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Matthew Mace

How to Build Mental Resilience in Sports

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When the going gets tough, the best athletes use their resilience to persevere. In the fast-paced and highly competitive world of sports, athletes are constantly faced head-on with numerous setbacks and flickers of self-doubt.

There’s dealing with injury — and whether you can come back from it — coming back from a loss, switching teams, and more day-to-day challenges, such as training, competing, and staying motivated after a loss, or several defeats.

Resilience is defined as the ability to adapt, recover, and grow stronger from adversity. It’s how the best athletes stay focused on their goals, despite how it may look to others. Many people think that some athletes are born with resilience, and that others are not. And while that may somewhat be true — in that, some people are naturally more resilient than others — resilience can definitely be trained.

So, this blog post will explain why mental resilience is important and ways for you to develop resilience in sports.

What is the importance of resilience in sports?

Resilience is a defining factor that separates good athletes from exceptional ones. In sports, where success is often determined by split-second decisions and the ability to perform under immense pressure, mental resilience plays a vital role. It’s fuel to the fire that allows athletes to navigate setbacks, injuries, failures, and self-doubt without losing sight of their goals.

Add resilience to your toolkit, and you’ll bounce back stronger from defeats. It allows you to cultivate a positive and growth mindset, and helps athletes embrace challenges to grow, rather than decline and move backward. Something you should definitely avoid in the realm of sports!

How to develop resilience

For most, resilience is not an innate trait; it’s a skill that can be developed over your sports career. But the skill of resilience must be nurtured and watered over time — it’s not a one-and-done kind of trait. It requires a lot of work and discipline to maintain.

Continue reading to discover ways to build mental resilience in sports, based on research with Elite athletes.

Understand your motivation 

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Why do you do what you do?

To build and develop mental resilience, you need to understand your motivation. What are you trying to achieve? It could be something as simple as becoming a better athlete, winning a local meet, or landing a spot on a big team.

Whatever it is, channel it. And remind yourself of your motivators — what values would someone who is striving to achieve your goals have? Practice those!

Evaluate setbacks and implement lessons 

We all encounter setbacks — things don’t always go exactly as planned; you get injured and can’t play for 12 weeks, you don’t qualify for the next stage of a race, or you don’t perform as well as you thought you would.

And while it’s easier to wallow in self-pity, the only real way to get better — and to build mental resilience in the process — is to evaluate setbacks and implement lessons from these.

Use failure as a stepping stone toward success. If you missed a free throw in the final minute of a game, maybe you need to work on your shots under pressure. If you lost a race in the final 100m, you might need to work on your sprint performance.

Add fuel to the fire, evaluate your setbacks, and learn from your mistakes. Every time you come back from defeat, you beat on the hammer in the fire and become more and more resilient.

Use mental skills to prepare for success

Mental skills such as visualization, self-talk, goal setting, and mindfulness are all powerful techniques that can help prepare you for success. They can also help you build resilience, allowing you to maintain a positive mindset as you navigate through setbacks and adversity.

For example, self-talk can help you increase confidence and focus before a big game, goal setting helps you stay focused on what matters most, and mindfulness allows you to clear distractions to prepare for success.

Related: How to Create a Mental Training Program for Athletes.

Focus on achieving balance 

Achieving life balance can help you build resilience and improve your performance. Often, athletes think that the more they do, the better they’ll get. And while that’s true to some extent, this can also lead to physical and mental burnout and sports injury.

Life balance, i.e. switching focus between sports, social life, relationships, and work, ensures you tick all the other boxes to help you improve. For example, if your social life is lacking, then you might be less resilient as one of your basic needs is not met.

So instead of going all in on your sport, not seeing friends or family, and isolating yourself from the outside world, it’s a lot healthier and easier to build resilience if you focus on balance. Achieving balance is also a lot easier than giving it 100% all of the time!

Learn more about Rewire’s Neuro-Performance System

Use Rewire to build resilience and increase performance 

Athletes can use Rewire to build mental resilience and increase their performance. Discover our integrated mental resilience training system, based on neuro-training protocols, that can be used with a variety of different sports and activities.

