Our normal reactions to these three words is usually negative. But can anxiety, worry, and/or fear be helpful for an athlete? I think so, if the source of these emotions can be identified. If we can understand the origins the emotion(s) we then have the knowledge to combat it or counter it and have it work for us.
For example, if an athlete creates a link between experiencing anxiety because he fears not living up to others expectations. Now he is equipped with important information he can use to his advantage. He may make a connection that he fears this outcome because he cares how others perceive him and his status as an athlete.
This would lead us to discuss how placing your focus in the future, considering the consequences of successes or failures, is not conducive to optimal performance. We can mitigate the emotional experiences there by working on time and place of our focus. Secondly, we can discuss the perceived need for validation from others and how that impacts his performances and other things like confidence, and motivation. It could be very beneficial in this instance to shift from an external/outcome orientation to an internal/process/mastery orientation that would cut out the perceived “need” of others approval or satisfaction.
In this way, you can see that emotions, even negative ones can be extremely helpful for an athlete. There is always a reason we experience an emotion. Surprisingly those reasons are typically positive. For example, “we care,” or “we have invested so much time and resources for this one moment.” These are good things! It’s how we use that source of the emotion and how we think about it that can help propel our performances or can limit our potential.
routine that hits all the important aspects of performance preparation. We not only need to find the right mindset but prepare our body physically while making sure our equipment is functional and our performance strategies are in place and we are committed to them. This takes planning and an understanding of where you need to be on some of these variables for optimal performance.
The right answer to how much of your sport performance in mental is 100%. We all have a primary motor cortex and multiple secondary cortices in the brain that are strictly devoted to initiating and controlling all of our physical movements. We actually have a map of our body in the brain with larger more complex brain matter assigned for parts of our body that require larger amounts of complex motor movement and control like our hands and fingers. So ALL of our movement, all of our performance, rely on the brain. We rely on the mental side of performing not only on skills like focusing, arousal and emotional control, and visualizing success, but also for the foundation for sport… movement!
