What to Do When You're Worried Your Dream is Unattainable

The path to success in soccer is not an easy one. You can’t just be good, you have to be great, both physically and mentally.

And even if you work your tail off, you could still get passed over by scouts and coaches. Your ability to get recruited as a soccer player is highly dependent on your own capacity to promote yourself and build relationships, and that’s a whole other skill set in itself.

When the odds are stacked against you, it can feel like your dream is unattainable. How do you mitigate this disheartening feeling? By turning your dream into actionable steps, and making progress every day.

Break Your Dream Down into Tasks to Accomplish

The most effective way to make your dream more realistic and achievable is learning exactly what you have to do to get there. For example, let’s say your long-term goal is to play college soccer. Okay, so what do you have to do in order to get recruited by a college program?  

Saying something vague like “I have to be great,” doesn’t make your goal seem any more attainable because it doesn’t tell you anything you can do to get closer to this goal.

A more sensible approach might be doing some research on the current roster of a couple of school’s soccer teams, and seeing if you’ll fit into their playing style. Then find their coaches on social media, start following them and engaging them on their posts. Try and find an ID camp where those coaches will be running and sign up to attend.

Finding actionable steps to take brings your dream closer to reality.

Give Yourself a Challenge to Work On Now 

Sometimes the dream doesn’t seem so easy to break down into tasks. But they still are – we recommend to break your dream into a series of smaller goals, or “challenges.” These are goals that can be achieved in shorter time frames. 

Say you want to go pro. Look at what skills pros have that you don’t. For example, they don’t have a weak foot. So if you want to go pro, you need to not have a weak foot. So give yourself a challenge to get 500 juggles (they don’t have to be in a row) with your weak foot every day for 30 days.

When can you start training for this challenge? Right now.

Focus On Today, Not the Future 

The key to making your dream more attainable is making progress, rather than just fantasizing and having no idea what you actually need to do to achieve your goal. When you know for a fact that you’re consistently making progress, your dreams feel more attainable. Instead of thinking of the future, you’re focused on the challenge in front of you, right now. Every challenge you complete makes your dream feel less and less like a fantasy, and more like a reality.

At Beyond Goals Mentoring, we know how difficult it is to continuously elevate your game while simultaneously prioritizing schoolwork and a social life. That’s why we’re dedicated to helping young athletes develop realistic paths towards their long-term goals without endangering their mental health. We can also guide your athlete through the many complexities of the college recruitment process, from choosing the right school to building relationships with coaches.

So, if your athlete has big goals but isn’t sure where to start, let’s set up a mentoring session today.