Monitor and track your readiness to measure physical, cognitive, and emotional stressors and achieve life balance to propel you forward. We can help you become more resilient, helping you achieve your goals.

“Rewire’s latest platform makes mental strength training more accessible to athletes everywhere with easy-to-use tools to help them reach their goals.” – NBA All-Star, Kyle Korver

Find out how Rewire can help you

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References:

  1. Kegelaers, J. and Wylleman, P., 2019. Exploring the coach’s role in fostering resilience in elite athletes. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 8(3), p.239.
Matthew Mace

How to Overcome Failure in Sports

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“It’s always tough when you lose – you’ve worked so hard for that moment, and it hasn’t gone the way you wanted. But you have to realize there’s always a bright side; you have to pick yourself up and get ready for the next game.” – Maria Sharapova.

Nobody likes to fail, but failure is an essential ingredient for success. For every winner, there are countless losers. And that’s just the way that sport works. But with each loss is an opportunity to get better, to improve, and to try again.

Instead of seeing failure as the be-all and end-all, reframe it as an opportunity to improve. The best athletes all have failures, from the great Michael Jordan to Babe Ruth and Stan Smith.

This blog post will provide advice on overcoming failure in sports — how to reframe losing into a powerful tool to help you improve.

How do you deal with failure in sports?

Dealing with failure in sports is all about embracing setbacks, analyzing your performance, and finding opportunities to learn from losing, whether you lost as an individual or a team.

Below are five ways to overcome failure as an athlete.

1. Set other goals aside from winning 

It’s no secret that every athlete wants to win — they want to become the best. However, obsessing over winning is often not the best approach. You should also set your own goals as an athlete. This will help you progress even when losing and ensures you’ve always got something to work towards.

For example, while your team’s main goal could be to win the season, you could have smaller goals to win a set number of tackles, improve your sprint performance, dribbling technique, and so on.

There are always smaller goals to achieve that help move the needle in the right direction (i.e., a successful performance).

It’s all about finding a balance between winning and making progress. Because ultimately, progress (and becoming a better athlete) is more important!

2. Embrace setbacks and learn from your mistakes

We all fail at some point or another. Maybe you kicked too early in a race, shot from a freekick instead of passing to your teammate, or perhaps your team was relegated. Instead of wallowing in defeat, embrace setbacks and learn from your mistakes.

If you know something went wrong, analyze what it was and learn from it. Then, do your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

This applies to both the athlete and the coach — you can both identify things you could do better (as an individual and a team) and work on these to improve.

“I have failed many times, but I have never gone into a game expecting myself to fail.” – Michael Jordan.

3. Analyze your performance

Once the whistle has blown, the game is over. Right? Wrong! If you fail, you should analyze your performance. Understand what went well, but more importantly, what didn’t go so well. 

And while it’s easier to say the other team was “better” or “stronger,” there’s always something you could have done better.

Be brutally honest and find areas of your game that you can improve. You only stand to lose potential if you can’t look at your performance through a candid lens. You can also work with your coach to find key areas to focus on.

And if you have access to a recording of your performance, then you can rewatch it, take notes, and see what you could have done differently. Again, the key here is not to feel sorry for yourself — but to find ways to improve.

4. Don’t be afraid to fail

We grow up in a society where failure is perceived as “bad.” You fail a math test or a driving test, or you don’t make it onto the team, and by society’s standards, you fail. But we are rarely told that it’s okay to fail and that we shouldn’t be afraid of failure.

Failure is how we improve; it’s how we get better.

But don’t just hear it from us; here’s what Billie Jean King, the former number 1 American professional tennis player, said about failure:

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” 

As long as you use failure as an opportunity to get better — and actually do so — then you will improve. And then you try and try again. 

5. Control what you can and worry less about what you can’t

While the attitude “it is what it is” will only get you so far, to some extent, it’s true. Once you’ve done everything you can to change an outcome, worry less about what’s next.

