Mental Toughness Challenge #10: Composure is all about what you Control
It’s natural to feel butterflies, jittery or beads of sweat on your forehead when you’re anxious during a performance. Even professional athletes experience physical anxiousness. However, top athletes have learned how to control their mental anxiety to improve performance.
Building mental endurance is what can help tame the butterflies, jitters and sweat so that you can perform at your best.
Negative thoughts, confusion, lack of concentration, worry or extreme emotions (e.g. anger) can lead to performance failure. This is why it is important for athletes to learn to control these anxious feelings through relaxation and composure gaining techniques.
Athletes are faced with many opportunities to lose control and feel anxious:
1) A bad call made by an official
2) A distraction such as shouts from spectators
3) A mistake or error which affected performance for several minutes
4) An mental psych-out by an opponent
5) Pressure to perform a specific task to generate a certain outcome
But top athletes have learned to classify these into two specific groups – those which they can control, and those that they can’t.
I challenge you to think about what you need to do, each and every time, to perform your best.
Ask yourself: What things can I control? What things can’t I control? How can I direct my energy to optimize my performance?
By answering these critical questions you’ll not only learn about you respond to anxiety, but you’ll learn the secrets that will help you regain your composure even when you are faced with the challenge of a lifetime!
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How composed are you when under stress?
Once you have completed the work in the exercises above please contact me by filling in the “contact us” form at www.protexsports.com. I will then arrange time to talk with you on the phone and help you better understand your notes and provide you with a plan to help you leverage composure to improve your performance.
