Case Study: How I Got My Career Back on Track with Mental and Performance Data Consulting

Situation Analysis

I was stuck in a rough patch, not being able to lock down a spot in the starting 11 and bouncing around different clubs on loan. After three years of this, I was beyond frustrated. My old mental coach focused too much on technical stuff, like scoring, and ignored the bigger picture. This made me obsess over things I couldn’t control, and my confidence and market value took a hit.

Initial Steps of Cooperation

The turnaround started when I began working with a new approach called Balance Management. It’s a mental analysis framework that digs into personal issues affecting your professional life. We uncovered personal issues that was messing with my head and therefore with my game.  Once we tackled these issues, I immediately felt better, both mentally and on the field. 

This was the foundation I needed for improvement. I needed to go back to the beginning. To my relationships with my father, with my mother, with people close to me. To sort out what I’d been bottling up for so long and hadn’t resolved. Working with Lukas made me realize how these personal relationships were affecting my life. I realized how my performance mirrored my personal life as well. In my career, I had always just dealt with where to look when I was finishing, where to run, but I had never looked inward.  

Continuous Improvement

We set up weekly sessions to focus on key areas I needed to improve as a forward: handling mistakes, bouncing back from failures, finding my scoring touch again, and setting new personal and professional goals. These talks helped me rediscover my love for football and gave me clear objectives and strategies.

Reinforcement of Desired Behaviours

We didn’t just stop at mental coaching; we added video and data analysis to the mix. Our analyst focused on what I could control: accurate shooting, smart positioning, and effective runs. This approach boosted my confidence and performance. We also worked on pressing and making a bigger impact on the team with goals and assists. This led to better efficiency, shown by my actual goals exceeding expected goals (xG).

Challenges Encountered

During this time, things that could have helped my performance were missing. Key teammates left the club, we didn’t have a physiotherapist, masseur, or basic equipment, and we had a midseason coaching change that shook things up. I also dealt with an injury. Despite all this, the only consistent positive change was our work together.

Outcome

Combined approach, blending mental coaching with performance analysis, paid off big time. I improved in key stats: shots on target, time in the offensive third, number of runs, pressing effectiveness, and, most importantly, goals and assists. This holistic strategy not only improved my on-field performance but also boosted my market value to 5 million.

This turnaround is mostly thanks to the interventions and cooperation we put in, proving how powerful targeted mental and performance consulting can be in sports.