How to Respond to Poor Performances in Competition

Moving on After Poor Performance and Mistakes in Competition

In this week’s sports psychology podcast, mental game of sports expert, Dr. Patrick Cohn, answers mental game questions in Sessions With Doc.

Does a poor performance really rock your world and you tend to lose confidence and wonder what’s going on?

Today I’m answering a questions from someone who had left a question on our blog at peaksports.com/sports-psychology-blog.

Here’s what Rick had to say:

“I’m in need of some help… I just had one of the worst football games of my entire football career and it is breaking me down slowly. I need to know how to get over this and move on.”

COHN: Rick, good question. It is really really important for athletes to respond to losses, to respond to poor performances in the right way. A lot of times athletes with fragile confidence will tend to implode after a poor performance.

COHN: What is a poor performance? You can ask yourself that question… Often it is when you perform below your standards or below your expectations, feeling like you made too many mistakes or you didn’t score enough points or you shot too high of a number in the golf round.

COHN: So, poor performances are transient, in other words, they are temporary, unless you get on the doubt bandwagon and start to doubt your skills, you start to change thngs up radically sometimes it’ll work but most times, when you start changing things up radically, then you go downhill.

Listen to Dr. Cohn’s new podcast to learn how to respond to poor performances:

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If you’re a top performer during practice but find yourself under-performing in competition, the most likely culprit holding you back is your mental game. In fact, many athletes struggle with the same problem….

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What are our mental coaching students saying?

“WOW!!! What a week I had. I was able to perform with a confidence that allowed my style to shine through–no more entering the arena with that “deer in the headlights” look or feeling. I stopped evaluating myself while I was performing, and I actually left the arena after my patterns feeling like I had experienced a lot of fun. Thank you so much.”
~Julia Dreyer, National Champion Equestrian

“After your session, Mason had a game. He had the best game so far! He hustled, shot, no goals but two assists but he was cool with it because his focus was on shooting and not scoring (finally), defended well with his hands – finally put it all together. It was fun to watch and you could tell he felt really good about it.”
~Kelly, Lacrosse mom

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~Doug Bolander, Hockey Coach

“Michelle had the best weekend of soccer she has ever played. I’m not just saying this because you have been working with her (I promise!). She was relaxed, did not get frustrated with herself or teammates, never once ‘shut down’ and actually smiled a couple of times. Numerous parents noticed a difference in her composure and attitude. A college coach sent an email last night expressing interest–commenting on her level of play during the weekend. Thanks again for EVERYTHING…Michelle is in a very good place right now!”
~Diana, Michelle’s Mother

“Thanks for all your help Dr. Cohn. You can rest assured that all our work came in very handy when I successfully qualified for the European Tour. I’m very happy and extremely thankful to you for helping me achieve this massive goal of qualifying for the European Tour! Thanks a lot again.”
~Alex Rocha, European Tour Player

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