Overcome or Overwhelm: Mastering Performance Anxiety Through Self-Discipline
Have you ever experienced performance anxiety? Athletes, musicians, public speakers, actors, students during exams—anyone who faces situations where their skills are evaluated or judged can encounter this feeling. I have! So have you.
Performance anxiety is an awful feeling—take it from me. When I work with athletes, one of their biggest issues is performance anxiety. The causes range from pressure they put on themselves, fans watching them play, lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes, or not feeling good enough—the list goes on and on.
The intense fear, nervousness, or worry that athletes experience before or during competition is very real. It triggers physical symptoms like a racing heart, sweaty palms, muscle tension, and shallow breathing, alongside mental symptoms like fear of failure, negative self-talk, and catastrophic thinking. While some anxiety can energize and focus an athlete, excessive performance anxiety can impair their ability, decision-making, and confidence—and that's a problem that can derail careers and steal the joy from what should be fulfilling pursuits.
Keys to Overcoming Performance Anxiety
Awareness: Recognizing your emotions, physical sensations, and thought patterns before they spiral out of control
Breathing Techniques: Using specific methods like box breathing or coherent breathing to reduce stress and activate the parasympathetic nervous system
Visualization: Mentally rehearsing not just success, but also handling mistakes and challenges with composure
Mindfulness & Grounding: Staying present
Pre-performance Rituals: Creating personalized, consistent routines that signal readiness and calm to your nervous system
Self Talk: Transforming negative thoughts into neutral or positive ones ("I might mess up" becomes "I'm prepared to handle whatever happens”)
Recovery: Prioritizing sleep, nutrition, and mental downtime to maintain emotional resilience
Building Your Mental Fitness Program
Managing anxiety is absolutely possible—it requires commitment, discipline, and consistency. Like any skill development, you need to train mental skills just as you train physical skills—with sets and reps and time under pressure.
Start with 10-15 minutes daily of focused mental training. When you practice something over and over, you build trust in yourself that you can execute under pressure. Confidence grows through repeated success, even in small doses.
Remember: anxiety often signals that something matters to you. Instead of viewing it as weakness, recognize it as evidence of your commitment. The goal isn't to eliminate nerves entirely—it's to channel that energy into peak performance. Champion athletes don't perform without nerves; they perform with them, having trained their minds to use anxiety as fuel rather than letting it become a barrier.
The choice is yours: will you be overcome by anxiety, or will you overwhelm your competition by mastering it?
Ready to take the next step? Request a free call at cathyandruzzi.com and let’s create your personalized strategy for your athletes and team to master their performance anxiety and elevate their game.
