Have you ever played so scared and so worried about making mistakes that you actually hold yourself back during games? You avoid situations where you could make mistakes. You hesitate. You play it safe.
And all of this causes you to leave the game feeling disappointed in yourself—not because of the mistakes you made, but because you know you held yourself back.
This is a common challenge I see among athletes that I work with. And so by the end of this article, you’re going to have a clear mindset shift that you can make along with some tools that you can use to work through this fear as an athlete.
Why Athletes Fear Mistakes
Hey there, I’m Eli Straw, a mental performance coach who works with athletes from around the world on building a stronger mental game.
The reason that athletes fear mistakes typically has to do with the outcome or the consequence of the mistake itself.
Let’s take the example of a tennis player double faulting on their serve. When they double fault, they’re going to lose the point. But there are so many other consequences that are likely on their mind, such as:
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Having their ranking drop if they end up losing the match.
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Disappointing their coaches.
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Disappointing their parents.
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Feeling like all of the training they’ve put in has gone to waste.
So, we see that it’s not just the double fault in this example that is causing the athlete frustration and—most importantly—driving this fear. It is all the different consequences that they see could happen.
The same thing is true if you’re a quarterback in football and you’re scared of throwing an interception or playing a bad game.
Maybe you’re scared of losing your starting position, especially if you’re in a fight during the preseason or early season for the starting role. Maybe you’re scared of having your stats drop or having your coach yell at you. Or maybe even it’s being scared that you won’t make it to the next level because you make this mistake.
When there is a fear of making mistakes, we see mistakes as something that is bigger than what they really are. And typically we will go to this imagined outcome or this imagined consequence that could potentially happen.
When I say imagined, that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. The tennis player, if they double fault and they lose, their ranking very well may go down. If a quarterback plays poorly, they very well may get pulled from the game.
But what I mean by imagined is that in the moment or before it even happens, we are thinking about and imagining all these different consequences. So we are further strengthening the fear we have in relation to those mistakes.
Making the Mindset Shift
The first thing that we need to do in order to really work past this fear of mistakes and get ourselves to play freely—to play confidently—is we have to make a mindset shift in terms of how we view mistakes.
And the best mindset shift that you can make is to go from seeing mistakes as purely negative reasons why you’re going to get yelled at, lose your starting position, or not reach your goals as an athlete, to more of a learning opportunity.
Now, this is probably one of the most difficult changes that you can make because, as I said earlier, there are very real consequences that you will experience if you make mistakes. But I want you to remember that the whole reason we are going through this topic is not because we are somehow eliminating all possible consequences of mistakes.
Right now, if you are holding yourself back and playing scared, it’s not the consequence or even the mistake itself that’s hurting you. It’s the fear of having that happen that then results in you holding yourself back.
In order to play your best as an athlete, mistakes have to be accepted. Mistakes are not wanted—we don’t seek mistakes—but we accept them. What that means is that we have to be okay with the potential of mistakes happening.
Because if we’re not okay with the potential of mistakes happening, this is where we will hold ourselves back and play timid. We end up changing the way we play. We don’t play as aggressive. We don’t take as many risks as we need to take because we are scared.
How to Reinforce the New Mindset
There’s a very actionable way that you can go about making this mindset shift.
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Before games and before practices: Remind yourself that any mistake you make, you’re going to learn from. It’s a learning opportunity and a way that you can improve.
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After games and practices: Work to get out of the habit of beating yourself up. Instead, actively learn from the mistake.
What this will look like is either having a conversation with a teammate, a parent, or even just doing some journal writing on your own where you think about the mistakes you made that day.
Instead of beating yourself up, ask yourself:
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What can I learn?
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What do I need to improve because I made that mistake?
Then going into your next practice or your next game, set yourself an objective that you will focus on to improve upon whatever mistake you made.
If you go through this process practice after practice and game after game, you will retrain your brain to go from seeing mistakes as purely negative to seeing them as learning opportunities.
Four Tools to Use In the Moment to Reduce Fear
Once we are working on making that mindset shift, now we can start using in-the-moment tools and general sport psychology strategies to work past this fear. Here are four:
1. Set Process Goals
Start setting process goals for practices and games. This takes your attention off of the outcome. When your attention is on the outcome—especially negative outcomes you want to avoid—that’s when safe and scared play forms.
Give yourself controllable, process-oriented goals for both practices and games.
2. Be Aware of Your Thinking
This fear, and the consequences you imagine, are all happening in your head. Thoughts like:
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I can’t make any mistakes today.
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If I mess up, coach will pull me.
These reinforce fear. Instead, reframe them into more encouraging, process-focused thoughts.
3. Use Visualization
Visualization is an incredibly effective tool. Fear makes us imagine failure, so we must consciously rehearse success. Daily visualization (5–10 minutes) of yourself performing well helps you retrain your mind.
4. Create a Post-Mistake Routine
How you respond to mistakes during games matters. If you always beat yourself up, you reinforce that mistakes are purely negative.
Use a post-mistake routine:
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A thought-stopping phrase (“Forget about it”).
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A deep breath to reset.
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Refocus on your performance objective.
Final Thoughts
If you want to stop playing scared, you need to begin with a mindset shift: go from seeing mistakes as purely negative to viewing them as learning opportunities. Once you’ve begun this shift, layer in tools like process goals, thought awareness, visualization, and a post-mistake routine.
Give these strategies a try, and you’ll retrain your brain to see mistakes differently, allowing you to play freely and with confidence.
If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching to help you work through your fear of mistakes, click here to schedule a free introductory caoching call.
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Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
