Competitive anxiety can make you feel rushed, tight, distracted, and stuck in your own head right before or during competition.
When that happens, the goal is not to fix everything at once. The goal is to calm your body, reset your focus, and get back to what helps you perform well.
If you want a full breakdown of what sports performance anxiety is and why it happens, read this complete guide to sports performance anxiety.
If you want a broader framework for overcoming performance anxiety over time, read: https://www.successstartswithin.com/sports-psychology-articles/sports-performance-anxiety/overcome-performance-anxiety/
In this article, I’m going to show you what to do when competitive anxiety is happening in real time so you can settle yourself and compete more freely.
What to Do When Competitive Anxiety Hits
When anxiety shows up before or during competition, you do not need a complicated mental routine.
You need something simple you can return to quickly.
In my experience working with athletes, the best in-the-moment strategy is to accept what you feel, slow the moment down, change your focus, and commit to the next action.
Step 1: Stop Fighting Your Anxiety
If you feel something you know causes you to play badly, what’s a natural reaction to have? To fight it, of course! But here’s the problem with that…fighting your anxiety only makes it worse.
When you fight your anxiety, and by that I mean focus on how much you wish it wasn’t there, you are giving the majority of your attention to the feelings of anxiety. And what you focus on is where your energy will go.
By trying to fight your anxiety, what you’re really doing is inviting it to stay.
So, if you shouldn’t fight your anxiety, what should you do? Well, instead of fighting it, you need to accept it.
A lot of athletes do not 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.
Acceptance does not mean you like the anxiety. It means you stop wasting energy arguing with the fact that it is there.
“By trying to fight your anxiety, what you’re really doing is inviting it to stay.”
Step 2: Change Your Thinking
Competitive anxiety is driven by fears and worries. To manage this kind of anxiety, you need to take control of what you’re thinking about when you play.
Think about a situation when you’re anxious. What are you thinking about and what are you focused on? Are you worried about making a mistake? Are you thinking about how much you don’t want to mess up and embarrass yourself or let your team down?
Those types of thoughts are only going to worsen your anxiety. What you must do is change your thinking.
To help with this, you want to create a self-talk routine. This will be a set of phrases that work to increase your confidence and calm yourself down.
Here are some examples of good self-talk statements:
- I am a great player.
- I trust in my training.
- I’ve got this
- I can’t wait to show them what I can do.
- I love to compete.
- I am a strong and aggressive competitor.
- I trust in my skills.
Those are very broad statements, and so I encourage you to make yours more sport specific and tailored to yourself.
Your self-talk should be short enough to use in the middle of a competition, not just before it.
Step 3: Focus on Your Breathing
When you are anxious before a competition, your breathing will likely be very shallow and quick. What you can do to reduce some of the anxiety you feel is to focus on taking deep breaths.
Breathing helps because it gives your mind and body a reset point.
When anxiety rises, do not try to force yourself to feel calm. Just slow the moment down with one deep breath in and one slow breath out. Then do it again.
The goal is not to feel perfect. The goal is to interrupt the spiral and return to the present moment.
By taking deep breaths, you work to slow down your heart rate and calm your thoughts. But here’s where it becomes even more helpful…by focusing on taking deep breaths, you are keeping your focus from fixating on the outcome.
Managing anxiety is all about managing focus. It’s the same principle that applies to using self-talk. By placing your attention on your breath, yes, you calm yourself down, but also you take your attention off of the outcome.
A simple cue can help here: Inhale…exhale…loosen up…play.
“By taking deep breaths, you work to slow down your heart rate and calm your thoughts.”
Step 4: Focus on a Clear Objective or Cue
Anxious athletes tend to fixate on outcomes. This is a natural thing to do since sports are judged by the outcome. But you as the player can’t become too worried about outcomes, especially when you’re playing.
What you need to focus on is the process that puts you in the best position to get the outcome or result you want. That’s where setting a clear objective comes into play.
Objectives are targets or cues you can focus on that are 100% within your control.
Your objective should be simple and specific to how you compete best.
For example:
- A basketball player might focus on attacking aggressively
- A baseball player might focus on seeing the ball early
- A tennis player might focus on moving their feet after every shot
- A soccer player might focus on quick decisions and strong communication
The point is not to think perfectly. The point is to give your mind somewhere useful to go when anxiety tries to pull you toward the outcome.
What you do is set your objective before the game, and then focus solely on that as you begin to play. As you start to think about the outcome, just keep reminding yourself of your objective.
“What you need to focus on is the process that puts you in the best position to get the outcome or result you want.”
The Strategy Put Simply
To make it easy for you to remember, here is the strategy to manage sports anxiety put in a simple formula:
- Notice the anxiety without judging it
- Accept that it is there instead of fighting it
- Take one slow breath to settle your body
- Use one short self-talk cue
- Refocus on one clear objective
- Commit to the next play
Mental Coaching to Manage Anxiety in Sports
If competitive anxiety keeps showing up and you want a more structured way to work through it, I work with athletes through my 12-week one-on-one mental performance coaching program.
We identify what is driving your anxiety, build a personalized mental game plan, and train the exact mental skills you need to compete with more confidence and composure.
Coaching includes weekly 30-minute sessions, a personalized mental training workbook, weekly exercises, and support between sessions.
You can learn more about mental performance coaching here.
If you are looking for a more self-paced option, I also offer The Confident Competitor Academy.
It is a 6-week program designed to help athletes overcome anxiety and fear of failure, and build the mental skills needed to play freely and confidently.
You can learn more about The Confident Competitor Academy here.
