You Don’t Have to Feel Ready to Be Ready
An athlete said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
She is a swimmer, and she believes she needs to feel a certain way before she races.
Calm…but not too calm. Activated…but not anxious. Confident. Focused. Ready.
You know…the perfect competition state!
She described it as almost carefree. And when she can get herself there, she believes she can race well.
But what happens when she can’t? What happens when the nerves don’t settle down? What happens when she feels flat instead of fired up? What happens when the thoughts she doesn’t want keep popping into her head?
Before the race even begins, she starts thinking: I don’t feel right. I’m not where I need to be. I can’t get myself there.
And now we have a problem.
Not necessarily because she is too anxious, too calm or too hyped. The bigger problem may be that she believes the way she feels before the race determines what she is capable of doing during it.
She’s making “getting ready” another competition stressor…before she even gets started!!
We talk a lot about emotional regulation in sports. We teach athletes to use breathing, movement, music, imagery, self-talk and other tools to help them manage their energy and attention.
These tools matter!
But sometimes athletes accidentally turn them into another performance test.
If the breathing works and I feel calm, I’m ready. If the music gets me fired up, I’m ready. If I feel confident, I’m ready.
And if the tool doesn’t produce the feeling they expected? They assume it didn’t work…or worse, that something is wrong with them…or that they’re not prepared…ready…capable!
Now they aren’t simply nervous. They are nervous about being nervous!
They aren’t simply feeling flat. They are worried that feeling flat means they can’t perform.
They aren’t just noticing their state. They are judging it, trying to force it to change and using it to predict what is about to happen.
And all that trying creates more pressure…which can move them even farther away from the state they think they need.
How exhausting is that?
BUT…even though we know how we want to feel…there is no one “right” way to feel.
Sport psychologist Yuri Hanin’s Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning model, or IZOF for short, reminds us that athletes do not all perform best at the same arousal level. Some athletes compete well when they are relatively calm. Others need more intensity. Some feel energized, edgy and aggressive before their best performances. Others feel quiet, loose and controlled.
Research examining the IZOF model supports the idea that the relationship between pre-competition anxiety and performance is individual, not one universal formula every athlete should follow.
So that roaring pregame “fire up” speech is dead on for some…and not for others. Just as telling every athlete to “calm down” makes about as much sense as giving every athlete the same shoe size.
It doesn’t fit everyone!
Of course, understanding your individual zone is valuable. If your energy is at a 10 and you generally perform best around a seven, you need tools that can help bring it down.
If you feel flat and usually compete better with more activation, you need tools that can help bring it up.
We can influence our state – it’s Power Move #3!
We can use breath, vision, movement, posture, music, imagery and self-talk to create more calm or more energy. We can even learn to “manufacture” a more helpful state… but like any other skill, these skills must be practiced.
And even then, the dial will not land on the perfect number every time!!!
That is why we need to remember: A preferred performance state is not a required performance state.
Your best performances may happen more often when you feel a certain way. That does not mean you are incapable of performing when you don’t.
Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson tackle this issue in their book Heads Up Baseball 2.0. In it, they quote MLB pitcher Jon Lester, who said, “If I get 30 starts a season, five of them I’m going to have my A game, and it’s going to be simple and clear. Another 5 of them I’m going to be battling my C game. And in the 20 games that make up the bulk of my season, I’ll be competing with my B game. So 25 times out of 30 I’m compensating and adjusting to compete.”
If Major League pitchers don’t walk to the mound with their best stuff every night, what do we expect? Yet they, and we, still have to find a way to get outs and perform!
As Lester said, they adjust. They locate. They change speeds. They trust their defense. They compete with what they have that day.
Elite performers do not become elite because they always feel great. They become elite because they learn how to compete when they don’t.
Your “A game” is wonderful when it shows up. But some days you will have to find a way to win with your B game... your B thoughts…your B feelings! And occasionally, you may have to battle like heck with your C-minus game! That is part of competing.
What champions remember is that feelings are information…not instructions! They matter and your emotional and physiological state can affect your attention, muscle tension, decision-making and access to your skills.
