 Becoming a better player does not have to be complicated so don't make it any harder than it has to be. In this video I've outlined a five-step formula that I want you to follow and I guarantee if you follow this formula you will become a better player. First, you must believe that you can become better. You must believe that personally you can make yourself better. There's so many players that message me every single day and I get this feeling of helplessness. It's like I can't do anything to become better when in reality it's all up to you to become better. Believe me you can improve all your skills. You can improve every area of your fitness. You can become smarter if you take responsibility and put it under your own control. Instead of feeling helpless like I can't do anything to improve my skills. I can't do anything to become smarter. I need someone else to help me. Hey you need to look inside yourself and say hey what can I do to improve this? What can I do to become better at that? And if you take that mentality that I believe in my ability to make myself better and I know I can become better if I just start focusing on finding solutions rather than crying and complaining about my problems then you will become a better player. Yes it's going to require some effort. You're going to have to put in time. You're going to have to put in hard work, some sacrifice, some discipline but you will become better if you believe in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself you think you need to pay someone a million dollars or you think you need the best coaching in the world to become better then you're lost already okay. Believe you have the power inside of yourself you right there it's inside of you and when you start looking inside and asking yourself okay how can I become better I know I can do this if I just start asking the questions and putting in the work then you're already moving in the right direction. So there will be people along the way your coaches will help you trainers will help you you may get some ideas and advice from teammates and other players that you respect I will help you along the way but if you aren't helping yourself then you will not become better so that's where this all starts. Start by believing in yourself. The second thing you need to start doing right away is start playing as much as possible you may have heard the term baptism by fire and basically that means just putting yourself in there even if you're the worst player ever and everyone else is ten times better than you you will become better by putting yourself in that awkward position where everyone is too good for you you don't know what to do you can't keep up okay you need to put yourself in those uncomfortable situations because it will force you to improve I get messages from players and they say things like hey I'm really training hard on my own but I'm not on a team what are you waiting for even if you're the worst player on the team just being on that team putting yourself in that environment will force you to become better so you need to get on a team right away ask your friends do a Google search look up on Facebook okay there are different ways to find teams if you just start asking the questions like we talked about in the first part of this you will find the answers so get yourself on a team even if it's the worst team even if it's a div 5 team you will work your way up okay but you need to put yourself on a team you need to start gaining experience there is no substitute for match experience yes training by yourself is fantastic and we'll talk about that a little later on but you need to get that match experience put yourself in an environment where people are trying to tackle you they're trying to hurt you they're trying to take the ball away from you they're trying to make you screw up and that will force you to become a better player so once you get on that team make the most of every single opportunity even if in the very beginning you're only getting 10 minutes of playing time nobody trusts you you need to take that time and you need to make the most of it work extremely hard learn from your mistakes and just be positive about the whole environment and the whole experience in the whole situation as I said in the beginning you may only get 10 minutes but make the most of those 10 minutes next time it might be 20 you keep doing well next time it might be a half then you're playing the full game it's about taking those little steps but if you're negative and you're afraid of these challenges you're never going to get there one step at a time but you need to start playing as much as possible you can play every day fantastic get improved way faster than someone who only plays one game a week so step number two play as much as possible the third thing you need to do if you want to become a better player is train by yourself train individually why because when you're training by yourself 100% of the focus is on you yes games are fantastic yes training with your team is very important but when you're training with your team or you're in a game you're not always on the ball you're not always involved yes you may be involved indirectly working on your movement but when you're training by yourself you can focus on exactly what you need to improve so you should be training by yourself every single day yes sometimes you may only have 20 minutes to work on your skills sometimes you may have two hours as long as you have the attitude like hey today I'm gonna put in some work to become a better player then you're gonna be moving in the right direction so the best thing you can do especially if you're a beginner is just get that ball go and find a wall start pinging the ball against that wall get thousands of touches hundreds of thousands millions of touches the more touches you get on the ball the better you will become the sad truth is most players they don't get touches on the ball they just show up to their team practice once a week and they show up to their team's game once a week and they expect to be better than they were last week and they're frustrated when they don't play well the truth is you don't deserve to play well because you haven't put in the work so get to the wall get your ball just get those touches start working on your footwork start working on your skills hitting passes against the wall shooting against a wall just getting lots of touches in the beginning don't worry so much about oh I need the perfect training program I need to do this drill after this drill for this many minutes and this many repetitions just get on the ball just start practicing and improving yourself the next thing you can do as far as training individually to get your game up right your game up right away is become extremely fit okay there's no excuse for you not being fit yes you may not have the best skills at this moment but you'll be working to improve those but you can be fit very quickly if you just put in the work so start going for runs I recommend when you're going for runs don't just jog at a slow pace because that's not what you do in a game sprint jog sprint