Performance anxiety can make you feel tight, hesitant, and stuck in your own head when it matters most.
The goal is not to eliminate anxiety completely. The goal is to learn how to respond to it so it no longer controls how you perform.
If you want a full breakdown of what sports performance anxiety is, what causes it, and how it affects athletes, read this complete guide to sports performance anxiety.
In this article, I’m going to walk you through four mental training techniques that can help you overcome performance anxiety in sports and compete with more confidence and freedom.
What It Feels Like to Compete With Performance Anxiety
If you’re dealing with performance anxiety, you already know this isn’t just about “being nervous.”
It shows up in a very specific way.
You feel it before games, sometimes even before practice. There’s a tightness in your body. Your thoughts start racing. And instead of feeling excited to compete, you feel tense and on edge.
Then the game starts.
And you don’t play like yourself.
You hesitate. You overthink. You second-guess decisions you normally make without even thinking in practice. It feels like you’re stuck in your own head, trying to control everything instead of just reacting and playing.
That’s what makes it so frustrating.
Because you know what you’re capable of. You’ve seen it in practice. You’ve done it before. But in games, it feels like you can’t access it the same way.
Over time, this can start to affect more than just your performance.
You may begin to dread games. You might put more pressure on yourself to “finally play well,” which only makes the anxiety worse. And instead of enjoying your sport, it starts to feel stressful and draining.
One of the most common patterns I see is this:
You don’t just get anxious — you start worrying about the fact that you’re anxious.
You feel the nerves, and your first thought is, “Here we go again.”
That reaction adds a second layer of pressure, which only makes the anxiety stronger.
So before we even get into techniques, it’s important to understand this:
- The goal is not to eliminate anxiety completely.
- The goal is to change how you respond to it so it no longer controls how you perform.
How to Overcome Performance Anxiety in Sports
Overcoming performance anxiety starts with learning how to respond to it differently.
Instead of trying to eliminate the feeling, you need a way to stay composed, focused, and confident while it’s there.
The techniques below will help you do exactly that.
Technique 1: Accept Pre-Performance Nerves
The first technique involves accepting your pre-performance nerves.
A lot of athletes don’t just get anxious. They get anxious about the fact that they feel anxious.
That second layer is what really traps you. As soon as you notice the anxiety, you panic, fixate on it, and try to force it away. But that only makes it stronger.
Instead of always trying to fight the nervous feeling, just accept that it’s there. By always trying to convince yourself that the nerves are not there, or by focusing so much on getting rid of them, you will only be adding fuel to the flame.
I know that me telling you to accept your nerves can seem a little scary, but let me explain why it is so important.
The easiest thing to do when faced with something we don’t like about ourselves is to avoid it. But by pretending it doesn’t exist, we only suppress the feeling, allowing it to appear again at inopportune times.
What we resist persists, so by constantly pushing against your anxiety, you are actually making it worse.
Acceptance is the first step towards creating change. There is no way for you to overcome performance anxiety until you accept it.
And the best way to do that is through the acceptance of pre-performance nerves, since that is where the anxiety often shows itself the most.
By accepting that the nerves are there, you are in essence saying to them, “I recognize you are here, but I will not let you keep me from doing what I want to do.”
In taking this step, you can now begin to work on other techniques that will build confidence in your abilities.
It will be easier said than done. However, just stick with it and every time you feel yourself getting nervous from now on, stop and think, I accept my nerves and allow them to be present.
Now it’s time to change what you’re focused on!
Accepting your anxiety instead of fighting it is one of the most important mental shifts you can make as an athlete.
Technique 2: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
The second technique to overcoming performance anxiety in sports is preparation.
When you have the tendency to be nervous and anxious before a game, the worst thing you can do is be unprepared.
Not being familiar with an activity makes having confidence very difficult. By being prepared, you are doing all that you can, both physically and mentally, to be ready.
Preparation doesn’t mean practicing the day before the game, either. As many hours as it takes to make your skills feel second nature is required to help curb performance anxiety.
This will differ from person to person, depending on your skill set and level of your anxiety. But by being prepared, you take away a level of worry, since you’ve ingrained the act into muscle memory.
