Athletes who think too much develop fear and anxiety |01 October 2019

When you think too much it just slows down your response. Your brain cannot get the message and signals to your body to respond fast enough. Allow your body to do what it has been trained to do.

Some coaches tell their athletes to: “Go ahead and clear your mind; stop worrying too much; just relax and get your head in the game.”

Your coaches tell you what to do, but they are not telling you how to do it.

How you react to the negative thoughts

A five-step approach for athletes who think too much.

1. Shift

Shifting from thinking and focus on your event.

2. Simplify

Instead of thinking of all the different things you need to be doing to perform your best just focus on one or two important things you want to improve. You can do a much better job if you focus on only two things rather than too much.

3. See

How you want to perform instead of thinking about all the technical steps and then you don’t. You do not do that in a normal action. Allow everything to happen naturally.

4. Solution

Instead of focusing on a problem. Aim on a solution.

5. Selfless

Athletes who over-analyse and get too critical, judge themselves constantly with each particular step of the game. Even if they did something great or if they made a mistake focus on next action. Doing that on and on during your game makes you a bit crazy and wastes your energy and scatters your mind.

Judging yourself on how good or bad you are will weaken your concentration. Every mistake can be a teaching moment and you could improve from it.

Exercise on how you can expand from a narrow to a wider vision.

Open your arm. Look straight ahead, wriggle your fingers and look if you could see them at the side of your eye. Doing this will help you to expand the scope of your vision from narrow to a wider vision.

You can start to know what is going on around you, without breaking your gaze.

It is a secret weapon that can help you to intimidate a competitor. They think you are tuned in and not looking at them, it puts them on the defensive.

You can start to know what is going on around you, without breaking your gaze.

To stop thinking too much it has to do with the truth, that you have done all the training necessary for the moment in time.

You have put a lot of hours in training. If you have been practicing well your body knows what to do, to get the job done.

Maurice Denys (Mr)                                                                                                              

Certified Mental Coach (CMC)

S.N.H.S.Dip (Sports Psychology)                                                  

S.N.H.S.Dip (Life coaching)