Feeling nervous ahead of competition? Try these five tips for managing pre-event nerves.

You’ve been training hard. Been crushing it in practice. But now, event day has arrived! For some reason things don’t feel quite the same. There’s a nervous sickly feeling in your tummy, self-doubting thoughts have started to take over, and all you can think is that you don’t want to ‘mess up’.

One of the most common things clients come to me for help with is pre-event nerves, or ‘competition anxiety’ to give it a more technical name. They find that whilst they can perform well in practice, the additional pressure they experience ahead of (and during) an actual event can mean they not only don’t perform to their full potential, but also that they are unable to enjoy the experience. Whilst many of us that participate in sport find enjoyment in striving to perform at our best, this can be lost when the focus on the outcome becomes overwhelming. Pre-event nerves can arise for various reasons, and the good news is that a sport psychologist will be able to support you in working to overcome them. However, if you don’t feel quite ready to take that step just yet, here are five handy tips that you may find useful.

Five Tips for Managing Pre-Competition Nerves

1. What are your nerves really telling you?

When we feel nervous about a situation it is worth noticing that we feel this way, and taking a moment to step back and think about why this might be? Generally, it is only situations or events that are important to us in some way that result in us feeling anxious. This heightened sense of importance may mean we start to see the situation as ‘threat’, focussing on what ‘might go wrong’ as opposed to the ‘opportunity’ and what ‘could go right’! Reminding ourselves that nerves are simply our bodies way of letting us know that something matters to us, is one way we may help to prevent ourselves getting ‘caught up’.

2. See your nerves as a positive!

Research has shown that the way we interpret our nerves is all important. Leading on from the previous point, when we feel nervous, we can often automatically slip into feeling that this is a ‘bad’ thing, or that it means things are bound to ‘go wrong’. This can be very unhelpful! If we instead notice our nerves (perhaps even expect them) and see them as meaning we are ‘ready to perform’ and to ‘give it our all’ this will benefit not only our mindset but also our physiology too! Double performance win!

3. Write achievements and strengths lists

It is suggested that we may experience anxiety when we feel that the ‘demands’ (what is required from us) in a situation outweigh our ‘resources’ (our perceived skills and abilities). Coupled with this, our mind generally has a ‘negative bias’ (a tendency to focus on/remember what has gone wrong for us, more than what has gone right!! Not always very helpful!). By maintaining an awareness of this bias and taking pro-active action to focus on our successes, strengths and achievements we can help to counteract this. Grab a couple of sheets of paper – on one, write down everything you have achieved that you are proud of. Really take the time to think about each of these things and note the qualities you had to show to achieve them. On the other piece, think about your strengths. If you are struggling, think about what you find easier than other people? Perhaps you are able to stick to a training plan? You’re organised? Do you love interval training? How might these strengths and qualities help you in preparing for and taking part in competition?

4. Remind yourself of your training

Our confidence is a huge factor in our performance. When we feel nervous, we generally don’t feel confident! There are many ways we can work to build confidence (this is one of the other main reasons clients reach out to me!) and as well as the previous tip another great tip thing to do ahead of an event is to take the time to sit down and really think about all the training and preparation you have done in order to be ready to perform at your best. If you have kept a training diary, flick through it. If you have followed a training plan or perhaps used the help of a coach or physio, think about everything you have worked on and how that will mean you are prepared to perform at your best. Perhaps you have been working really hard on a specific skill and you have now started to see improvements. Remember that as we noted already our brain is very likely going to automatically try to remind us of all the things that didn’t go quite right, or the training session we had to skip due to illness - be ready to assess and focus on all the positives instead!

5. Take control of your breathing

This final tip is a great practical one if you find yourself feeling nervous ‘in the moment’. By turning our focus to our breathing, we can not only help move attention away from unhelpful thoughts (that may be trying to sneak in!), but it can also help to calm us and reduce tension that start to build up. By consciously taking a few slow, deep breaths we will feel more relaxed and give ourselves space to focus on the task at hand, and factors within our control. Give it a try now, breath in slowly to the count of five, and out slowly for the count of seven. Repeat this three or four times. How do you feel?

So, there you go! It was quite tricky to keep this to only five tips but I really hope you will find the ones I have chosen useful. If you would like to have a 'pretty PDF version' of these to save and keep forever as a handy reference, join the mailing list here and I will send one through to you!

When you feel ready, I am here! If you have recognised that your mindset may be holding you back, why not book an online introductory meeting to see if I could help you? As well as being convenient (no travel required!), they are completely FREE, and there is no obligation to proceed further. Email laura@laurarowe.co.uk or visit www.laurarowe.co.uk/contact to book yours today.