jog sprint walk sprint jog mix it up but put in those short bursts because that's what soccer that's what football is all about so get your fitness up work on your speed do some sprint drills do some agility drills there's tons on my channel just search on YouTube search for agility training speed training soccer and fitness training you'll get tons of ideas but it's about you putting in the work getting your fitness up is one of the easiest things you can do to become better on the field because if you're fitter than everyone else you can run longer than everyone else you can get to the ball quicker especially in the later periods of the game when everyone's getting tired you're gonna stand out and it's gonna make the game a lot easier for you finally about training individually I just want to say become a well-rounded player don't just focus on one thing don't just do skills because that's what you like to do think about how can I become a complete player what are all the different areas of your game ball control dribbling passing receiving shooting perfect all these different things both feet right foot left foot don't be a one-footed player okay work to become better player work to become a well-rounded player focus on your weaknesses and improve them focus on your strengths and make them better so number three if you want to become a better player train individually the next thing you can do to become a better player and this one is fantastic because you can do it from the comfort of your own home is just watch more football study the game become a fan of this game I know so many players who especially when I was growing up I always remember they would be like oh yeah I don't like to watch soccer I just like to play it and I can't understand that if you want to be a better player you need to watch as much as possible you need to study this game study these players have your favorite team have your favorite player watch them analyze them honestly I'm a football neutral I love all teams yes I know real Madrid just won the Champions League but I'm rocking Barcelona I love them all I love good football because I love to learn from everyone and if you can learn from the best players in the world the best teams in the world they're out there they're waiting to teach you just want to learn and study them so for example if you're watching a game study a player what does he do when he has the ball what does he do when he doesn't have the ball what is his movement what are his decisions what does his technique look like when he does something how did he dribble through three guys how did he score that incredible goal don't just be amazed ask why analyze and then you can apply it when you're practicing by yourself or you pick up a few things that you use yourself on the field you can just watch YouTube compilations of your favorite players watch players of different positions players who play your position how are they successful what do they do what do they do in certain situation what makes them so great ask these questions and you will get these answers and I guarantee you it will make you a smarter player honestly I think the players who watch the most usually have the best style of play in my experience players that I play with the guys who watch the most they're probably the smartest players they're the most intelligent they make the right decisions so the more you watch the smarter you will become yes it will make you a better player so number four study this game become a fan of this game become passionate about this game love to watch this game but learn as you watch the fifth thing I want you to do if you're serious about becoming a better player is stay motivated stay consistent and stay patient it takes time to become better it takes time to become great and so many of us out there we're frustrated with where we are and we're just focused on where we want to be and that's great that's great that you're focusing on the future and you want to get there but realize it takes time you're not going to become the best player in the world overnight you're not going to become the best player on your team overnight but you need to have that mentality that no matter how long it takes I'm just going to keep chipping away and you don't have to become the best overnight you just have to become better overnight every day you get a little bit better I improved my skills a bit today I improved my fitness a bit today I became a little smarter I understand the game better I understand my position better so it's just about making tiny improvements every day and then when you look back in a couple months at the end of the season next year you'll be amazed at the improvements that you've made so please please stay patient about your journey stay motivated and stay positive what motivates you maybe you need some reasons maybe you want to make a team maybe you want to prove that coach wrong maybe you want to show up that kid at school who's a jerk to you this whole time maybe you want to win an award maybe you just want to do this for yourself or your family to impress your parents your friends whatever find your motivation find reasons to keep you moving forward so please stay positive stay patient there will be ups and downs sometimes you'll play horribly sometimes you'll play great but whatever happens stay positive and come back to point number one believe in yourself to become better so in those hard times you need to realize those are the most important times because if you give up if you start getting negative you're moving backwards you can still move forwards in bad times you can still move forward when you play poorly when your team loses when nothing's going your way you can still move forward if you learn from those experiences you stay positive and you believe in your ability to become better so the fifth and final thing I want you to do is please please please stay patient stay positive stay motivated stay consistent it takes time you can't just train and then drop off come back and drop off stay consistent focus on every day make the most of every day and you're guaranteed to become a better player and obviously if you want to become a better player you got to stick with me I'm here to help you I've helped thousands hundreds of thousands tens I don't know I've helped a lot of people people are becoming professional people making colleges people just making their top teams so if you want to become a better player I'm here to help you obviously these are just my opinions this is just my advice but if it's work for other people it can work for you as well so what I want you to do is make sure you're subscribed make sure you go to my website if you haven't already progressive soccer training calm because there's tons of free training material for you that I'm gonna give you if you go to that website and finally follow me on social media there'll be some links at the end of this and come back tomorrow for another video I hope this helped you give you some ideas on how to improve and I guarantee if you fall this advice you are going to become a better player I'll talk to you soon