Understanding and Managing Anxiety in Sport: From Pre-Competition Nerves to Performance Under Pressure
That uncomfortable, churning sensation in your gut before you compete - what if it’s not holding you back, but actually propelling you forward?
Most athletes know that feeling all too well.
The restless energy. The tight chest. The racing thoughts.
And the silent question that follows:
Why can’t I just relax and perform like I do in training?
If you’ve ever found yourself stuck between wanting to care less and trying to care more, this post is for you.
Because the truth is, anxiety in sport isn’t just common - it’s necessary. It’s what gives your performance its edge. The key isn’t eliminating anxiety, but learning how to manage it so it helps rather than hinders.
Let’s unpack how to do that, step by step...
🧠 The Problem: When Anxiety Hijacks Performance
Anxiety in sport is both mental and physical.
It’s the rush of adrenaline that tightens your chest, quickens your breath, and sets your pulse racing. It’s also the mental noise - the second-guessing, overthinking, and self-doubt that creeps in when the stakes feel high.
If you’re struggling with performance anxiety, you might recognise yourself in one or more of these:
Disrupted focus and decision-making: You overthink, second-guess, or freeze instead of trusting your instincts.
Fear of failure and cautious play: You avoid risk or play too safe, which holds you back from full potential.
Physical overwhelm: Fast heartbeat, trembling/shaking, fatigue, or shortness of breath that feels out of control.
Avoidance or burnout: Skipping training, avoiding teammates, or overtraining to feel “in control.”
And it doesn’t just show up on competition day - it can leak into other areas of your life:
Mental rumination: Endless worry, replaying mistakes, or doubting your abilities.
Increased injury risk: Physically drained from constant tension or lack of sleep
Difficulty in personal relationships: Irritable and angry due to worries over performance.
Risky behaviours: Engaging in unhelpful behaviour to help you cope with the anxiety.
It’s frustrating. It’s exhausting. It’s damaging.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
⚡ Why Do I Get Nervous Before Competition
Here’s the thing - it’s not just you.
Athletes today live in high-pressure environments that feed anxiety.
Everywhere you look, there’s an expectation to perform, perfect, and prove yourself.
Let’s break down where that pressure comes from:
External Pressures
Coaches and Teams: Expectations to meet performance standards or fit a specific “ideal athlete” mould.
Parents or Family: Even the most supportive families can unintentionally pass down performance anxiety through high hopes or over-involvement.
Teammates and Fans: Fear of letting others down or losing respect can magnify stress.
Social Media: Constant comparison and public evaluation amplify scrutiny - every result, every moment, every “highlight reel” adds to the noise.
Internal Pressures
Perfectionism: Many athletes carry beliefs like “failure is unacceptable” or “I must perform well, not just progress.”
Identity Fusion: When sport becomes your whole identity, mistakes feel personal rather than situational.
Fear of Failure: Every performance can start to feel like a test of your worth.
And then there’s technology - metrics, analytics, and comparisons available 24/7.
It’s helpful data, but it also creates constant measurement anxiety.
Combine all that with a cultural narrative that glorifies being “mentally tough” and hides emotional struggles. It’s no wonder so many athletes end up suppressing rather than understanding their anxiety.
But suppression doesn’t work.
Anxiety that’s ignored tends to come back… bigger and uglier!
The real breakthrough happens when you shift from fighting anxiety to embracing it.
🌤️ What Happens When You Manage Anxiety Well
When you manage anxiety well, everything changes:
✅ Sharper focus and calm control - You think clearly under pressure and trust your instincts.
✅ Steady energy - Pre-competition nerves become useful motivation, not panic.
✅ Consistent performance - No more rollercoaster highs and lows.
✅ Emotional resilience - You recover faster from mistakes.
✅ Better relationships and balance - Less stress spills into your personal life.
✅ Genuine enjoyment - Competing feels exciting again, not draining.
Example:
One of my clients, an international swimmer, struggled with regular pre-race anxiety. She compared herself to others, lost sleep, and swam “tight” - she was tense and couldn’t relax. Through reframing anxiety and applying personalised tools, she shifted from fear to flow - and went on to achieve personal bests in both long-course and short-course events in the season we started working together.
That’s what happens when you learn to work with anxiety, not against it.
That transformation is what Rich Sille Sport Psychology is all about.
🪄 Strategy 1: Understanding Anxiety as Beneficial
Key idea: Anxiety isn’t the enemy. It’s energy.
Most athletes grow up believing that anxiety equals weakness - that calm equals control. But peak performance actually happens in a state of nervous-excited readiness - not relaxation.
When athletes learn to reinterpret anxiety as a natural, even a helpful part of performing, everything changes!
Why It Works
Acceptance reduces fear. When you stop seeing anxiety as dangerous, when you stop fighting it, your body naturally relaxes.
Energy becomes useful. Anxiety is a powerful emotion. Emotions comes from the Latin meaning ‘energy in motion.’ That adrenaline rush, when focussed appropriately, heightens awareness, reaction time, and focus.
