Competition Anxiety

Many athletes in a variety of sports experience anxiety before competition. These nerves are you reaction to competition and if you are someone who suffers from this; you’re not the only one! But they can easily be changeD by thinking and behaving differently

Why do we get nervous?

Well, if you think about it the only difference with competition is that we are being judged. In training sure our coach may judge us, hell, we may even judge ourselves but there is no consequence, as that in competition. Namely – Loosing, or more accurately, just NOT winning!

Now there are two things wrong with our body’s decision to turn on the jitters and nervousness when faced with competition and, once you know them, you’ll be able to tell your body the next time you feel the nervousness coming on “Hey. There is no need for nerves. I can do this, I will do this.” That simply. No seriously it is.

The first thing that is wrong with our nerves

There is no reason to be nervous. Easy to say I hear you cry but it is, I’ll explain to you why. When we think about our competition we are thinking about all the things external to ourselves: the judging people, the crown, the opposition, the list can go on. What we forget I that our performance is controlled by US. We are the athlete.

By this I mean, you have trained for this moment, for competition, and you’ve trained well. You have beaten PB’s (Personal Bests) and made your coach proud or even exceeded your expectations. This IS WHO YOU ARE: THE ATHLETE.

Now when you start to let your body get nervous and fill up with adrenaline and jitters you’re forgetting yourself. You perform every time you practice. Competition is really no different, I mean it is what you train for, right?! You have to perform, you know you can perform. The only thing you have to do is forget anything else and concentrate and tell yourself “I can do this and I will.”

It sounds very easy doesn’t it? Well it is but it does need practise.

You see you mind likes to be in control and you body likes to react. But if you’ve always let your body take over in competition situations, then your body will react automatically and your mind has kind of given up on changing anything with a ‘here-we-go-again’ attitude. So by practising your pre competition routine, mantra, what ever you want to call it, you help your mind remember it is in control and competition does not change that. So the next time you approach the competition you won’t have fear as you know there is no need to.

The second thing wrong with our nerves

That is the origin of our nerves. Nervousness before a competition usually means that the focus, as we identified earlier, is outside of ourselves. We either don’t want to loose, or let people down and we can’t be anything but THE BEST.

Now OK, I agree our long-term goal will always be to BE THE BEST. Otherwise we would never strive to be better. But that is exactly my point. In striving to be better that doesn’t mean we have to win every competition that comes our way and be invincible. It can’t mean that because frankly it is impossible, as humans are fallible, they can make mistakes. Thus when we come to competition, a far better short-term goal it to do better than last time. And I don’t mean beat that guy you didn’t, I mean if there is a measurable goal, maybe the score or how many tackles you made, or your race time, that is your REAL OPPONENT – YOURSELF.

Do you know another reason why this is helpful? Well, it tells you more about yourself. Don’t you agree that if you focus on winning or loosing there are no learning points apart from: to win, if you’ve lost, or to keep doing what you’re doing if you won? Now I don’t think we could reach our long-term goal if this was our approach. Better we have our short-term improvement oriented goals so we see which elements of our performance needs improving or that worked well and ultimately the next steps we need to make to become BETTER.

Now I AM NOT SAYING DON’T GO OUT THERE TO WIN. I am just saying don’t go out there to ONLY win but have yourself as your opponent and go out to IMPROVE and you will feel satisfaction even if you don’t happen to take the trophy that particular day but you’ll learn how to, for the next time.

Last Important reminder

Nerves are not all bad. In many cases you will find they actually enhance your performance and help you reach your optimal state of performance. This is true, but the nerves we talk about here are those that inhibit and mess with your natural abilities and only these nerves are those you should really fear. It is easy enough to tell the difference. And I am sure you have expectations on yourself that will still conjure a little excited anxiety before competition but the main thing to remember is it YOU ARE THE ATHLETE and only you matter when in that competition!


ashleigh drew - contact ashleigh.drew@yahoo.co.uk
Be your Best!