Control what you can, and don’t worry about what you can’t control. For example, you can control your preparation for an event — such as your training and mindset preparation — but you can’t control what your teammates or the other teams do. 

Focus on what you can, and worry less about what you can’t.

How to overcome failure: to summarize 

To overcome failure in sports, you must accept and own it. See failure as an opportunity to improve — even if your team lost, and it was no fault of your own, there are no doubt areas of your game you can improve.

Focus on what you can control, and worry less about what you can’t.

Key takeaways:

  • Reframe failure as an opportunity to improve
  • Set individual goals other than winning to improve
  • Analyze what went wrong and where you can improve

FAQs

Why is failure important in sports?

Failure builds character and teaches athletes how to deal with adversity. And when used correctly, it showcases areas of their game that can be improved.

How does failure lead to success in sports?

Losing in sports provides an opportunity to improve. When you fail, you unveil a skill you can improve. Focus on these weaknesses, and you’re more likely to succeed next time.

What is the importance of failure in sports?

Failure in sports is an essential part of the game. It teaches you how to deal with adversity and can reveal weaknesses in your game. Use failure as an opportunity to improve, and you will inevitably become better.

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Matthew Mace

How to Get Rid of Sports Anxiety as an Athlete

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Anxiety is common; it’s something we all experience from time to time, but others are more prone to anxious thoughts and tendencies. And athletes are no different — some of the most decorated athletes also have anxiety disorders, take Michael Phelps, for example.

Phelps was — and continues to be — extremely open about his struggle with depression and anxiety, despite being the most celebrated and successful Olympian in history. Mental health disorders and anxiety do not discriminate. 

In fact, one could argue that competing on the world stage invokes anxiety, and creates a pressure cooker-like environment. But what exactly is anxiety? Anxiety is defined as “an unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning the performance of a task under pressure” [1].

And an estimated 31.1% of American adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.That’s approximately 311 people for every 1,000 adults. That’s a lot of people!

So, this blog post will highlight several causes of anxiety in sports, how anxiety affects performance, and tips to help you alleviate anxiety.

What are the causes of anxiety in sports?

To understand what causes anxiety, let’s first break it down.

Anxiety comprises two main parts: 

  1. Cognitive anxiety: worrying thoughts, uncertainty, and apprehensions 
  2. Somatic anxiety: physical activation, such as sweating and shaking

There are also different types of anxiety, including trait anxiety and situational anxiety. Trait anxiety is more permanent and part of a person’s personality. On the other hand, situational anxiety is a response to a situation that evokes an anxious response, such as a big game or an evaluation, or a competition of some kind where an assessment takes place [1]. 

Athletes and others often display common signs of anxiety, and they are easy to spot. There are the nail-biters, the excessive sweaters, the fidgeters, and those who are overwhelmed by negative thoughts.

Anxiety can be triggered by the most basic things in sports, from an intense game to a lack of preparation or self-doubt. There’s no one cause, but there are things you can do to alleviate and reduce your anxieties — continue reading to find out how. 

How does anxiety affect performance?

If you’re too anxious before competition, then your performance can be negatively affected. For example, self-doubt and other negative thoughts might impact your ability to focus. Your muscles can tense up, and you may struggle to get your mind in the right space.

When not controlled and without the right prevention methods, anxiety can be devastating. It can affect your performance, it can prevent you from doing your best, and at the highest level, it can mean the difference between a Gold medal and going home on the team bus a day early.

How to overcome performance anxiety in sports

So, what do you do if you feel extremely anxious before a big game, race, or competition? You know your performance will be worse, and your thoughts are running wild, but what can you do?

Knowing how to control your anxiety can help you eliminate negative thoughts — and replace them with positive statements and self-talk — and, ultimately, improve your performance.

If you feel very anxious before a game, race, or competition, then your performance can be affected. Knowing how to overcome performance anxiety in sports, however, can help you better control your focus for improved performance.

So, how do you do it? We recommend you try the following:

Focus on what you can control

The highest level of competition brings with it numerous distractions and external factors that are out of your control.

