Self-Confidence and Performance Anxiety for Elite Athletes
Written by Sebastian Wingfield, RCC, CCC
For elite athletes, performing in your sport happens within a high-consequence environment where mistakes can really cost you something. This could be less playing time, loss of trust from coaches or teammates, financial/scholarship risks, or career setbacks.
In team sports (e.g. hockey, soccer, or basketball), making a mistake can also impacts your teammates. Additionally, it affects the outcome of the game for everyone, and the outcome of your team’s season.
You could look silly in front of the hundreds (or even thousands) of people watching you. Or you could disappoint others who have supported you, or even disappoint yourself.
The stakes are high, and with that comes anxiety. That anxiety isn’t irrational – it’s a natural response to a high-pressure environment.
As a former university and semi-professional athlete who struggled with significant performance anxiety, it would drive me completely nuts when I would hear a coach say things to me like, “Just be confident” or “Just don’t worry about it”.
My immediate thought would be, “Well, I have tried that already, and it doesn’t work!”
If anything, advice like this would make me feel worse. I judge myself even more for not being able to ‘just be confident’ like other people seem to be able to.
The fact is that for many elite athletes, when you are playing your sport, it can feel like the entire world is at stake. This is pretty difficult to ignore or simply ‘not worry about’!
So, what is Performance Anxiety?
Generally speaking, performance anxiety refers to the experience of intense fear, worry, or nervousness that an individual feels before or during a performance. These emotions are typically triggered by the pressure to meet high expectations. These expectations could be either external (from coaches, teammates, media, fans) or internal (self-imposed standards).
This type of anxiety can feel quite present in the body (increased heart rate, excessive urination, sweating, nausea, etc). It is also present in thoughts/awareness (negative self-talk, overthinking, difficulty concentrating, excessive awareness of the potential to fail). Furthermore, it is present in behaviours (being extra hesitant, more likely to make errors, freezing under pressure, etc).
Moderate anxiety can sometimes enhance focus and energy (referred to as “optimal arousal”). However, performance anxiety can disrupt focus and deplete energy!
A Heightened Awareness
From a more personal perspective, when I feel anxiety (performance related or otherwise), I have a heightened awareness of various possibilities. This awareness often highlight my vulnerabilities, where I lack security, and what possibilities feel most threatening to me.
For example, when I am playing soccer, I might notice an excessive awareness around what could happen if someone passes me the ball and I make a mistake.
My chest could tighten, my mind could be flooded with images of times where I’ve taken a bad touch, teammates/coaches being upset with me, etc.
In other words, I encounter a sense of heightened awareness of the risk that I take if I were to trust my own abilities and the situation I am in.
The Harsh Reality
When we feel a sense of uncertainty amidst threatening possibilities, our impulse is to find something that feels solid and secure. This would be something that reassures us and makes us feel protected.
In other words, we manage our uncertainty by seeking what feels certain. The harsh reality is that life is uncertain.
So, while it might feel good in the moment to gain certainty, it never addresses the fundamental reality that I could be avoiding. This reality includes the possibility that I may fail.
When I am working with elite athletes, my focus is on addressing this fundamental reality—which is scary! You might think, “But if I take the time to consider the possibility of failure, won’t that make it more real? Won’t that make it more likely to happen?”
And honestly, you are totally right!
Allowing oneself to be present in the face of uncertainty can be deeply uncomfortable, yet it is essential. In other words, the more I grip tightly on to the feeling of control, the more out-of-control I will continue to feel. Kind of a paradox, right?
The reality
is that
L I F E
is uncertain.
From Performance Anxiety to Self-Confidence
From the outside, self-confidence in sport looks like someone who plays with an absence of anxiety or fear. So, when you notice that anxiety/fear in yourself, you might feel tempted to try and ignore it, in order to try and “play with confidence.” But I want you instead to consider self-confidence from a personal-existential point of view.
Self-confidence in sport is not about an absence of fear, but the repeated decision to take a gamble and trust yourself. Trusting yourself is not having the certainty that you will succeed. Trusting yourself is an intentional choice to rely on yourself in the face of uncertainty.
Additionally, self-confidence is developed on the basis of one’s real felt experience with one’s abilities. It is not a mental attitude I convince myself of where I know I can trust myself. Rather, it is an inner experience where I feel that I can trust myself.
Self-confidence is only developed by having the capacity to take on risks in the face of uncertainty. I help clients develop this by guiding them towards expanding their tolerance to let go of control and be present with their life situation. In doing so, they encounter an ability to accept/endure this reality for what it is.
When clients can find a level of inner consent for this reality, they are enabled to more freely find their answer to what anxiety is asking of them. You can begin to practice taking the risk of trusting yourself which, over time, opens the door into the feeling of self-confidence, the result of repeated self-trust.
If you’re an athlete struggling with performance anxiety or want support in developing deeper self-confidence, I would be glad to support you in that journey.
You don’t need to navigate this pressure alone.
Sebastian Wingfield, RCC, CCC | Innova Maple Ridge & Online