TSSI #4 – How to perform despite nerves, anxiety and fear
Read Time: 3 minutes
Today, I'm going to teach you how to perform even when you're nervous, anxious and fearful.
If you're able to act on this lesson, it will lead to more wins, less mental suffering and greater competitiveness.
It will give you a comprehensive understanding of how the best athletes think.
Unfortunately, most people fail to be mentally strong. They crumble under the pressure because they don't have a proven system to handle it.
Anxiety, Nerves, Fear of Failure and Perfectionism gets the better of them. They let these feelings destruct their performances.
Nerves, Anxiety and Fear don't decrease performance. Your attempt to fight them does.
The message that you'll take away from today will be eye-opening. But, it's not going to instantly change your life. Understanding the science is the starting point, then it takes work.
The benefits of this system:
Stops you wrestling with your feelings
Decreases brain fog
Eradicates the downward negative spiral
Leads to greater levels of commitment
Improves performance despite the presence of intense feelings
Let's see how the best athletes and high-performers think:
Point #1 – Feelings are normal
This is fundamental to the whole system.
We worry about things that we care about.
It's normal.
There's a 100% chance that you feel some anxiety and nervousness before a match. You'll also feel frustration and anger if things aren't going your way. You'll feel sadness because you aren't meeting your expectations.
That's normal.
But these feelings aren't the things that are hurting your performance.
Point #2 – The Problem Explained
What's hurting your performance is something called 'meta cognition'.
(I know...a very scientific term for a tennis player.)
Meta cognition is the anxiety that comes from being anxious. Or the frustration that comes from being frustrated.
Meta cognitive worry is this vicious loop that ruins our performance. I like to call it the downward spiral.
Why do we get anxious about being anxious? Frustrated about being frustrated? Sad about being sad?
It's because we have this belief that we play better when we're confident and calm... and suck when we're anxious and annoyed.
But this isn't necessarily true.
This belief makes us try to reduce and change these 'negative' feelings which only ends up making it worse.
The 3 ways in which we try to change these unwanted internal feelings:
Suppression
Distraction
Replacement
But science shows that these methods only make the feelings worse.
Meta cognition makes us foggy in the mind and hinders our automatic motor system.
The result:
We start making bad decisions and stop executing simple skills that we can normally do in our sleep.
Point #3 – The Solution Explained
The solution is about normalizing these feelings and NOT TRYING TO WRESTLE AND GET RID THEM.
Your goal is to play despite the nerves or frustration.
An example:
You lose the first set to a player that you expect to beat and you're furious.
Instead of trying to get rid of the anger, or to reduce it, your job is to find a task-orientated focus despite the feeling.
Inside your mind*
"Okay, it's normal to be pissed off right now. That's fine. I can still turn this match around despite the frustration I'm feeling. What can I adjust tactically to turn this match around? What can I do a little better?"
See how we're not trying to battle the feeling of frustration?
Acceptance- the key skill.
It's about accepting the emotion as normal and having task-orientated focus even in it's presence.
“It’s not about reducing stress and pressure. It’s about building our capacity to embrace more! Because stress and pressure is the entry point into sport and life.”
Point #4 – Your Homework Activity
A quick metaphor for your ability to normalize unwanted feelings:
A parent has their first child and they're in the supermarket when the child starts throwing a hissy fit.
Because she's worried and embarrassed and wants to make sure the child is okay, she gives it all her attention.
"What's the matter? Do you need your dummy? Can mummy get you some chocolate?"
All attention on the child. No attention remains on the shopping.
2 years later, she's in the supermarket again, but this time she's with her 2nd child that she gave birth to a year ago.
The child starts throwing a hissy fit but the mum pays little attention to the child because she knows this is normal behavior. She's seen it all before. The kid is fine.
And she just continues with her shopping despite the crying child.
This is the relationships you need to develop with the 'negative unwanted feelings'.
Continue to do your shopping (task) despite the screaming baby (your feelings).
Your Task:
Sit down before your next practice or match and think about all the negative feelings that could come up in different situations.
Write them down on a piece of paper. What are the specific feelings, and the situations where they show up?
The more you can be expecting the feelings to show up, the less attention you pay to them when they do show up.
You can then keep your focus on the task.
Example:
Serving for the match. Nerves show up (but you already anticipated this and wrote it down).
So in your mind "Hello closing-out-the-match-nerves. Nice of you to show up. Now lets focus on executing my game-plan'
Normalize & Accept. Then focus on the task.
