Mental Game Issues in Performance

Feb 9, 2020 | Mental Performance

There are many things that can potentially disrupt a person’s performance.  Athletes have a tendency to create labels, generally negative self-appraisals, for a difficulty rather then understand it from a mind-body perspective.   I find it interesting to hear the different conclusions people make about why they performed poorly.  Everyone seems to have a favorite “reason” for his or her difficulties.  I am sure you have heard many yourselves. The most common things I hear are about focus and distraction.  On one level this may be true however there are generally other factors involved that aren’t being identified.

People who tend to go the “focus” route are more likely to be negative towards themselves.  People who tend to go the “distraction” route tend to blame externals.  In many ways they are the opposite side of the same coin.  Both can be an indicator of confidence issues.  A variety of things can impact focus or create distraction.  In reality, a poor focus often results from other mental game issues such as fear of failure, frustration, lack of confidence, and low trust in one’s game.  Let’s consider them.

Frustration can lead to a lack of focus.  Consider what is causing the frustration, something internal like being upset with making a mistake or something external like a bad bounce, loud noise or the ref made a call against you.  Dwelling on the past is the common theme here.  When some athletes are upset with making mistakes they dwell on it, negative thinking activates and doubts creep in and performance is impacted. Think of it like pouring cold water in a boiling pot, it stops boiling.   In this situation our energy tends to drop. For others who are frustrated with things out of their control activations can cause too much energy, muscle tension, other blaming negative thinking or behavioral expressions of the frustration.  This is like a boiling pot and the heat gets turned up.  To perform at your peak consistently athletes must first have the proper amount of energy or intensity and stay in the present moment.

What I call “Wrong Focus” can cause problems with performance.  It is always important to direct our mind however in peak performance it is crucial.  During any performance our thoughts need to be on the task at hand.  We also need to know when to shut down our active thinking and be in the moment of the physical action so our mind-body connection can flow.  Tension, anxiety, anger or fear can cause athletes to focus on all the wrong stuff during competition.

A lack of trust in technique or physical skill can lead to making mistakes. Athletes just assume they didn’t focus enough for that easy shot. They tighten up just at the wrong time because they did not trust their ability to execute.  Lack of trust in technique will always cause problems with confidence.  Our mind will start looking for options to adjust when there is doubt or lack of trust in technique, which results in performance problems.  When there is high activation we probably can notice the impacts however most of you can relate to “I’m a little off but not sure why” sort of feeling.  These things can happen on a dramatic or subtle level.

We have hard-wired autonomic responses for survival, and our nervous system is geared towards perceiving information for the purpose of directing appropriate physiological survival responses.  Our affect or emotional regulation is tied into this survival system.  When one of our senses picks up something that is a perceived threat (fear, doubt, hesitation, etc.) the autonomic reactions for fight – flight – freeze start to engage.   The research that looks at affect regulation and the nervous system is growing and we understand more and more about how our mind-body connection impacts how and what we do or don’t do.