Giving Feedback That Actually Lands: A Sport Psychology Approach
You know this moment. You spot something in training that would genuinely make one of your athletes better. You explain it well: clear, calm, no drama. They nod. “Yeah, got it.” Next session, you watch the exact same thing happen again.
It is one of the most frustrating parts of coaching, and it usually has nothing to do with how well you explained it. Learning how to give feedback to athletes is less about the information and more about how it arrives. Change the delivery and the same message sticks.
What Motivational Interviewing Actually Is
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a style of conversation designed to help someone find their own reasons for change, rather than handing them yours. It grew out of health and behaviour change work, and is now used widely in sport.
One idea sits underneath all of it: people commit far more strongly to what they say themselves than to what they are told.
That is not the soft option, it is simply how motivation works. When the reason to change belongs to your athlete, it survives the moments you are not there: the wet Tuesday session, the second half when nobody is shouting.
A Conversation That Changed a Career
December 2019. Arsenal are struggling and Granit Xhaka is on his way out of the door. He had clashed with supporters, lost the captaincy and had a move lined up elsewhere. By his own account, his bags were packed. Mikel Arteta arrives with every reason to move the problem on. Instead, he sits down with him.
By Arteta’s own description, his opening move was not a lecture about standards. It was wanting to understand how Xhaka was feeling and why he felt that way. Only then did he offer his honest opinion of the player and what he was prepared to do to back him.
Xhaka stayed and rebuilt his standing at the club, later describing Arteta as honest and direct. Notice what did not happen: Arteta did not hide his view or go easy on him. He earned the right to give it by understanding first.
Why Good Feedback Bounces Off
There is a name for the thing that gets in the way: the righting reflex. It is the instinct to spot a problem and fix it immediately. Coaches have it in abundance, and for good reason: seeing what needs correcting is the job.
The trouble is what it does to your athlete. The harder you push the solution, the more their role becomes defending where they already are. You argue for change, they argue against it, and by the end they are further away than when you started.
Think of a door that only opens by pulling. Shoving harder feels like effort, but the door holds firm.
So what does the alternative look like on the grass?
Five Shifts That Make Feedback Land
Ask before you tell
Instead of opening with the correction, ask for the door to be opened: “Do you want my read on that last one, or another go first?”
Almost nobody says no. But your athlete has now chosen to hear it, so they listen as a participant rather than a target. You are protecting their autonomy: their sense that this is their sport and their call.
How to give feedback to athletes: ask, offer, ask
Forget the feedback sandwich. Use three steps:
Ask: “What did you notice there?” Then let them answer, and resist filling the silence.
Offer: one thing, briefly. Not five. “The bit I saw was your first step going backwards.”
Ask: “What do you make of that?”
More often than you would expect, they name the problem before you do.
Reflect more than you correct
MI leans on four habits, shortened to OARS: open questions, affirmations, reflections and summaries. Reflection is the one most coaches under-use.
A reflection is simply saying back what you heard. “So you felt rushed the moment the press came on.”
It sounds too simple. What it does is let your athlete hear their own thinking out loud, which is usually where insight turns up.
Affirm the process, not just the outcome
Praise is about the result: great goal, well done. An affirmation is about the person and what they controlled: “You held your shape when you were exhausted. That takes real discipline.”
Outcome praise quietly teaches athletes that their worth rises and falls with the scoreboard, the exact thinking that cracks under pressure. Affirming effort and attitude points them at the controllables and builds a growth mindset: the belief that ability is developed, not fixed.
Let the athlete name the next step
This is the one that turns talk into change. Rather than prescribing the drill, ask: “So what are you doing differently on Thursday?”
When they say it, they own it. When you say it, they comply with it, and compliance disappears the moment you stop watching. Make it specific and small enough to actually happen this week.
When You Still Need to Be Direct
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an argument for never telling anyone anything. Safety calls, time pressure and technical fixes that have to happen now need clear, direct instruction, and your athletes deserve your expertise. MI is your default setting, not a gag. Most feedback is simply not as urgent as it feels in the moment.
Try This With One Athlete This Week
Pick one athlete and one session.
Ask one question before every piece of feedback you give.
Finish with them naming the next step, not you.
It will feel clunky for a fortnight, as every new skill does. Then it becomes the way you talk, and athletes start arriving with their own observations before you have opened your mouth.
The Coach Behind the Confident Athlete
Better feedback is about more than technique. Athletes who feel understood take more risks, hide fewer problems and are far more likely to tell you when something is wrong, in their game or in their head.
What would change in your group if your athletes started arriving with the answers?
Ready to Build This Into Your Coaching?
If you would like support with the mental side of performance, for yourself as a coach or for the athletes you work with, let’s have a conversation. A discovery call is a relaxed chat about where you are and what would actually help, no pressure attached.
From there, The Empowered Programme is six one-to-one sessions using established psychological models to build the confidence, focus and resilience that turn potential into performance. Get in touch, and let’s build the athlete you know is in there.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Epictetus
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