This is the exact notebook system I use to build mental toughness all season. Learn more here, coach → https://coachfreetraining.com

📌 Resources & Tools:

FREE:🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

⏰ Key Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Vision Board & Front Cover
01:38 Notebook Organization
01:52 Sport IQ & Match Prep
03:06 The Mental Game: 3-2-1 BRAVE
05:04 The BRAVE Visualization Method

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre, a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

For the past six years, I've used player notebooks with my team to build focus, consistency, and ownership over the season. This episode walks through every section, including the daily mental game routine that lives inside it.

You'll see exactly how the notebook is organized, from the season calendar and playbook notes to the pre-game prep and post-game reflection pages. Most importantly, you'll see the 3-2-1 BRAVE routine my players run through before every practice.

What You'll Learn:
✅ How to structure a player notebook coaches and athletes actually use all season
✅ The exact 3-2-1 BRAVE routine my team runs through before every practice
✅ How the season-opening vision board workshop ties into daily mental training
✅ A simple way to build ownership and consistency without adding extra practice time
✅ How to use written affirmations and visualization to shift a negative mindset

💬 Coaches — comment below: which part of the 3-2-1 BRAVE routine would help your team most right now, the affirmations, the journaling, or the visualization?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
👉A 2025 study of 512 athletes found a 4-week mental skills program built on goal-setting, visualization, mindfulness, and team reflection produced large gains in self-confidence and large drops in competitive anxiety. (Alecu & Onea, Frontiers in Psychology, 2025)
👉A meta-analysis of visualization research found a medium, statistically significant positive effect on athletic performance. (Simonsmeier et al., International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2020)
👉A gratitude study with 51 NCAA Division I athletes found meaningful increases in well-being and sport satisfaction, and decreases in burnout, four weeks after a single gratitude workshop. (Steinfeldt et al., Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2019)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #youthathletics #teamculture #highschoolcoaching #sportsvisualization #athletejournaling #mentaltoughness

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Nerves were never the problem. Not having a plan for them is. Learn more here, coach → https://coachfreetraining.com

📌 Resources & Tools:

FREE:
🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

⏰ Key Timestamps:
00:00 Intro: Handling Pre-Game Nerves
00:50 Tip 1: The Critic in the Stands
01:58 Tip 2: Find Your Hype Number
02:47 Pregame Visualization Routines
04:31 Tip 3: The Highlight Reel
05:28 More Free Coaching Resources
06:02 Reframing Nerves as Excitement

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre, a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

You already know when a mistake wrecks the rest of the game for one of your athletes. This episode breaks down three tools I use with my own team to help players manage nerves before they turn into mistakes. None of them require extra practice time or a psychology degree, just a few minutes before warmups.

What You'll Learn:
✅ How to help your athletes name and distance the negative "critic" voice that shows up before big moments-
✅ A simple 1-10 scale to help each player identify whether she needs to calm down or get hyped up before competing
✅ Specific ways to help athletes reach their ideal pre-game state, from breathing to visualization to warmup intensity
✅ A pre-game exercise that stops the spiral of catastrophic thinking before it starts
✅ Why turning nerves into excitement works better than trying to make them disappear

💬 Coaches — comment below: What do you say to a player who's spiraling with nerves right before a big moment?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
👉Self-talk interventions produce a moderate, statistically significant improvement in sport task performance (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2011)
👉High-level athletes' pre-competition anxiety scores dropped significantly after a short attentional-training intervention (Zhao et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2025)
👉A 10-session psychological skills and mindfulness intervention produced medium-to-large improvements in athletes' mental toughness and competitive anxiety (Vella-Fondacaro & Romano-Smith, Sports, 2023)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #youthathletics #pregameprep

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Visualization only sticks if it fits in practice, not adds to it. Want the exact visualization scripts I use with my team? All 15 are inside Plug & Play. The free training walks you through it → https://coachfreetraining.com

📌 Resources & Tools:

FREE:🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
|📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre, a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

In this episode, I break down the exact way I introduce visualization to my team without the awkward energy that killed it the first time I tried it. I share what I call it, how long we spend on it, and why the science behind it makes it worth the two minutes.

This isn't guided meditation or a big production. It's a small habit that gives your team free reps without adding a single thing to your practice plan.

What You'll Learn:
✅ Why calling it "mental reps" instead of meditation gets buy-in fast
✅ A simple way to start visualization in one to two minutes before practice
✅ How your energy as a coach determines whether your team takes it seriously
✅ Where to find 15 ready-made visualization scripts and audio for your team
✅ Why the science behind visualization means it works like free reps, minus the wear and tear

💬 Coaches — comment below: What's one mental training tool you've been nervous to try with your team?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
⚡️Imagery training produces a medium-sized performance boost across motor and mental outcomes in athletes (Simonsmeier et al., International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2020)
⚡️A 2025 meta-analysis of 3,593 athletes found roughly 10 minutes, 3 times a week, over 100 days produced the strongest results, proof that consistency beats duration (Behavioral Sciences, 2025)
⚡️Coaches who get trained on a new program themselves see adoption rates nearly double those who don't (Barden et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #youthathletics #volleyballcoach #sports visualization #visualization for athletes #mental reps #mental training for athletes #mental toughness coaching