You can’t control the skill of the competition, the expectations of others, and for the most part, the outcome of the game. Focusing on these areas drains energy and may feed your anxiety.

Instead of worrying about things out of your control, focus on what you can control. That includes your training, mental preparation, self-talk, and visualization. Double down on what you can, and pay less attention to those things out of your control.

Create a pre-competition routine 

Many successful athletes follow a pre-competition routine. And they follow it to the letter — every single time.

Your routine is one of the main things you have control over, and it can be excellent at reducing anxiety and increasing focus. Look to include a mix of mental skills, such as positive self-talk and visualization, and other activities that help you stay relaxed, such as listening to music.

It takes time to find a routine that works for you, but once you’ve found something that works, it only gets better from there.

Use positive self-talk and reframe negative thoughts

Negative thoughts and self-doubt can easily creep into an athlete’s mind. These can heighten anxiety and decrease performance. However, self-talk and reframing negative thoughts can build confidence and resilience. It can also help calm anxiety and help you perform your best in those high-pressure situations.

Use Rewire to reduce anxiety and improve focus 

And finally, you can use Rewire to reduce anxiety and improve focus with our guided sessions, backed by neuroscience and used by Elite athletes. The guided sessions library includes sessions designed to increase focus, reaction times, and meditation and guided breathing exercises to reduce stress and anxiety. 

You can also track your readiness — a score based on a mix of cognitive, emotional, and physical measures to best optimize your training sessions for maximum recovery and performance.

“I’m a coffee guy, and it’s amazing what you can achieve by taking that 5 or 10 minutes and running through a Mindset Recovery session and just letting your mind and body relax. You just feel so much better afterward versus just trying to hit a cup of coffee and keep going.”

Timothy O’Donnell (World Champion Triathlete)

Find out more about Rewire for Athletes.

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Matthew Mace

Mental Preparation for Athletes: 5 Methods to Boost Your Performance

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Mental preparation is often overlooked — but knowing how to get in the right headspace before competition is key to accomplishing your absolute best. It can mean the difference between winning and losing, promotion and relegation, or even your spot on the team.

Without adequate preparation, you might find yourself scattered, unable to focus, and not performing your best.

One of the best ways to prepare for a big game or tournament is to create a mental preparation routine. Your routine can be as detailed or as minimal as you’d like — it’s all about finding what works best for you.

So, with this in mind, this blog post will explain what mental preparation for athletes is and how you can use it to improve your performance when it matters most.

Key takeaways:

  • Develop a pre-game mental preparation routine 
  • Learn how to separate personal life from sport
  • Use Rewire to improve your mental preparation 

How to mentally prepare for competition

If you’re an athlete, you’ve probably competed (or at least went to training) when you were not in the right headspace. You might have found it difficult to focus, and simple tasks that you usually find easy become hard and frustrating. And all of that is made worse because you know you’re capable, but your mind has other ideas. Not fun!

Many athletes choose to add a pregame mental preparation routine right before the competition. It allows them to consciously remove distractions and increase their focus. It’s like flicking a switch in your brain and letting it know that “It’s go time.”

And while the routines of Elite athletes are different between sports, they often share a lot of overlap. For example, a lot of athletes listen to music to psych themselves up, practice mindfulness or meditation, and perform visualization exercises. And these are just a few mental preparation techniques you can try!

Keep reading to find out more techniques — and how you can implement them into your pre-game routine to increase your focus and improve your performance.

1. Practice mindfulness 

Mindfulness is about removing distractions and focusing on the present moment. In sports, that means leaving your worries and anxieties in the locker room. You need to run onto the field with a clear head, armed with the right goals and limited distractions.

Focusing on the wrong thoughts drains energy and distracts you from your game. Your problems will be there once you’re finished! But hopefully, after a win or a successful performance.

So how do you practice mindfulness?

There are numerous ways you can add mindfulness to your mental preparation. For example, you could perform a guided meditation or deep breathing session. Or, if you prefer something more productive, you could do light stretching with the goal of narrowing your focus and clearing your mind.

