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Excellence, not perfection.

How to help your daughter when she's too hard on herself

1.Hear how she talks to herself

A lot of the time, we do it to ourselves.

We criticize ourselves so hard that it gets brutal to keep moving. I write that in the book right after the part about criticism from other people. She needs to understand this, and be critical of herself at a level that still lets her learn, progress and improve.

2.Turn "I'm a failure" into a result

If her goal is improvement, she needs to understand that failure is just a result.

It means she did, or didn't do, a few things that led to that result. All she needs to learn now is what to do, or not do, to succeed at the task and get the result she wants.

Nobody fails and enjoys it. Failure stings. A lot. But it all depends on how she looks at it. If she treats failure as a lesson, she's working right. If she pins it on herself, meaning she tells herself "I'm a failure," she's making a big mistake.

3.Get one lesson down on paper

Here's the homework from the book.

Next time she fails at something (a test, a game, a task), she writes down what she did or didn't do that led to that result, and one thing she'll do differently next time. No "I'm a failure." Just the lesson.

4.Keep her working

If she's set herself a goal, the only way to fail is to stop working toward it. To quit.

Winston Churchill said that success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. That's the right way to work. As long as she keeps working, learning, and trying again, she's on her way to reaching it.

For the days she doesn't finish everything, there's the post on patience.

5.Forgive, and don't judge. Herself too.

There are two ways I use to be more patient. One of them is forgive, and don't judge.

I use it with the people in my life. And the other person she needs to forgive, and not judge too harshly, is her. Because along the way things can get hard, and there will be failures and things that don't work out.

Those are exactly the moments when she needs to find a way to cheer herself on, and strengthen the belief that in the end, she'll make it. Her belief in herself matters a lot on the way.

What she says, and what you can say back

Every answer here is a line from my book, from the chapters on comfort and failure, and on patience.

Excellence, not perfection

In the book I tell her the goal is to feel she achieved something today. And to feel that way almost every day. I say almost because nothing is perfect. What she's going for is excellence, not perfection.

Questions parents ask

Game Day Journal Pages

For game days, there's a set of pages in my shop. One focus before every game and one honest look after it, for 25 games. After the final whistle: 3 things that went well, 1 thing to work on next, and effort from 1 to 5 (not the score). And The Reset, 5 steps for a tough game: breathe, say it straight, name the feeling, take the lesson, close the game.

See the journals

Coaches: you can send this post to your team parents. The coaches page has the ten excuses I hear most at practice and what I say back. Everything here comes from my book, From Gazelle to Lioness.

Based on chapters 2, 9, 10 and 12 of From Gazelle to Lioness by Coach Isaac, where the Winston Churchill line is quoted. Kobe Bryant's four airballs are from The Mamba Mentality.