How Do You Handle Your Emotions?
To succeed in sports, athletes must handle their emotions. During the competitive season, every athlete will experience emotional ups and downs.
Dealing with negative emotions may be the most difficult task any athlete faces.
How you deal with emotion will greatly impact your ability to learn, grow confidence, and prepare for the next competition.
For example, if you get caught up in the jubilation of victory, you may feel like “I arrived” and not prepare with the same degree of focus and effort…
You may become too complacent in practice and lose that edge that drives you through the daily grind.
If you sink down in the dumps after a loss, you will not learn from the loss and your levels of confidence, enthusiasm and motivation will suffer.
Athletes that succeed on a consistent basis learn to balance their emotions, especially when responding to defeat.
Successful athletes experience the same intense emotions that you experience, but these athletes are able to put the competition in perspective in a relatively short amount of time.
Successful athletes who can manage their post-game emotions do two things that separate themselves from average athletes:
- After a victory, elite athletes get back to work.
- After a loss, elite athletes get back to work.
Rather than getting tossed around by their emotions, elite athletes focus on working and improving their game.
Tampa Bay Buccaneer Head Coach Lovie Smith has an amazing ability to keep an even keel. Smith began coaching football in 1980 and has been a head coach in the NFL for the last 11 years.
Smith is trying to turn around the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who haven’t had a winning record since 2010. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are heading into the 2015 NFL season with a lot of promise but also a lot of questions.
The Bucs are a young team with quarterback Jameis Winston, #1 overall draft pick, at the helm on the offense. During the first three preseason games, the Bucs are 1-2 with the last game being a 31-7 loss to the Cleveland Browns.
Despite the poor results in preseason, Smith has managed to keep the season in perspective and emotionally stay in that middle ground.
SMITH: “You’d like to maintain a certain level each week, but normally it doesn’t happen like that. That’s why you can’t get too high after last Monday night’s game and you can’t get too low. We’re somewhere in the middle, that’s where we are right now.”
Smith’s answer provides great advice for athletes and the importance of emotionally staying in that middle ground.
Now the middle ground doesn’t imply that you are not attempting to excel in competitions or that you are okay with bad performances. The middle ground is NOT settling for average.
The middle ground is the emotional processing plant for competitions that helps you evaluate performances objectively.
The middle ground allows you to celebrate successes, learn from losses and know, that no matter what, tomorrow is a new day.
The middle ground allows athletes to gain their bearing and get back to work for the next opportunity in the near future.
Tip for managing post-competition emotions:
Understand you will have good days and bad days in your career. Allow yourself some time after the competition (1 hour) to feel the post-competition emotions. This hour break will allow the intensity of your emotions to subside slightly and gain some perspective.
Afterwards, tell yourself, “Tomorrow is a new day… What do I need to do to sharpen my game?” Then… GET TO WORK!
Check out our video of the week, How To Boost Your Confidence In Sports and the confidence roller coaster.
One way to overcome post competition emotions is by improving your confidence
Improve your confidence today with The Confident Athlete Workbook and CD program. “The Confident Athlete” is a ground-breaking system to teach you how to think like a champion and have ultimate self-confidence every time you step on and off the playing field, court, track, or course. This Program consists of 2 audio CD’s that include 14 days of confidence-fueling exercises and a simple-to-follow workbook that guides you, helps you apply the strategies, and customizes the exercises to your personal needs. Learn more about how The Confident Athlete can improve your performance in sports.
Boost Your Self-Confidence With Mental Game Coaching!
Master mental game coach, Dr. Patrick Cohn, can help you or your athlete(s), ages 12 and up, overcome mental game issues with personal coaching.
You can work with Dr. Patrick Cohn himself in Orlando, Florida or via Skype, FaceTime, or telephone. Call us toll free at 888-742-7225 or contact us for more information about the different coaching programs we offer!
What are our 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
For All Athletes – Learn Confidence-Boosting Techniques!
D you have a negative self-image of yourself as an athlete that stifles confidence?
No matter ow positive you try to be, are you unable to shake the doubt that rushes into your head when you size up your competition?
Have you labeled yourself as a loser, poor closer, or mediocre athlete and these labels keep you stuck in a rut of self-pity and indecision?
If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, check out The Confident Athlete!