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Three drills that build mental toughness, and the skills that make them stick. Learn more here, coach → https://coachfreetraining.com

📌 Resources & Tools:

FREE:
🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

⏰ Key Timestamps:
00:00 Intro: The Rollercoaster of Team Mindset
01:25 Pressure Point Drills
02:59 Training Self-Talk: Three, Two, One Brave
03:35 Championship Story: The Reset Word
04:35 Chaos Drill and Breathing
06:44 Wash Drill: Stacking Pressure
07:20 The Snap Back Routine
08:49 Closing Thoughts and Free Training

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre, a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

Every coach is diligent about the physical game. Fewer have an actual plan for the mental one, and that gap is what decides tight matches.

What You'll Learn:
✅ How to run a Pressure Point drill that forces your team to finish tight games
✅ How a Chaos drill builds composure when the game stops going the way it's supposed to
✅ How the Wash drill stacks pressure by requiring two wins in a row for one big point
✅ Why none of these drills work without pairing them to a trained mental skill
✅ The real story behind a state championship comeback that came down to one breath and a reset word

💬 Coaches — comment below: what's the toughest pressure moment your team has faced this season?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
👉A meta-analysis of 14 studies found pressure training (practicing under simulated pressure) produced a medium-sized improvement in performance under pressure (Low et al., Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 2021)
👉Junior athletes who completed self-talk training showed reduced competitive anxiety and higher self-confidence compared to a control group (Walter, Nikoleizig, & Alfermann, Sports, 2019)
👉Varsity athletes trained in diaphragmatic breathing showed lower heart rate and higher heart rate variability under a stress task (Hunt, Rushton, Shenberger, & Murayama, Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 2018)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #volleyballcoach #youthathletics #mentaltraining

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

How you run your parent meeting decides if parents trust you or fight you all season. Learn more about the mental training program I use here → https://coachfreetraining.com

📌 Resources & Tools:

FREE:
🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

⏰ Key Timestamps:
00:00 Why Parent Communication Matters
00:18 Shifting My Coaching Approach
00:50 Sharing Your Story to Build Trust
01:33 Free Mental Training Resource
02:01 The Note Card Activity
03:15 Building a Parent Partnership
03:46 Wrapping Up: Mission, Values, and Mental Game

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre — a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

Your first parent meeting sets the tone for your whole season, whether you realize it or not. I used to think my job was to coach and their job was to support without question, and that approach created more drama, not less.

What You'll Learn:
✅ Why leading with your accolades in a parent meeting backfires, and what to share instead
✅ The exact note card activity I run at every preseason parent meeting
✅ Three rotating questions that get parents to open up instead of shut down
✅ How to signal partnership with parents instead of gatekeeping
✅ Why this matters more than your rules and boundaries talk

💬 Coaches — comment below: What's the one question you wish every parent would answer honestly before the season starts?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
👉Coaches' communication gaps and favoritism account for roughly 15% of parents' competitive stressors related to their child's sport participation (Eckardt, Dorsch & Lobinger, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2022)
👉 Youth sports parents report more trust in their child's coach than in national, state, and community leaders, or in their child's school and teachers (Aspen Institute Project Play, State of Play 2022)
👉 56% of coaches who experienced verbal harassment or abuse identified parents as the most common source (U.S. Center for SafeSport, 2025 National Coaches Survey)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#parentcommunication #coachinggirls #youthathletics #mentalperformance

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

We train for week 12 in week 1. Here's how I build my team's mental game in before the season ever gets loud. Learn more here, coach → https://coachfreetraining.com

===========================
📌 Resources & Tools:
===========================

FREE:

🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:

👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

===========================
Connect with us!
===========================

IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

===========================
⏰ Key Timestamps:
===========================
00:00 Introduction
00:23 First Week Overview
00:57 Culture
01:34 The Welcome Meal
01:45 Leadership Core
03:37 Norms & Expectations
04:54 Mental Training
06:12 Mental Training Tools
07:23 Recap & Resources

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre — a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

I don't wait until playoffs to teach my team how to handle pressure. In this episode, I walk through my exact first week of the season, culture, norms and expectations, and mental training, and why building it all in early is what keeps me from putting out fires later.