Find what works best for you, and stick with it! Familiarity is a key part of pre-performance routines.

2. Visualize your performance 

Visualization is a very powerful tool for athletes. It’s used by the best of the best, and for good reason. However, how do you use it before competition? There is no right or wrong answer. You may choose to think through and envision your strategy, your technique, or how you think the game will play out.

You can focus on one specific thing, such as defending against an individual opponent, or you can visualize the competition as a whole and how you want it to play out. Practice a mix of techniques, and find what works best for you.

Practice the mental visualization skill in training before competition. Very quickly, you’ll see how powerful it can be! 

3. Practice positive self-talk

Often, many athletes unfamiliar with self-talk assume they have to talk to themselves out loud. And while some athletes do this, it’s not necessary. If it works for you, then cool! But if not, don’t worry.

You can also speak affirmations, cues, and mantras in your head. Besides, it’s more about thinking than speaking! But self-talk is powerful and can replace negative thoughts, e.g. “I can’t make this shot” vs. “I will make this shot.” It’s about retraining your mind and hitting the restart button to increase confidence and focus when you need it.

4. Understand that not all stress is bad 

Too much stress can be devastating — working against you rather than for/with you. However, a small and controlled amount of stress can help energize your performance. It can give you that much-needed rush of adrenaline and surge of confidence in the closing minutes of a game or the final few 100m of a race.

And while it can be useful, you must learn how to control and manage it. If you compete with too much stress, then this can cause anxiety or too high of arousal. And guess what happens? Your performance suffers because of it.

Recognize that not all stress is bad — but learn how to control it. Add some type of de-stressing activity to your routine, especially if you feel highly anxious, stressed, and worried.

5. Use Rewire to prepare and prime your mind for competition 

Finally, you can use Rewire to prime your mind and body for competition. Rewire uses evidence-based protocols from sports psychology to improve your mindset, reduce stress levels, and improve your mental resilience.

There are also visualization exercises — and other tools — to help you best prepare for competition. Whether you like to listen to binaural beats, perform reaction tests, or guided meditation, there is definitely something for you.

“I have been using the app for a few months. It has helped me set the proper mindset before workouts, disconnect before bedtime, and gauge my mental readiness on a daily basis.” – Matt Hanson (Professional Triathlete and Coach)

Find out more about Rewire for Athletes.

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Matthew Mace

What is Visualization in Sports?

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“When I train, one of the things I concentrate on is creating a mental picture of how best to deliver that ball to a team-mate, preferably leaving him alone in front of the rival goalkeeper. So what I do, always before a game, always, every night and every day, is try and think up things, imagine plays which no one else will have thought of, and to do so always bearing in mind the particular strengths of each team-mate to whom I am passing the ball. When I construct those plays in my mind, I take into account whether one team-mate likes to receive the ball at his feet, or ahead of him; if he is good with his head, and how he prefers to head the ball; if he is stronger on his right or his left foot. That is my job. That is what I do. I imagine the game.”

– Ronaldinho, Professional Football Player.

Back in 2006, Ronaldinho, who played for FC Barcelona and his home country Brazil at the time, was interviewed on how he used imagery before the world cup in a piece for the New York Times Magazine; the above quote was his response [1]. It’s an excellent — and real — example of how Elite athletes use visualization in sports.

This blog post will explain what visualization is in sports, what it’s used for, more real-life examples, and tips to get started.

What is visualization?

Visualization involves creating vivid mental images of performance. For example, that could be something as simple as a pass, a free kick, a free throw, or a successful swing in golf. Practicing visualization and mental skills can help increase self-confidence, reduce anxiety before competition, and improve overall performance [1,2].

But why is mental imagery so powerful? When done correctly, visualization activates neural pathways in the brain — the same pathways that are activated during physical performance. Regular visualization practice can help strengthen these neural pathways to improve performance and lessen anxiety (alongside many other benefits discussed below).

What are the benefits of visualization in sports?

