Once you’re cleared to play again after an injury, a lot of times this is where the real challenge begins. And the real challenge is finding your skills, finding your rhythm, and finding your confidence back on the field or the court.
In this post, I want to go over a strategy that you can use when you do return to play or if you have just returned to play to help you as an athlete as you are trying to regain your skills and your high level of performance after an injury.
Common Challenges After Returning to Play
After an injury, there are a couple different reasons why you might be underperforming.
Lack of Rhythm
One very simple reason may be that you’re out of rhythm.
When I’ve worked with players who have returned from ACL tears—which involve one of the most extensive recovery processes—or simple injuries like a concussion that had them out for a couple of weeks or an ankle sprain, the similar challenge is when they do return to play, since they haven’t been playing a lot recently, they don’t feel like they are in the rhythm of the game.
They’re a step behind and their decision-making is off a little bit.
The lack of recent experience playing can cause a challenge with your rhythm.
Fear
We can also see the challenge of fear present itself. And this will split off into two different types of fear:
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Fear of reinjury, which is a major one when you come back from recovering from an injury.
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Fear of making mistakes.
The fear of reinjury occurs mainly when athletes are confident in themselves that they are healed. They’ve been cleared by their doctor and by their trainers, but then when they do return to play, there’s that nagging fear that they’re going to get reinjured.
This can happen because of the pain of injury. But one of the main reasons I hear athletes explain to me is that they’re scared and they’re fearful of the long and grueling recovery process.
I worked with a player relatively recently who had just recovered from an injury. We were working through their fear of getting reinjured because they were returning to play.
They shared with me that their biggest fear was having to go through the whole recovery process again because the process took them months of rehab and rest and being away from the game.
They just didn’t want to have to go through that again.
Because of that fear of getting reinjured, they were playing timid. They were holding themselves back. They were hesitating.
These are the very same things that happen when you’re afraid of making mistakes.
You don’t want to make mistakes when you return because you don’t want to get immediately benched or you don’t want coach to think that you’re a step behind.
As a result, you play scared to make mistakes. And again, you play timid, you play scared, you hold yourself back, you hesitate.
Whether it’s fear of reinjury or fear of making mistakes, when you have that fear when you play, you’re going to underperform.
Lack of Confidence
And the last reason why you might be underperforming right now is confidence.
This goes along the same lines as the lack of rhythm. As I was mentioning in the first challenge, where you just haven’t played a lot recently, that can cause a lack of confidence because you don’t trust in yourself to go out there and play well.
And when you’re missing that trust, you won’t be playing as freely and as aggressively, especially if you are also dealing with the fear of getting reinjured or the fear of making mistakes.
A Mental Strategy for Returning Stronger
So, what can you do then?
Well, we first want to make sure that going into the game, we have the correct mindset.
Then, during the game, we want to make sure that we’re using different mental tools, but most importantly, we have the right mindset that will help you play your best.
And then after games, we have to respond and evaluate these performances in a very specific way.
Focus on Progress, Not Perfection
Going into a game, it’s really important to focus on progress, and not expect perfection.
An example of this comes from a basketball player that I’m currently working with.
He’s in the offseason right now training and getting ready to go back to playing. He’s really worried about returning to play—even just playing pickup games—because he knows that he’s not 100%.
He had a knee injury. The knee is 100%. He’s been cleared by his doctors, and all that. It’s all good. But his play is not 100% because there’s still this fear, this worry, and this concern about his old injury.
So he and I were discussing how we have to return to play accepting that we won’t be at 100%. We have to be patient with ourselves and focus on progress.
If you’re returning to play right now and you’re coming off of an injury, of course, I want you—you want you—coaches want you—to be at the top level that you can be.
But if you are just returning from an injury and other players have been playing consistently, it’s natural that you will be a step behind and you have to accept that.
What you can do is set small goals for yourself during the game. These should be process-focused.
Going back to that basketball player example: one of the things he’s worried about is pushing off and jumping off the leg in which he hurt his knee. So for him, a good goal would be to try to be more explosive off of that leg for the time being. The same is true if it’s working on his cuts or whatever it ends up being.
Setting small goals helps you focus on progress—not perfection.
Be Aware of Your Self-Talk
We have to pay attention to our self-talk.
The mental side of the game—our emotions, the actions that we take during a game—they all stem from our thinking. Our thinking is at the core of our emotions, our actions, and our behavior.
If I can change my thinking to where I’m not thinking so much about how I am a step behind… if I’m not having self-talk like, “I’m not 100% yet,” and instead I’m able to think things like, “Today I’m going to get better,” “Today I’m focusing on progress”—I use that self-talk to instill this belief—that’s going to help me out a lot.
During the game, this is where self-talk becomes critical: after a mistake and during moments in the game to keep yourself present.
Mainly after a mistake, you need to make sure you’re not beating yourself up because that’s going to chip away at what little confidence you do have right now.
Evaluating Your Performance Post-Game
This last tip is how you work on building confidence and trust in yourself. It will also help with evaluating the games when you don’t feel like they were your best.
As I said earlier, we’re focusing on progress, which means we are not expecting ourselves to be performing at our top level yet. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to try as hard. It also doesn’t mean we’re going to think that we’re not good enough.
It means we can’t expect ourselves to be playing perfectly yet.
If we’re going to focus on progress, we have to see that progress. Which means: after games, even if the game didn’t go as well as you’d like, you have to focus on the success you had that day.
If I’m setting small goals for myself going into the game, after the game I need to reflect on whether or not I achieved those goals. That’s why it’s really important to set goals based on things in your control.
If the goals are based on things in your control, after the game you should be able to look back and say, “I stuck to that goal.”
That reflection will build confidence in yourself.
But if you’re expecting perfection, after the game you’re going to look back and think, “Well, I’m not there yet. I’m not good enough yet.”
What is that doing to your confidence? Is that building confidence or lowering confidence?
After the game, reflect on the successes you had and the progress you made, no matter how small it may be. This is what creates confidence.
Final Thought: Keep the Mental Tools Going
As you get back into playing, you regain that rhythm, and you feel more comfortable, you’re going to feel more confident as well.
One final tip I want to share with you is this: if you do see progress with this mentality of focusing on progress—not perfection—if you see yourself regaining your confidence by reflecting on the good things, don’t stop.
There’s a reason you got your play back—it’s because you had a better mindset. You were using your mindset to help you play better.
One-on-One Mental Coaching
I know that returning to play after an injury is incredibly frustrating and tough, but you have to be patient with yourself.
Also, if you’re interested in one-on-one coaching—which is the mental coaching program that I offer—you can schedule a free introductory call to learn more.
I’ve also created two online courses:
And if you’re more of a reader, check out my books:
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
