When you have a lot of negative thinking while you play, do you perform your best—or do you tend to underperform?
Most of the athletes I talk to underperform when they have negative thoughts.
This happens for many reasons, but at the core, negative thinking creates a negative emotional state. That can mean self-doubt, fear, anxiety, or the feeling that you need to force a good performance.
If we know that negative thinking holds you back, it’s important to work on getting rid of those thoughts.
But here’s the difficult part—you can’t just push these thoughts away or tell yourself, “I need to think more positively.”
You need a strategy.
The Boiling Water Analogy
The strategy I want to share is one I recently discussed with an athlete in a one-on-one coaching call. I used the analogy of a bucket full of boiling water.
When I asked him, “How do we get rid of negative thoughts?” he said, “I just need to push them out. I need to stop thinking that way.”
So, I asked him to imagine he had a bucket of boiling water and said, “Our goal is to turn that boiling water into room-temperature or cool water.”
We have a couple of choices. We could wait for the boiling water to cool off naturally—or we could do something right now to make that happen faster.
If we want to turn the boiling water into cool water, we start pouring cool water into the bucket. As we pour, it forces the boiling water out. Over time, the bucket fills with cooler water.
The same principle applies to your thinking.
You could wait for your negative thoughts to go away—maybe until something good happens in the game that changes your mood—but that’s passive. If you want to actively get rid of negative thoughts in the moment, you have to fill your mind with positive thoughts to push out the negative ones.
Actively Replacing Negative Thoughts
We can’t just say, “I don’t want to think negatively,” and expect change.
That’s like saying, “I don’t want the bucket to be full of boiling water.”
Nothing changes unless you actively replace it with cool water—positive thoughts.
So during a game or before it starts, when you notice your mind filling with negativity, you have to replace those thoughts with more positive ones. This requires effort and awareness.
If you’re saying, “I can’t believe I made that mistake. I suck,” you need to replace that with, “I’ve got this. It’s okay. I can move on from that. I know I’m a great player. I’ve been practicing well this week.”
This isn’t a magic pill that instantly makes you confident. But we know that when you think negatively, you underperform—so you have to deliberately shift your thinking toward the positive.
When to Apply This Strategy
Of course, you don’t want to overthink while you play. When you’re in the middle of competition, your goal is to stay present.
But any time there’s a break in play—before the game, between plays, or on the bench—use those moments to be proactive.
You can wait for negative thoughts to come and replace them when they do, but the better approach is to proactively fill your “bucket” with positive thinking ahead of time.
The more cool water you pour in, the less boiling water will be left.
Final Thoughts
I wanted to share this analogy because it’s so helpful when trying to manage negative thinking. It’s hard to simply tell yourself to stop thinking a certain way. Instead, view it as an active process—you must push out negative thoughts by filling your mind with positive ones.
The more you do this, the more you’ll notice that you feel calmer, more confident, and perform better on the field or court.
Mental Training Resources
If you’d like to dive deeper into this kind of mental training, I offer one-on-one mental coaching for athletes. It’s a 12-week program that includes weekly sessions, an assessment, and a workbook full of exercises to guide your progress.
If you’d like to learn more about my one-one-one mental coaching, click here to schedule a free introductory coaching call, or fill out the form below.
I’ve also created two online mental training courses for athletes:
And if you’re more of a reader, check out my books:
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