We’ve highlighted several benefits of mental imagery and visualization already, but other benefits include:

  • Improve confidence & focus
  • Reduce anxiety
  • Optimize muscle memory
  • Build mental toughness (visualize overcoming mental obstacles)
  • Improve goal setting 

Visualization might also prove to be an effective mental skill for injured athletes. These athletes can mentally rehearse performance (even though they can’t play) and use visualization and other mental skills to set goals to help with their recovery.

There’s a reason why the best athletes use visualization — so why shouldn’t you do the same? Add visualization exercises to your training and see how it can improve your performance and mental preparation for competition.

And once you’ve got the hang of visualization, why not move on to other mental skills? 

Related: How to Create a Mental Training Program for Athletes.

Examples of mental imagery

“Visualization lets you concentrate on all the positive aspects of your game.” – Curtis Strange, American Professional Golfer.

Mental skills and visualization are only becoming more popular. In recent years, every sports team has invested in a psychologist — or a team of psychologists — and athletes can be found practicing a cocktail of mental skills before practice.

So we’ve gathered together other examples of mental imagery and visualization, one from an Olympic gymnast and another from Tiger Woods. Let’s hear from Makalya Stambaugh, a 6x Olympic junior gymnastics champion:

“Visualization is something I use to calm my nerves. I did something like that before, but when I came to Oregon State, they really helped me hone in on those skills of actually picturing the bar routine, the movement, and think the exact same thoughts you would be doing it. That makes me more prepared and confident when I compete.” 

And now, let’s talk about how Tiger Woods uses visualization — a skill he’s practiced since the very beginning of his career, taught when he was a boy by his Father. In the below clip, you can see how Tiger describes putting like taking a series of pictures and how this helps him visualize a successful shot.

How to get started 

So, now that you know Elite athletes apply visualization techniques to their sport, how can you get started?

We’d suggest keeping it simple to begin with. Before practice, focus on a skill you want to improve, whether that’s passing, shooting, putting, cornering, or whatever it may be. Visualize successful skill performance — what technique needs to happen to produce a successful outcome?

Imagine that, and if you’re off to a great start. Then, practice often and focus on different areas of your game to improve.

Take notes on how you feel and what effect you think it had on performance, anxiety, and confidence, and adapt from there. And while we would recommend practicing with a psychologist, the beauty of visualization and other mental skills is that they can be done anywhere by everybody… whether a junior high school football player or an Elite gymnast.

Related: How to Use Visualization to Support Sport Performance.

Use Rewire to improve your mental performance

Visualization is one of many mental skills that can help improve performance, reduce anxiety, and help athletes prepare for competition.

Athletes can also use Rewire neuro-science training protocols to build other mental skills, to improve resilience and focus, and reduce anxiety and stress in the lead-up to competition. 

And, if you’re a coach, you can monitor your athlete’s readiness score — an aggregate score based on cognitive, physical, and emotional wellbeing — to better tailor performance, prioritize recovery, and get the most out of each athlete.

“Rewire’s latest platform makes mental strength training more accessible to athletes everywhere with easy-to-use tools to help them reach their goals.”

– NBA All-Star, Kyle Korver

Find out how Rewire can help you

FAQs

What does visualization mean?

Visualization is all about creating mental images and imaging specific scenarios. Athletes practice visualization to improve performance and confidence, and to reduce anxiety before competition. 

How does visualization improve performance in sports?

Visualization can improve confidence, reduce anxiety, and improve skill-based performance, e.g., passing or shooting the ball.

What is an example of visualization in sports?

A golfer might imagine putting the ball — the direction it will go and how much power to apply to improve putting performance.

References:

  1. Cumming, J. and Ramsey, R., 2008. Imagery interventions in sport. In Advances in applied sport psychology (pp. 15-46). Routledge.
  2. Halvari, H., 1996. Effects of mental practice on performance are moderated by cognitive anxiety as measured by the Sport Competition Anxiety Test. Perceptual and motor skills, 83(3_suppl), pp.1375-1383.
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