But they don’t erase your preparation. You still know how to swim, pitch, shoot, serve, swing or perform. Your training didn’t suddenly disappear because your butterflies showed up early!
The danger comes when we interpret an uncomfortable state as proof: I feel anxious, so I’m not ready. I feel flat, so I won’t have enough energy. I don’t feel confident, so I can’t compete confidently.
Now attention shifts away from the task and toward constant internal checking! How do I feel now? Is this right? Am I calm enough yet? Did the breathing work?
Instead of preparing to perform, we are monitoring whether we feel prepared to perform.
Here is where this gets REALLY interesting.
A new systematic review and meta-analysis examined 15 controlled studies involving 606 golfers.
Psychological interventions produced a small reduction in competitive anxiety, with a standardized mean difference of −0.29. But the improvement in athletic performance was considerably larger, with a standardized mean difference of 0.70.
In other words, performance improved more than anxiety changed.
This finding raises a VERY important question. What if the purpose of a mental skill isn’t always to make the uncomfortable feeling go away?
Athletes often evaluate a breathing exercise, pre-performance routine or mental-performance tool by asking, “Did it calm me down?” And if the answer is no, they assume the tool didn’t work.
But perhaps the better question is, “Did it help me perform while I was nervous?”
Did I commit to my routine? Did I direct my attention toward the target? Did I make a decisive move? Did I recover after the mistake? Did I execute what I had trained to do? Did I keep competing when I didn’t feel exactly the way I wanted to feel?
Because the purpose of mental training is not to help athletes feel perfect. It is to help them perform effectively with whatever thoughts, emotions and physical sensations happen to show up.
We’re building a performance routine, not a readiness test and this is where a consistent pre-performance routine can help.
A pre-performance routine gives athletes a planned sequence of task-relevant thoughts and actions to use before they perform.
Yes, parts of the routine may help regulate arousal. But the routine has a larger purpose…and that is to direct attention and behavior toward the performance.
A meta-analysis examining 112 effect sizes found that pre-performance routines improved athletic performance in both low-pressure and pressure situations. These routines help organize task-relevant thoughts and actions before execution. (Rupprecht, et.al., 2021)
Notice what the routine organizes! Thoughts and actions. Not perfect feelings.
A performance routine might include:
Noticing your current state without judging it. The first part of our tool…NOTICE!!!
Using one regulation tool without demanding a specific result. CHOOSE!!!!
Reviewing one or two process cues.
Rehearsing the opening part of the performance.
Committing to your first controllable action. NOW!!!
The goal is not, “I must make myself feel right before I can compete.” The goal is, “I will use my routine and compete with what I have today.”
We can take it one step further…we also need to practice performing from different states.
Rehearse competing well while feeling calm, competing well while nervous and when you feel flat, distracted or uncertain! And when these states show up in practice, don’t always rush to get rid of them. Sometimes practice doing it anyway.
Because if athletes only believe they can perform when they feel just right, they become dependent on a state they cannot completely control.
We need each of them to know and identify the following:
I know what helps me feel and perform my best.
I have tools to influence my state.
And I can still compete when I don’t get all the way there.
This is not giving up on emotional regulation. It is becoming more emotionally flexible.
Before your next practice or competition, we can all ask, “What am I feeling?”
Name it without judging it or turning it into a prediction. I notice I feel nervous, flat or I don’t feel as confident as I would like.
Then ask we can ask, “What does this performance require from me right now?”
Maybe it requires an intentional warm-up, one long exhale, widening your vision, creating more movement or committing to one simple cue.
We get a choice. We can choose the next helpful action.
Afterward, don’t evaluate your mental routine only by asking whether it made you calmer, more energized or more confident.
It may be more helpful to ask, “Did it help me do what the performance required?”
Because feeling better can be helpful. But feeling better is not always the same as performing better.
We do not need to win the battle against every uncomfortable thought or feeling before we can compete. Sometimes the win is discovering that you can perform while the feeling is still there.
And THAT is real confidence.
We don’t have to feel ready to be ready. I we wait to feel ready…we may never move!
Manage the moments!
Julie
Julie Jones
Mental Performance Coach
SSB Performance
juliej@ssbperformance.com • 234-206-0946
Comments