🧐 What You'll Learn:

Why I say "we're training for week 12 in week one," and what that actually looks like in practice
How my Leadership Core runs our welcome meal instead of me
The 5-7 minute routine my team does before every single practice
Why unglamorous logistics like net setup protect your culture more than you'd think
The line I used to say about "whichever team shows up" and why I stopped saying it

💬 Coaches — comment below: What's the one thing you already have locked in for your own first week, and what's still up in the air?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:

Team-building interventions lasting less than 2 weeks did not produce statistically significant improvements in team cohesion, while effects were strongest for interventions over 2 weeks with athletes ages 15-20. (Frontiers in Psychology, 2024)

A meta-analysis of 112 effect sizes across 15 sports found pre-performance routines produced moderate-to-large effects on performance under pressure. (International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2021)

A study of 255 U.S. high school coaches found nearly 90% believed formal captain leadership programs were beneficial, but only 12% actually used one. (Journal of Leadership Education, 2019)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #teamculture #highschoolcoaching #preseasonprep

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

How you handle cuts says as much about your training as it does about her talent. Learn more here, coach → https://coachfreetraining.com

===========================
📌 Resources & Tools:
===========================

FREE:

🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:

👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

===========================
Connect with us!
===========================

IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

===========================
⏰ Key Timestamps:
===========================
00:00 Introduction
00:29 Reduce Anxiety Early
03:49 Avoid Surprises
05:55 Setting Evaluation Criteria
07:32 Evaluating Intangibles
10:13 Communicating Teams and Cuts
13:53 Final Thoughts

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre — a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

In this video, I break down how I make tryout cuts after 14 years of coaching and four state championships, including decisions I still think about years later.

This episode covers the evaluation system I built so those decisions come from data and clarity, not just a gut call under pressure.

What You'll Learn:
✅ Why real evaluation starts in the summer, not on day one of tryouts
✅ The FAQ document that gets every athlete and parent on the same page about how cuts work before tryouts begin
✅ How a two-day structure gives you the data to back up a hard decision
✅ Why I stopped fitness testing and what I watch instead to decide who makes the team
✅ How to evaluate leadership and mental toughness without cutting a player for a skill you're going to teach her anyway

💬 Coaches — comment below: what's the hardest cut you've ever had to make, and how did you handle telling her?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:

⚡️Larger high schools tend to cut more athletes than smaller ones, which is linked to earlier single-sport specialization in female high school volleyball players. (UW-Madison School of Education, 2026)

⚡️A study of 22 head coaches found deselection happens in four distinct phases, and coaches often lean on intuition when evaluation criteria run into uncertainty. (Dunn, McHugh & Holt, The Sport Psychologist, 2016)

⚡️A growing body of research now supports mental toughness as a trainable skill, not a fixed trait athletes are simply born with. (American College of Sports Medicine, 2025)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#mentalperformance #coachinggirls #youthathletics #tryoutcuts #volleyballcoach

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Every roster has a cactus kid. Most coaches never get trained for her. Learn more culture tips here, coach → https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

📌 Resources & Tools:
FREE:🎓 Mental Game Training for Coaches: https://coachfreetraining.com
📬 Join our weekly Varsity Squad newsletter: https://coachhergame.com/yt-varsity-squad
🔹 Player Impact Plan Template: https://coachhergame.com/impact
🎙 Podcast: Coach Her Game Podcast

OUR SIGNATURE PROGRAMS:
👉 Grab the Plug & Play Elite Mental Game for Teams → https://elitecompetitor.com/plugplayemg
🔹 Championship Program Mentorship: https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

Connect with us!
IG: ➡︎ https://www.instagram.com/coachhergame
Tik Tok: ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@coachhergame
YouTube: ➡︎ SUBSCRIBE 🙌🏼 and hang out in our community here with us!

⏰ Key Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: The Gift of Strong-Willed Kids
01:13 Meet Wendy Snyder & Fresh Start Family
03:05 Traits of Strong-Willed Kids & Future Leaders
06:06 Coaching Cactus Kids: Earning Respect
07:03 Handling Intensity Without Disrespect
09:44 Teaching Peaceful Conflict Resolution & Win-Win
12:54 Detachment & Handling Different Personalities
13:25 Team Conversations & Detachment Skills
16:27 Reframing Complaints as Requests
21:16 Closing Thoughts & Where to Find Wendy

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre — a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.

🎙 Joined this episode by Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator, family life coach, and founder of Fresh Start Family.

Coaches, you already know the player. Intense, competitive, hard to read, and probably one of the best athletes on your roster.

This episode breaks down how to coach that intensity without letting it slide into disrespect, and how to run a team conversation about it without shaming the kid who brought the energy in the first place.

What You'll Learn:
✅ The difference between competitive intensity and actual disrespect, and why coaches confuse the two
✅ A simple script for peaceful conflict resolution you can use with any two players who are clashing
✅ Why "behind every complaint is a request" changes how you respond to a player who's venting
✅ How to hold a team meeting about one player's impact without making her feel like the problem
✅ When to loop a parent in versus letting the athlete handle the conflict herself

💬 Coaches — comment below: What's your go-to move when one intense player is creating friction with the rest of the team?

P.S. A few stats worth knowing:
⚡️Conflict communication patterns accounted for 40% of the variance in team cohesion among competitive youth athletes (McLaren & Spink, International Journal of Sport Communication, 2020)
⚡️Managing parents ranked among the top reasons coaches considered leaving the profession, per a national survey of 3,470 coaches (U.S. Center for SafeSport, 2026)
⚡️More than 40% of sports officials surveyed cited unruly parent conduct as the biggest threat to their job satisfaction (National Association of Sports Officials, 2023)

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

#coachhergame #mentalperformance #coachinggirls #teamculture #youthathletics

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!