One of the greatest challenges athlete’s face at all levels is converting great performances in training into great performances in competition. One of the most common causes of decreased performance in competition is performance anxiety or ‘choking’ (defn.) when the perceived pressure of the occasion causes a level of stress that inhibits performance.
Despite the potential significance of this challenge to the athlete the solution is totally within their control. The key here is that the pressure the athlete experiences is just their perception. It is entirely an internal creation of their interpretation of the event.
So if they can learn to change how you perceive the event you can control the level of anxiety that you experience. So whether it is due to thoughts of self doubt, failure, previous bad performances or even disliking large crowds all of these thoughts are just your perception and so can be controlled and changed reducing your level of anxiety.
As a foot note it should be remembered that a degree of anxiety is important to ensure that your body is releasing just enough adrenalin to allow you to focus but not to achieve a tense state of hyper-arousal. This too can be controlled and channelled.
If you look at the video click link of Stuart Pearce’s penalty kick in Euro ’96 against Spain you will see a great example of someone controlling their performance anxiety. By electing to take a penalty kick in a perceivably pressure situation with the history of missing a crucial penalty in the World Cup ’90 Semi Final Pearce could have succumbed to the circumstances. Yet he managed to control his emotions and produce a great performance.
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