“You FAIL all of the time. But you aren’t a FAILURE until you start blaming someone else”- Bum Phillips

Every athlete encounters fear and anxiety at some point in their career.

There are mental skills strategies you can learn to manage your concerns that are causing you to be anxious and the fears associated with it.

If they are not managed well, the stress and anxiety will negatively affect your performance.

Understanding Fear and Anxiety

Anxiety is the body reacting to an unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning your performance.

When you face circumstances during the competition that make you question your skills you may experience fast breathing, expanded pulse, tense muscles, or butterflies in the stomach.

If these feelings do not go away within the first few minutes of the game, you may be experiencing fear of failure.

Overcome Fear of Failure

According to sports psychology for football, anxiety is a significant factor the hinder athletes from reaching optimal performance.

Overcoming fear of failure starts with awareness and understanding.

It is essential to understand why those thoughts and feelings develop and modify that mental process. Start by identifying the specific fear then deal with it head-on.

Focus on success and don’t worry about failing. Many athletes think more about making mistakes than performing their best in the game, and this leads to poor performance.

Set small goals to help you stay focus on playing well. Set goals to help you perform efficiently instead of flawlessly.

Do not overly control and try not to make mistakes. This will increase the probability of making mistakes.

Trust your skills. You have put in the time in practice. Playing free and trusting your skills will lead to optimal performance.

Mistakes will happen, and there will be failures along the ways, but those failures do not have to be permanent; a matter of fact, they do not have to be considered failures.

I like to think of them as learning experiences!

The goal is to practice hard, trust your skills and give it a 100% on the field.

*Download the free mental game assessment and get started on Improving your Mental Game in Football.