Okay, but you may be thinking, “What if I already prepare as much as I can, but I still deal with performance anxiety?”
Trust me, I’ve been there and worked with many athletes who’ve been there as well. That’s why there are two more techniques you can use to go along with acceptance and preparation.
Preparation builds trust in your abilities, which helps reduce uncertainty and anxiety during competition.
Technique 3: Visualization
When dealing with performance anxiety in sports, there are two areas that need to be focused on: relaxation and building confidence. Visualization is incredible at doing both.
This is a powerful way to build confidence in sports without needing actual game reps.
Relaxation
Visualization can be used to calm your body when anxiety starts to rise.
One way to do this is to briefly picture a place or situation where you feel calm and in control. This helps your breathing slow down and your body relax.
Then, bring your focus back to your sport and mentally rehearse yourself competing with that same sense of calm and confidence.
The goal is not to avoid the moment. The goal is to reset your body so you can step back into it more composed.
Confidence
The second way visualization can be used to help overcome performance anxiety is by increasing self-confidence, specifically in the task at hand.
Your mind does not know the difference between what is real and imagined. So, when you mentally rehearse what it is you are doing, your brain believes you’ve already done it.
When it comes to any type of activity, this can be incredibly powerful. As you accomplish the task in your mind, confidence will begin to build gradually, until when the performance comes, your mind feels like it’s done this a thousand times.
Here’s how you can use visualization to help you build confidence:
- Get into a quiet location and sit in a comfortable position.
- Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
- Create your scene and imagine yourself performing your skills.
- Go into as much detail as you can and feel the emotion of being successful.
- Then, before a game, close your eyes and reimagine that scene to build confidence in the moment.
Visualization is one of the most effective mental training tools for managing anxiety and building confidence before competition.
Technique 4: Let Go of Expectations
Expectations create pressure because they keep your attention on how things need to go.
When your mind is focused on the outcome, you’re no longer fully present.
Anxiety grows when you try to control results. It decreases when you focus on execution.
But there are so many different factors that could play into the outcome, that it is a losing battle to try and control.
Expectations are the ideas that we have about how something should be, or how an event should go. While this may seem like a positive way of thinking, it actually holds you back from peak performance, and causes more anxiety.
These feelings keep you out of the moment and take you away from your flow.
To let go of expectations during a game is extremely difficult. In order to achieve something, it’s common to become so focused and consumed on the end result.
However, by learning to let that go and become process oriented, your performances will become much more natural and effortless.
This is often referred to as developing a process-focused mindset in sports.
Once you set a goal for a game, however, you must now forget about the outcome. At this point, it’s time to focus on the process that will get you there.
You can still have goals. But once competition begins, your job is to commit to the process.
When you trust your preparation and focus on execution, you give yourself the best chance to perform freely.
How These Techniques Work Together
These techniques are most powerful when you use them together.
Acceptance helps you stop fighting anxiety. Preparation builds trust. Visualization builds confidence. Letting go of expectations keeps you present.
That’s how performance anxiety starts to lose its grip. Not because you eliminate it, but because you respond to it differently.
Mental Performance Coaching for Athletes Struggling with Anxiety
If you’ve been struggling with performance anxiety for a while, working on these skills in a structured way can make a real difference.
Accepting your nerves, preparing effectively, using visualization, and letting go of expectations are all powerful on their own. But when you train them consistently and in the right way, that’s when your performance truly starts to change.
If you want a more personalized approach, I work with athletes through my 12-week one-on-one mental performance coaching program.
Together, we identify what’s driving your anxiety, build a personalized mental game plan, and train the exact skills you need to compete with more confidence, trust, and freedom.
You can learn more about one-on-one mental performance coaching here.
If you’re looking for a more self-paced option, I also offer a 6-week program called The Confident Competitor Academy.
This course is designed to help you overcome anxiety and fear of failure, and build the mental skills you need to play freely and confidently.
You can learn more about The Confident Competitor Academy here.
Thank you for reading, and I wish you the best of success in your sport.
