Have you ever found yourself playing with fear during a game?
Athletes who play with fear not only underperform, but also leave games feeling frustrated and disappointed in themselves.
Just yesterday I was talking with a basketball player who explained this very scenario to me. He said that he often plays scared of making mistakes. This causes him to hold himself back and hesitate.
When he plays with fear, he then leaves the game disappointed in himself. Not due to the mistakes he made, but due to the fear he played with.
As an athlete, your goal needs to be to play to succeed instead of playing to avoid mistakes. Something that is difficult when you play with fear.
To help, in this article, I’m going to explain how fear holds you back, what it truly means to play with confidence, and lastly, one powerful exercise you can use to go from playing with fear to playing with confidence during games.
How Fear Holds You Back
What are you afraid of?
When you play with fear, what is this fear focused on?
For most athletes, it’s mistakes. There’s a strong fear present surrounding the possibility of making mistakes.
The fear of injury is also one that can be present. Especially if you’ve suffered an injury before, you may be afraid of reinjuring yourself.
Whether it’s the fear of making mistakes, the fear of injury, or any other fear you can think of, the same principle applies: when you play with fear you play to avoid.
Let’s say you’re afraid of messing up because you don’t want to get benched. How will you play as a result?
Will you be aggressively and play freely?
Or will you hesitate and hold yourself back?
When you play to avoid, you hold yourself back. Since avoiding making a mistake is the main goal driving your play, your mind will take the quickest route to achieving the goal. The quickest way to avoid mistakes is to play it safe and hold yourself back.
However, that is not at all where you find peak performance.
Nor is it a type of play exhibited by athletes with high confidence.
Playing with fear leads to an avoidance mindset. Where your mind is focused on not messing up and avoiding the negative consequences that follow.
To play with confidence, you must accept the possibility of failure. You cannot play to avoid and simultaneously play your best. The two do not match.
What it Truly Means to Play With Confidence
The opposite of playing with fear is playing with confidence.
Remember, when you play with fear you play to avoid. There is something you are afraid of that you don’t want to have happen, therefore your mind works to make sure it doesn’t come true.
Unfortunately, playing to avoid does not equal playing with confidence. It means you hesitate and hold yourself back. This is where you leave games feeling disappointed in yourself for the way you played.
Not just because you played poorly, but because you played scared.
Playing with confidence, on the other hand, means you play freely. You trust in yourself and your skills and you allow yourself to just play.
To play with confidence requires a certain amount of courage. A huge amount of courage, actually.
When you play with confidence, there is no way to avoid the possibility of mistakes, injury, or any other fear that might be present. Yes, playing with confidence increases your chances of playing well and not making mistakes and so on, but the possibility is still there.
I was talking with a lacrosse player recently about this very idea. I asked him to explain to me what it means for him to play his best. One characteristic he mentioned was making great passes.
I then asked him if there was any way to make a great pass without opening himself up to the possibility of turning the ball over.
He said no.
The reason being, to make a good pass means he must take the chance of the other team stealing it or even him making a bad pass. He has to just go for it.
Just going for it and trying to make a great pass isn’t possible if he is hesitating or playing with fear. This shows us that to play with confidence requires a level of acceptance when it comes to failure.
Playing with confidence means you accept failure as a possibility, but play aggressively anyway. You play with freedom and you trust in yourself and your skills.
Trusting in Yourself to Handle Failure
A powerful idea in terms of going from playing with fear to playing with confidence is being able to handle failing.
Whatever failure looks like for you, it’s natural for it to be something you want to avoid. No one wants to fail. It’s not fun and not what you’re out there striving to achieve.
However, avoiding failure, as discussed above, does nothing but hold you back. To play your best, and play with confidence, failure as a possibility must be accepted.
Something that helps with this is trusting in yourself to handle failure.
This means you are confident in your ability to move on from a mistake, manage getting benched, deal with an injury, and so on. It won’t be fun or something you would have liked to have happened, but you can handle it nonetheless.
That’s one of the areas of trust we want to build; you having confidence in yourself that no matter what happens, you can handle it.
Mental Exercise to Go From Playing With Fear to Playing With Confidence
Playing with fear is a quick way to underperform and leave games feeling frustrated in yourself. You know you held yourself back, and as a result, you are disappointed in your play.
When you play with confidence, on the other hand, you play with a different level of aggressiveness. You go out there playing to succeed, instead of playing to avoid.
But how can you get yourself to the point where you are playing with confidence, if you currently struggle with fear while competing?
It requires a change in perspective. One where you work to build trust in your ability to handle that which you fear.
Building Trust in Handling What You Fear
When we feel confident in being able to handle something, a lot of fear goes away. Not because we know we’ll play perfectly every time or make no mistakes, but because we know that even if we do mess up or fail, we can handle it.
That is a form of confidence that’s often overlooked, but one I’ve seen have incredible effects on athletes who are playing with fear.
The exercise I have outlined below will help get you on the right track to building this type of trust. It’s an exercise I use when working with athletes in mental performance coaching.
Step One: Identify Situations When You’re Afraid
What you want to do first is list out all the situations when you’re afraid. This may include moments during a game or practice, specific situations, or when certain people are watching.
You may come up with a few situations or just one or two. Just list out as many as you can think of.
Here is an example list for a softball player:
- When I hit.
- When there are runners on base and I am playing defense.
- When we are winning late in the game and it’s a close game.
Step Two: Identify What You’re Truly Afraid Of
With fear of failure, it is not the mistake or failure itself, but rather the consequence that truly drives our fear. That’s what you want to get clear on in this second step.
Once you’re clear on what the consequence is you fear, we can work on managing it.
Here is what the softball player may say:
- I am afraid of having my batting average drop.
- I am afraid of making an error and having my team mad at me.
- I am afraid of making a mistake, giving up the lead, and it being my fault our team lost.
Step Three: Decide How You Will Handle What You Fear
The last step is where you get clear on how you will handle the consequence of the mistake or failure. This is what we want to build trust in.
It’s not that you’re changing what’s happened or anything. All you’re doing is getting clear on how you will handle the situation in the most positive and productive way possible.
For example, here’s what the softball player might say:
- If my batting average drops, I will keep working on my swing and work to have confidence going into my next game or at bat.
- If I make an error I will use positive self-talk and remind myself to get focused to make the net play.
- If I make a mistake late in the game, I will learn from it, work to stay positive after the game, and work harder during practice.
It’s not that we’re changing what happened or trying to pretend like the mistake or failure wasn’t frustrating. What we’re doing is seeking to manage the situation once the failure happens in a better way.
If you have confidence in your ability to manage the consequences, it drastically reduces the fear you experience.
With less fear present, you are free to play with more confidence and trust yourself to play aggressively and go after the success you want.
Final Thoughts
Playing with fear does nothing but hold you back.
When you play with fear, you play to avoid. As your mind works to avoid negative outcomes, you find yourself playing timidly and holding yourself back.
Holding yourself back is not a recipe for success. In fact, it’s a recipe for continual frustration and disappointment in yourself.
To go from playing with fear to playing with confidence we need to build trust. Not just trust in your skills, but trust in yourself. In your ability to experience failure and handle it anyway.
You want to feel confident that no matter what happens, you can manage it. When that level of trust is present, you are free to simply play.
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.