The Confident Athlete CD and workbook program is a 14-day plan for ultimate self-confidence. This program is ideal for any athlete or coach that wants to discover proven confidence-boosting techniques guaranteed to drastically build self-confidence and improve sports performance.
Learn more about one of our most popular CD programs in The Confident Athlete Series…
The Confident Athlete: A 14-Day Plan For Ultimate Self-Confidence
Check out all of the products in The Confident Athlete Series!
What are customers saying?
“I first purchased The Confident Athlete to see how the program went and immediately saw results. I then purchased the rest of the confident athlete series and have noticed a dramatic improvement in my level of play or should I say consistency. I currently play NCAA Division 1 baseball for Lamar University, and even my coaches have noticed a change in the way that I approach the game. My attitude and confidence at the plate.”
~Tylor Prudhomme (Listen to his success story)
“I am a ASP world qualifying professional surfer and after beginning the ‘The Confident Athlete’ I had an almost instant change in attitude about my own surfing ability and my mindset going into competition. By using the Confident Athlete strategies, my confidence has done a complete 180 degrees. I won a local pro/am a few weeks back, and just had my best result of the year in one the last big events on the world circuit this last week in Brazil! It is my secret weapon!”
~Shaun Burrell, Professional Surfer (Listen to his success story)
For Young Athletes and Parents – Learn More About How to Help Kids Improve Confidence Quickly!
We’ve got a great program for you called “The Confident Sports Kid: A 7-Day Plan for Building Ultimate Self-Confidence.”
The Confident Sports Kid is a 7-day program for sports parents and kids to boost young athlete’s performance, happiness and success… in sports and life!
The Confident Sports Kid is two programs in one. There’s a manual and CD for parents/coaches, and a workbook/CD for young athletes.
Packed with mental strategies that you and your kids can start using immediately, this program teaches your athletes how to identify confidence busters, proactively deal with them, manage expectations that undermine confidence, and mentally prepare to stay confident when faced with adversity.
What’s more, our program teaches you, as sports parents and coaches, how you may be hurting your kids’ confidence and gives you instructions for changing your behavior in ways that will improve your athletes’ performance, confidence and enjoyment.
Learn more about one of our most popular CD programs in The Confident Sports Kid Series…
The Confident Sports Kid: A 7-Day Plan for Building Ultimate Self-Confidence
Check out all of our products in The Confident Sports Kid Series!
What are parents and coaches saying about our program?
“I appreciate the advice to parents as to how to help your child become more mentally resilient to bullying in sports. The specific advice and scenarios are extremely helpful for any child on a team and very helpful in guiding parents, coaches and administrators in how to deal with bullying in sports. I cannot thank you enough for your input, and I am so reassured to know that there are people like you who are writing articles and doing interviews on such timely and important matters.”
~Julie Goot
“Dr. Patrick Cohn and Lisa Cohn are to be congratulated! Together, they offer a wealth of knowledge, information, and practical mental tools for sports parents on the substantial “mental game” challenges and pressures facing today’s young athletes.”
~Marc D. Anderson, LCSW, MGCP, Mental Game Coach
For Mental Coaches – Add More Value To Your Mental Training Programs!
This workbook series was designed for coaches and mental coaches to use with their athletes.
The Athlete’s Mental Edge workbooks complement your existing mental training program. Each of the 15 workbooks in the Athlete’s Mental Edge System teaches your athletes a specific mental skill to improve their performance.
For mental coaches, this system is ideal for between session education.
For sports coaches, you’ll be able to conduct 15 team seminars using the workbook system.
In the Athlete’s Mental Edge workbook system, you receive 15 easy-to-read, practical Mental Edge Workbooks on PDF, as well as 16 coaches’ game plan MP3 audio files.
Athlete’s Mental Edge Workbook System
What are coaches saying?
“I am really pleased with the Athlete’s Mental Edge workbooks – they are fitting in really well with my coaching! I find they offer a great framework for doing workshop sessions. I have also used the workbooks with a few individual athletes – for the younger ones (12 and under). They are giving a good structure and framework to our sessions. The workbooks have worked well with all of them!”
~Kerri Morgan, Mental Game Coach
“I am impressed with the willingness and openness of Dr. Cohn to share all of his assets (intellectual, products, etc.) with the MGCP students. You have developed an incredible model/package for mental training. Even though we are paying for your service, you are passing on a legacy built on your contribution to the world of sports. Thank you for that.”
~Tony Melito, MGCP