Real Talk: After a Loss, 3 Things I Did to Refocus My Team

We lost early and here’s exactly how I refocused my team fast (with no punishment runs). Grab the step-by-step free training → https://coachfreetraining.com
 
If you coach girl athletes and care about more than Xs & Os, this real-talk breakdown shows the 3 moves I made after a tough tournament exit including a quick team reflection, a leadership/body-language audit, and a simple “This is good for us because…” reframe. You’ll see how I tied each mindset step directly to practice reps so mistakes stop snowballing.
 
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. 
 
🎯 Learn about:
✅ Specific prompts so every athlete identifies her role and one behavior to upgrade.
✅ How to reframe script to combat negativity bias and write the season’s story on purpose.
✅ Fast reset strategies (Snapback routine + 3-2-1 BRAVE) so mistakes don’t snowball.
✅ Practice plan tie-ins with consistent reps that connect directly to the mindset work.
 
Want plug-and-play prompts, the Snapback Routine, and my 3-2-1 BRAVE script you can run tomorrow? I walk you through all of it, plus provide printable prompts, in my free training for coaches. It’s the deeper dive that turns this video into a system you can repeat all season. 👉 https://coachfreetraining.com
 
🕓 Key Moments 
00:00 Reflecting on tournament loss 
00:49 Approach to handling the loss 
01:27 Team reflection and leadership 
02:11 Reframing the experience 
03:24 Practice plan and improvements 
04:22 Mental training resources
 
📢 Coaches – comment below: Which of the 3 steps (Reflection, Leadership Audit, Reframe) are you adding to this week's practice? 👇
 
📌 Free Tools & Next Steps
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Transcript

1:04

Just dropped up a volleyball tournament with my high school varsity team and we lost in the first round of bracket play. Now, this is a position that I haven't been in for a while. Those of you that have been following were four consecutive state champions. This is kind of new territory, but not unfamiliar. And if you are guiding your team through a loss. This is how I'm going to help my team through this because it's tough being in the position that they are in defending state championships that many of them were not a part of. And we did a ton of good things this weekend at this tournament. I love this team so much and there's so much potential. Um, but we didn't play how we wanted to play and. Part of me expected some of this because we're a new team. It's inconsistent still right now at the beginning of the season. But here's specifically how I'm going to help my team through this at practice this week. No, we're not gonna run a bajillion lines for all the serves that we miss. We did miss plenty. Okay. But we're not gonna go that route. Um, I'm specifically going to incorporate some reflection into this. So very basic. I think sometimes we just. Move past things really fast and then we just, you know, don't really take time to actually help them create the story of how this is going to play out for the rest of the season, because. It can, and it's now part of our story. So how are we going to incorporate this into what we're doing this season? So I'll sit them down. We will reflect a little bit. We always do a little mindset work before practice. It's called 3, 2, 1, brave. It's like a little way to get them focused. It's a little visualization, but also include some journaling. So part of this is going to have them reflect on what went well and what they wanna improve on. Moving forward. Now that's pretty basic, but one thing I wanna go deeper with is I saw some leadership things pop up this weekend, which is why I am glad that we hit some adversity and we did lose because it got to help us, you know, face some things that we wouldn't have if we just kind of coasted through and just won. And so I think that there were opportunities for. Us to respond better as leaders, including like some body language stuff and things like that. So I want them to reflect on where our body language and where our leadership could improve specifically from this weekend. And have each of my players take ownership of what they're going to improve when it comes to leadership. So I'm gonna have them write that down. We're gonna share in a group on that. I'm also just gonna, uh, do a little activity. Um, and I'm not, I'm not trying to spend a bunch of time on this, but I do think it's really important that they decide like. How am I going to frame this moving forward? Because they could easily frame this as like, well, this season is gonna be terrible and we're not gonna do very well and, and all of this, and so I'm going to have them fill in this sentence. Um, I haven't decided how I'm exactly gonna phrase it, but something along the lines of, I am. I am glad this happened because, or I think more likely I'm gonna say, this is good for us because, and what I mean by this is the loss. Like this is good for us because, and have them come up with why is this going to be good for us? How are we going to use this for good? Because. Our brain has a negativity bias and it's very easy to get negative when the adversity hits and start blaming other people and, and all of this. And so having them reframe this and share out loud, like, this is going to help us because, or this is good for us because helps them reframe that because language is so powerful in how they look at things. So we're gonna start practice that way. Um, again, to recap like what. Something they did well, things, something, things that actually went well for us. Things that we need to improve on. And that could be skill wise, it could be leadership, and then specifically I'm gonna go into leadership where, um, you know, where do we need to improve on our leadership and what is each person going to individually own about that? Um, and then filling in the blank, this is good for us because, so that we can reframe it. Now, of course there's gonna be a lot of serving and a lot of passing and a lot of reps and a lot of like really specific things that we need to. Work on physically when it comes to like playing consistently, but I think their mindset is just as much important when it comes to processing a loss. So that's what I'm gonna do. Um, if you want more on like, you know, specific skills to help, because we're gonna be leaning on some of these skills around like. How to bounce back faster from mistakes, um, so that they're not making multiple mistakes in a row. Multiple mistakes in a row.'cause we did that a few times this weekend. Um, head to our free training, it's at coach free training.com. We're gonna be emphasizing some of these things like the snapback routine. Um, you know, the 3, 2, 1 brave that I talked about. So even though there's a lot we need to work on physically for the rest of the season, um, we're still gonna be spending. Um, you know, pr a proper amount of time on the mental side of the game because that's just as important, especially when it comes to the pressure that these girls are facing this season. So, head there, coach freetraining do.com for some more resources there.