Why Does My Athlete Keep Making the Same Mistake — Even After We’ve Talked About It?

It happens again.

Your 12-year-old is on the volleyball court, watching the pass go to the setter. Instead of getting to her spot, she instinctively drifts toward the ball. By the time she realizes it, she’s late. The play breaks down, and you hear the coach yell, “You have to get to your spot sooner!”

And from the stands, you’re thinking: We JUST talked about this.

This is one of the most frustrating things to watch as a parent or coach. You’ve been over the skill a million times, in every practice, in a hundred conversations… yet come game time, they make the same mistake...again.

And almost every adult asks the same thing: What’s going on here?

Your experience as a parent probably sounds something like this. You see your athlete repeat a mistake you know you’ve talked about, and you think:

• “We’ve talked about this a hundred times.”

• “They know better.”

• “They can tell me exactly what they should have done afterward.”

• “Their coach keeps correcting the same thing.”

• “They fix it for a little while and then go right back to the old habit.”

• “They do it correctly in practice, but when the game gets intense, it disappears.”

• “I don’t understand why they keep making the same decision.”

The especially frustrating version is when the athlete demonstrates understanding outside the moment.

You ask, “Where should you be when the ball goes to the setter?” She gives you the right answer. But the next game, she’s out of position again.

And you’re banging your head against a wall, wondering why she can’t just get it.

When it comes to development and behavior, I need you to first understand that there is a big difference between:

🧠 knowledge ("I know what I’m supposed to do") and
🏃‍➡️ execution ("I can actually do it when required")

Parents often assume that if we talked about it and they understood it, then they should be able to do it. But development doesn’t work that neatly.

You don’t become a better free-throw shooter because somebody explained your elbow position once. You need reps. Behavior works similarly.

Competition puts the executive function of our brains to work. We’re asking our athletes to remember what to do, stop an instinctive reaction, and adjust when circumstances change. And in kids, those executive functions are still developing throughout adolescence.

When we’re talking about a repeating mistake, we’re often asking an athlete to change a default, instinctive behavior in the high-pressure, fast-paced environment of a game.

We’re asking them to remember the plan + recognize the situation + inhibit the default response + choose the new response + execute it — all within seconds, while an entire crowd watches.

That’s a much bigger ask than “remember what Coach said” or “be in the right spot.”

As I always say, no two athletes are the same. The reason an athlete struggles with a repeated mistake can vary by athlete and by behavior. Here are six patterns I’ve seen when the same outward mistake keeps happening:

The Awareness Gap: They don’t recognize the pattern while it’s happening. They see it afterward. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

The Knowledge-to-Action Gap: They know exactly what they’re supposed to do but haven’t practiced the replacement behavior enough to execute it consistently. “I know. I just didn’t do it.”

The Pressure Reversion: They can execute the new behavior when calm or during practice, but competition pushes them back toward their established response. “I do it fine at practice.”

The Emotional Override: Frustration, embarrassment, anger, disappointment, or anxiety arrives faster than the intentional response. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just mad.”

The Overload Pattern: They’re trying to remember too many instructions at once. “Coach told me three different things and I forgot.”

The Correction-Dependence Pattern: They’ve gotten very good at responding when an adult tells them what went wrong — but haven’t yet developed the ability to diagnose and correct it themselves.

Don’t assume repetition means disrespect. “We’ve talked about this” can quickly become: you aren’t listening, you don’t care, you’re choosing not to change.

Sometimes that may be true. Kids aren’t innocent little executive-function robots. But repeated behavior alone doesn’t prove motivation. A better question is: What is preventing the desired behavior from becoming repeatable?

Don’t keep explaining something they already understand. Your athlete knows what to do, they don’t execute, and you explain it again — but louder and with bonus energy.

The developmental need may no longer be understanding. It may be practice. If they can explain what should happen next, stop teaching the concept and start developing the behavior.

Don’t correct everything. “Keep your head up, remember what Coach said, stop getting frustrated, communicate, don’t rush, watch the runner, stay confident!”

That isn’t coaching. That’s seventeen browser tabs. Choose the highest-leverage behavior and focus on that.

