Being Fearless in Competition
This tip can be the most powerful mental skill you will ever learn for your sport and it actually carries you through your entire life. You are here and reading this because maybe you want to be Fearless in competition? And you may want to be Courageous? How would you like to stop being nervous or scared so much? Let’s get rid of that fear!
This all begins with my R.A.C.E Formula:
Performance = Potential – Interference
What do all these words mean? Great question. Performance means – you playing in your sport or game or doing absolutely anything that you want to do well in.
Potential means what you have the ability to do, right now, today!
Interference is all that garbage that gets in your way or holds you back from your goal.
What does being fearless actually mean?
You will play/perform your best when you rid yourself of the interference.
How can this help you? When you get rid of the interference, the better you will play! Let’s now talk about the #1 Interference. It’s FEAR.
Let’s now talk about the #1 Interference. It’s FEAR. When you are in fear you get nervous, tense and you may even play timidly instead of aggressively and smooth like you may do in practice. Fear generates a lack of confidence and negative self-talk. Fear creates doubt and sometimes paralyzes you from taking action. I remember as gymnast myself being so afraid to throw my series on high beam. The thought of connecting my 2 back handsprings together, even though they were perfect on low beam, stopped me in my tracks with a pause prior to doing the second part of the pass and was unable to connect my series without my coach standing next to the beam. Every time she was near me the confidence was there. The moment she stepped away, my heart would race, feel that sickly feeling in my stomach and just froze.
Fears Are Useful
Everybody has fears. It is completely normal to have them. I have an irrational fear of spiders. We can talk about that another time though. I also have a very strong fear of snakes. Living in Southern California we have tons of rattlesnakes in the area and have been in (way to close) contact with them. This is a very useful fear to have. Your body is telling you there is danger and this animal can cause you physical harm. Let’s hold on to this one! This is a USEFUL fear. What we need to get rid of are the NON-useful fears that interfere with our overall performance.
In past blog posts, you may have read about the 2 kinds of fears: 1. Physical harm to our bodies. 2. Fear of feelings. So what is all this nonsense about feelings you might ask? I’ve heard from countless clients, I’m afraid of disappointing my coach, parents or teammates. I’m afraid I won’t make it to the next level. I’m afraid of getting a bad score. If we were speaking to each other, I’d ask you, “What will happen if this fear occurs?” Will anyone physically harm you? Beat you up? Take away food? Kick you off the team?
No, of course not! No physical harm to your body will happen. The feelings you feel are just the natural chemicals in our bodies: Sad, Mad, Disappointment, Angry, Lack of confidence and probably the most challenging one is dealing with Embarrassment.
If you weren’t afraid of your chemical just think of how much further you can go! These chemicals account for 99% of all our fears.
If you’d like to learn more ways to being Fearless to our chemicals give me a call now and we can set up an appointment.
I look forward to working with you,
Diana Pasquarello
Mental Toughness Trainer
