One of the quickest ways to destroy a performance before it even begins is by allowing yourself to become overly anxious. When you have anxiety before a game, this will not only distract you but also drastically reduce your confidence.
When you are an athlete with performance anxiety, it can be incredibly frustrating. You train hard, yet when it comes to game time, all that is thrown aside and drowned out by the increasing amounts of worries taking hold of you.
Before a game, your goal is not to figure everything out. Your goal is to calm your body, focus your mind, and step into competition feeling ready.
In this article, I’m going to show you exactly what to do before a game when anxiety shows up so you can settle your mind and step into competition feeling ready.
4 Steps To Reduce Anxiety Before A Game
When you have anxiety before a game, it’s easy to feel powerless. The anxiety you’re experiencing as an athlete has complete control over you, or so that’s what it seems.
Once you learn how to shift your focus and control your mind better, it’s not that you won’t ever experience anxiety before a game anymore, but when you do, you’ll know exactly how to handle it.
The first step is going to be the strangest, and that’s to accept your anxiety.
Step 1: Accept & Let Go
How many times have you gotten a song stuck in your head and tried for hours, maybe even days to get it out? No matter how hard you try, that pesky tune will not go away.
Do you know why you can’t get yourself to stop thinking about the song? Because we are unable to think about not thinking about something, since the very act of thinking about it keeps it in our minds.
I know, it’s a bit confusing. But here’s an exercise that may help this concept make a little more sense to you.
Think about an orange. Picture the orange in your mind, see it clearly. Are you seeing an orange? Good.
Now, I want you to stop thinking about the orange. Tell yourself not to think about the orange. You hate the orange; get that orange out of your mind.
How’s that working for you? Each time you mention the word orange, even though you’re trying to force it out of your mind, you see an orange, don’t you?
This goes to show that we cannot force a thought out of our minds. Similarly, you cannot force anxiety to leave. Instead, you must accept its presence and then let it go.
Before a game, it can seem very scary to accept your anxiety. You know the negative impact it has on your game, so the last thing you want to do is accept it. But trust me, this is the only way to truly overcome performance anxiety in sports.
So before a game, let go of the need to get rid of your anxiety and simply accept that for right now, it’s a part of you.
Before a game, your goal is not to eliminate anxiety. Your goal is to stop fighting it so you can settle into the moment.
“This goes to show, we cannot force a thought out of our minds. Similarly, you cannot force anxiety to leave. Instead, you must accept its presence, and then let it go.”
Step 2: Turn Your Attention To Your Breath
Now that you’ve accepted your anxiety, it’s time to start the process of shifting your attention. Later on this will involve different thoughts, but for now all I want you to do is focus on your breath.
Remember how I said anxiety is caused by focusing on the outcome? Well, this is your chance to return your attention to the present.
Mindfulness is one of the best tools I can teach an athlete when it comes to overcoming anxiety. Training mindfulness over a long period of time strengthens your mind and provides you with the skill to control your attention.
But even without weeks and months of training, you can make use of this same concept.
Mindfulness is all about bringing your awareness into the present moment. Your awareness is your attention, so by bringing your attention into the present moment, you will not be so focused on the future.
A phenomenal way to generate a state of mindfulness is breathing. That’s why the second step for you to take when you have anxiety before a game is turning your attention to your breath.
This is not a complex activity or anything like that. All you need to do is bring your awareness onto your breathing. Begin breathing in and out consciously, focusing on each breath. As you do this, you will be grounding yourself in the present moment.
Try this before your game:
- Inhale for 4 seconds
- Exhale for 6 seconds
- Repeat for 60–90 seconds
This helps slow your heart rate and bring your body back under control.
Step 3: Remember Past Successes
After you’ve focused on your breath for a few moments, really centering yourself in the present, it’s time to counteract the negative thoughts and scenarios playing out in your mind.
Right before a game, your confidence matters.
Instead of letting your mind drift to worst-case scenarios, bring it back to moments where you’ve succeeded.
We aren’t aiming to remove these thoughts, just as we aren’t seeking to force out anxiety. But what we are trying to do is replace them.
At this time, bring into your mind all the past times you’ve succeeded. It doesn’t matter how far back you need to travel. Even if you’ve been having a dry spell lately, go back a few months or possibly years.
Find yourself some positive memories of you succeeding and begin replaying them in your mind.
Visualization, just like mindfulness, is a powerful tool I teach athletes. Over time, when you visualize yourself succeeding, confidence will grow. As your confidence rises, anxiety decreases.
But you need something immediate to boost your confidence. That’s where remembering past successes comes into play. Just start thinking about all those memories and allow your confidence to grow as you do.
“Find yourself some positive memories of you succeeding and begin replaying them in your mind.”
Step 4: Repeat A Mantra
The previous step got your minds eye seeing images and scenes of you succeeding. You now want to work to substitute the negative and anxious thoughts that are keeping you from having a calm and confident mind.
Our brains have automatic phrases they repeat that have been hardwired over time. The process of cognitive restructuring works to retrain your brain to speak to you in a different way. However, in the moment, we can use these same concepts to reduce anxiety.
Those automatic anxious and worrisome thoughts you have are going nowhere unless something steps in to take their place. That’s why we employ the use of a mantra. A mantra is simply a phrase you come up with that you will repeat to yourself.
Thoughts drive feelings, so choose a statement that instills the kind of emotions you want to have going into a game. I suggest saying something that boosts your confidence while promoting a calm and relaxed mind.
However you want to feel, tailor your mantra to that state. Then, repeat it as though you put a song on repeat in your mind. Just keep saying it over and over. By doing so, you substitute the negative thoughts you were having and begin to instill the state you’re working towards.
Keep your mantra short and simple so you can actually use it when the pressure rises.
What to Do 5-10 Minutes Before the Game
Right before competition, keep things simple:
- Move your body and stay loose.
- Control your breathing.
- Focus on 1–2 simple objectives.
- Avoid overthinking your performance.
This is not the time to fix everything. This is the time to trust what you’ve already built.
What to Avoid Pregame That Will Make Nerves Worse
When you feel anxious before a game, avoid these common mistakes:
- Trying to force yourself to feel calm.
- Overthinking your performance.
- Changing how you play at the last minute.
- Focusing on the outcome.
These will only increase anxiety and pull you further out of the moment.
Final Thoughts
Anxiety before a game is normal.
What matters is not whether it shows up, but how you respond to it. When you learn to guide your focus instead of fighting your feelings, you give yourself the best chance to play freely.
You don’t need to feel confident before you compete. You just need to be in control of where your attention goes.
If anxiety before games is something you keep dealing with, this is exactly what I help athletes work through.
I work with athletes through my 12-week one-on-one mental performance coaching program to help them build confidence, manage anxiety, and compete freely under pressure.
You can learn more about how to get started with mental game coaching by clicking here.
I hope you found this article helpful and put the steps into practice when you have anxiety before a game.
Thank you for reading, and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