Don’t immediately solve the mistake for them. Teaching tells them what to do. Coaching asks them what they think they should do.

It’s “you should have passed” vs. “what should you have done?” If we only push information at our kids instead of pulling thoughts out of them, we risk doing the thinking for them.

Don’t make the mistake mean something about who they are. There’s a difference between “You lost focus” and “You’re unfocused.”

One describes behavior. The other starts constructing identity. Keep the mistake separate from who they are so there’s space to develop.

So, how do you help your athlete develop a different pattern from the one they keep repeating? Start thinking like a developer of behavior with this six-step process:

1. Identify the repeatable behavior.

Not: “My kid needs more confidence.”
Not: “She needs a better attitude.”

Instead: “After making a mistake, she looks toward us in the stands and disengages from the next play.”

Now you have something developable.

2. Identify the trigger.

Ask: When does this behavior appear? After mistakes? When corrected? When losing? When tired? When playing stronger competition? When they feel embarrassed?

This starts turning “They keep doing it” into “They tend to do it when ______.”

3. Create one replacement behavior.

Don’t tell them: “Handle mistakes better.” Give them something observable.

For example: Error → one breath → physical reset cue → eyes back on the play.
Or: Coach corrects me → make eye contact → say “got it” → try the adjustment.

An athlete can’t practice an abstract idea, but they can practice a behavior.

4. Rehearse before pressure.

If you only discuss the behavior after it goes wrong, you’re perpetually playing defense. Practice it beforehand.

• “What are you going to do if you strike out your first two at-bats?”

• “What happens if Coach pulls you?”

• “What happens if the ref makes a terrible call?”

• “What happens when your teammate makes a mistake?”

Let the athlete mentally retrieve and rehearse the response before the trigger appears.

5. Make the athlete do the thinking.

Instead of: “We’ve talked about this. What were you supposed to do?”

Try: “What did you notice about that situation?”
Then: “What happened right before it?”
Then: “What could you try next time?”

Now we’re developing awareness → recognition → problem-solving → response. And that’s much closer to what they’ll eventually need to do without you there.

6. Measure progress differently.

We often measure the outcome: Did the mistake happen again?
But development asks something different: Is the pattern changing?

Maybe originally: Mistake → meltdown for 15 minutes.
Then: Mistake → meltdown for five minutes.
Then: Mistake → starts reacting → catches themselves.
Then: Mistake → reset.
Eventually: Mistake → automatic reset.

The mistake may technically have “happened again” at every stage, but the pattern is changing. That’s why frequency, intensity, recovery time, independence, and consistency can be better signals of development than expecting the behavior to disappear overnight.

If we can help athletes learn to recognize and respond to repeated mistakes, we can also help them make better decisions in real time — which can lead to better in-game performance and stronger game awareness.

It’s one of the reasons Game Awareness & Judgment is one of the key dimensions I measure in my Athlete Leadership Performance Index™.

And you, as the adult, have to learn to do this first.

I teach parents Read → Reset → Respond™, and that’s really what this six-step process is: helping our kids understand the situation for what it is, reset their response, and respond with what the moment requires. That’s what changes the pattern they’re stuck in.

The skills athletes build while learning to correct repeated mistakes don’t stop mattering when the game ends.

To change how you currently do something as an adult, you first have to recognize the pattern, recognize your response, and then learn and practice a new one.

It’s part of changing a habit. Changing how you eat or exercise. Changing how you respond at work. Changing how you show up in relationships.

These are life skills our kids get the opportunity to start developing on the court — so changing those patterns isn’t quite as heavy a lift at 43.

As much as I’d love to tell you it’s as simple as following the six steps above, we both know every athlete is different.

How you approach those steps depends on the behavior you’re seeing, when it appears, what seems to create friction, and where your athlete is in the development of their performance behaviors.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Start with your athlete. Pay attention to what you’re actually seeing and what they may need next.

Repeating mistakes is part of growing up. It is part of every athlete’s development.

The mistake isn’t the story. The pattern around it may be. And that’s what I want you to pay attention to.

Pressure reveals behavior. Youth sports give us the gift of seeing those patterns early, while development still has the opportunity to change them.

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