Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

Anxiety is a feeling of pressure, worry, or stress usually caused by an important upcoming event with an uncertain outcome. In sports, almost every competition has elements of importance and uncertainty. As a result, anxiety is a normal feeling all athletes must learn to deal with.

Other than clinical disorders which are outside the scope of what I do, when an unhealthy level of anxiety starts to hurt an athlete’s performance, this is almost always a result of negative self-talk. When an athlete thinks negativity, they cause negative outcomes in their performance. Moreover, the negative self-talk that causes athletes to think negatively is habitual.

As I teach my clients, old bad habits die hard but good new habits form fast. So, the only way to break a old bad habit is to replace it with a good new habit. This takes a process, and a process is executed in steps.

Here are the 5 steps to relive the anxiety that self-talk causes:

1. First, make sure there are no outside influences putting negative thoughts in your head. If so, remove yourself from this environment or kindly ask those people to stay away while you work on breaking negativity as a habit.
2. Create a daily routine of saying positive affirmations to yourself throughout the day. In the morning as you look in the mirror while brushing your teeth, during your commute, and before bed as you fall asleep are the best times. Consistency is key.
3. If you have trouble being positive, then just be neutral. No need to fake positivity if that’s not what you’re feeling. Neutral thinking is more about being positive about the reality of the situation. It’s being a realist without letting the negativity of what you can’t control impact the reality of what you can control. When you use neutral thinking, you focus on sticking with the facts. Facts that are not necessarily overly positive or negative, they just are.
4. Do some research on anxiety. Understand that not all anxiety is bad, as anxiety can also be a performance enhancer. You must learn what level of anxiety works for you and what are the triggers that push you beyond a healthy level of anxiety.
5. Lastly, make sure you understand the sources of confidence your self-talk is depending on. If your self-talk focuses on sources of confidence that are outside of your control you must identify this. Then, practice directing your self-talk towards the sources of confidence you do control.