resides in your brain. As you repeat the same correct kicks over and over, this causes your brain to create new connections between neurons (brain cells that transmit information) to accurately perform the task. You can train your muscles to execute your skills consistently. Once you prove to yourself in practice that you can do this, you just need to step out of your own way and allow those skills to come forth in the game. Many kickers find it helpful to remind themselves of all their hard work in practice. They tell themselves to trust their training. They turn the performance over to their body. Let go of your thinking and allow your performance to happen. Your body knows what to do. Simply allow it to do its job.

Go Forth And Bring Out The Best Version Of Yourself

Remember, you are the only one who controls your mind. If you control your mind, you will control your emotions, and you will control your muscles and your actions. Success in kicking begins in your mind. Think the right way. Know when and how to clear your mind. Trust your training. Rely on your kicking technique system and your process to bring your results automatically. Know your attentional cues. Practice until you cannot get it wrong. Have gratitude that you’re playing the most wonderful sport in the world. Enjoy every minute of it. Feel inspired and excited. Soak up all the energy that is part of the great game of football. And then you’ll reach more of your potential every day.

Bill Cole, MS, MA is one of the world's leading mental game coaches who consults with athletes of all levels including amateurs, professionals and Olympians. He has been mental coach or consultant to Olympic athletes who have won bronze, silver and gold medals and has coached thousands of recreational, junior high, high school, college, professional, world champion and world record-holding athletes. Mr. Cole is the founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association, the global leader in certification of mental game coaches. Read over 400 free articles on sports www.MentalGameCoaching.com

"an authority on sports psychology"

Stanford University Baseball Team

"one of the top peak performance coaches on the ATP Pro Tennis Tour."

Israeli Davis Cup Tennis Team

"A world-renowned peak performance coach."


British Broadcasting Corporation (The BBC) 

"Bill Cole is a leading author on sports psychology."


Yahoo! Sports

"Bill Cole is a pioneer in the field of sports psychology."

www.Polochannel.com

For a comprehensive overview of your mental abilities you need an assessment instrument that identifies your complete mental strengths and weaknesses. Here is a free, easy-to-take 65-item sport psychology assessment tool you can score right on the spot. This assessment gives you a quick snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses in your mental game. You can use this as a guide in creating your own mental training program, or as the basis for a program you undertake with mental coach Bill Cole, MS, MA to improve your mental game. This assessment would be an excellent first step to help you get the big picture about your mental game.