In game situations there are times when things get extremely stressful. When it is tied or your team is losing by not much and there is only a minute left to score. Or playing a rival and wanting to perform your best. These moments either help us to perform our best or debilitate us and we perform below what we are capable. There are certain steps you can take to ease the stress and perform your best during these situations.
First and foremost you have to believe that you and your team will achieve a positive outcome. Without the belief that you can do it, you will not put in the effort, focus and determination needed in order to overcome this obstacle. If you believe in yourself, the self talk that goes on in your mind will be positive. There are enough people wanting us to fail so we do not need to add to their negativity. When your thoughts are positive it will influence you to take positive actions which will put you in the best position to be successful.
Next you need to persistently practice. You need to practice being in the most stressful situations so you know how to handle it. This will be vital because when you do find yourself in a similar situation you can fall back to all the practice you have put in so you can give yourself the best chance of a positive outcome. If you need to score with a limited amount of time available and you have practiced this scenario hundreds of times before, you will have confidence that you can do it. That in of itself will give you better chance for success than not having any practice.
Take a deep breath and relax. It is easy to get stressed out in tough situations but if you can take a couple deep breaths into your diaphragm and relax with a big exhale, you will relax your muscles and get it in the best position to be successful. When we are tight (stressed), our muscles do not fire as fast and produce the maximum amount of power it is able to because we take short breaths and the lowers the amount of oxygen that gets to our muscles. With less oxygen, we do not function at 100% so take a couple of seconds and get your breath under control.
The last thing you need to do is interpret feedback in a positive way. You might take all the steps above and still have some failures in practice and in games. The key is that we take negative feedback in a way that we can learn and grow from it. If we just get down and not learn from our mistakes, we will not perform better when we face the same obstacle. For example, if you miss read a play and make the wrong decision, getting upset at yourself and thinking negatively will only make it harder for you to overcome that obstacle the next time you face it. Instead you must think, ok I missed that but I will not let it happen again. So when you do face a similar situation and you need to make that decision again, you will remember the lesson and apply it so you will be successful.
That is why we push our athletes to train as hard as possible, stay positive and relax. The more practice and time you put in to being your best, the harder it is to just give up. One of our athletes injured his foot in the conference championship game and needed a couple of months to heal but he took pain killers and played in the Super Bowl. His thought process was, “I played football since I was a kid, lifted weights, conditioned and tried my best in practice every day for this opportunity. I am playing no matter what is broken in my body. I might not get another chance to play in this game.” Luckily he won and made a full recovery for the next football season. It is not only great to learn these lessons to perform your best in sports but we also face stressful situations in life. The same principles apply in all areas of life. The thing with sports is that you can see the outcome really quickly.
Sincerely,
Donny Mateaki
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