You gain agency. Seeing anxiety as fuel puts you in the driver’s seat.
How to Start Reframing Anxiety
Label the feeling accurately. Instead of saying, “I’m anxious,” try “I’m energised” or “My body’s gearing up to perform.”
Notice the pattern. Anxiety often peaks before competition and drops once you start - evidence it’s part of your readiness system.
Reflect on past performances. When have pre-competition nerves actually helped you focus, commit, or perform better?
“Sitting in the dressing room, I’d think I was going to throw up. But, as soon as I got out there it just went. Looking back, every time I felt like that, that’s when I played my best.”
Inside Rich Sille Sport Psychology
I guide athletes through educational sessions and reflective exercises to normalise anxiety. We explore its purpose in performance, identify their personal anxiety triggers, and unpack unhelpful beliefs about “needing to be calm” or “needing to perform.”
By reframing anxiety early, athletes approach every training and competition from a place of curiosity rather than fear - a mindset shift that forms the foundation for every technique that follows.
🌬️ Strategy 2: Practical Anxiety “Nudge” Techniques
Once mindset changes, the next step is to manage anxiety in real time - nudging it up or down depending on where you are in relation to your ‘Goldilocks’ Zone. Not too much, not too little!
These are the techniques that give athletes control when it matters most.
Why It Works
They engage your body’s natural regulation system.
They create predictability in unpredictable and pressure situations.
They help you feel grounded in the moment instead of lost in thoughts.
Core Techniques
Here are three foundational tools I teach athletes to master:
1. Controlled Breathing
Calms the physiological symptoms of anxiety.
Activates the parasympathetic nervous system (your body’s “brake pedal”).
Creates a sense of composure even when adrenaline surges.
Try this:
Inhale through the nose for a count of 4, hold for a count of 2, exhale through the mouth for a count of 6.
Focus on the long exhale - it signals “I’m safe.”
Repeat for 60 seconds before competition or during breaks.
2. Imagery and Visualisation
Refocuses your attention from worry to action.
Builds focus and confidence by rehearsing success and overcoming challenges.
Reinforces positive emotional states.
Example:
Visualise the first moments of your performance in vivid detail - the sounds, sensations, movements. Picture executing calmly and powerfully. This primes your brain to behave that way - calm under pressure.
3. Pre-Performance Routines
Anchor your focus.
Cue consistent readiness.
Minimise mental clutter by making actions automatic.
These routines might include stretching, breathing, a cue phrase or mantra (for example, “I’m ready”), or a set visualisation. What matters most is consistency. The brain loves familiar signals - they tell it, “We’ve been here before; we’re ready.”
Inside Rich Sille Sport Psychology
During one-to-one sessions, we construct, test and tailor these tools.
We find out which techniques fit - because not everyone responds the same way and the demands of different sports vary. Some athletes want energising routines; others prefer calming ones. We practice them until they’re automatic, so when anxiety spikes, the tools kick in naturally.
Over time, these small, simple tools become powerful anchors for focus, confidence, and composure.
🧩 Strategy 3: Individualise and Tailor Strategies to Each Athlete
This is where the real magic happens.
There’s no universal formula for managing anxiety because no two athletes experience pressure in the same way - and no two sports have identical demands. What overwhelms one athlete might ignite focus in another. That’s why effective anxiety management must be as unique as the person using it.
Why Personalisation Matters
Each athlete brings a different blend of personality, experience, and situational pressure to their performance.
Different sports = different activation zones. A sprinter’s ideal energy level before a race looks nothing like a golfer’s calm precision on the tee.
Different minds = different pressure responses. Everyone interprets nerves differently - what one athlete labels as “panic,” another might see as “focus.”
Different environments = different stressors. Travel schedules, team dynamics, coaching styles, or even crowd size can all shift anxiety levels.
To uncover these nuances, I use the Spotlight Personality Profile - a practical and research-backed tool that raises self-awareness and helps athletes understand how they respond to pressure.
The Spotlight framework maps out your individual mindset and behavioural preferences under both pressure and stretch, revealing your natural strengths, triggers, and coping patterns. It helps you see:
How your mindset shifts when stakes are high
What kinds of pressure situations help you thrive (and which ones derail you)
How you can better communicate, prepare, and recover in ways that fit you
This insight forms the foundation for tailoring every mental skill to your personal operating style - so your strategies feel natural, not forced.
How We Customise the Plan
1. Assessment:
We begin by exploring your triggers, thought patterns, and routines - supported by your Spotlight Profile insights to identify how you uniquely process and respond to stress.
2. Experimentation:
You test a range of techniques - from breathing and visualisation methods and self-talk shifts to pre-performance routines - to see what resonates and feels effective under real conditions.
3. Feedback Loop:
We track and reflect on how each approach impacts your confidence, composure, and results, adjusting as needed.
4. Integration:
Finally, we embed the techniques into your training cycle, not just competition day, so they become automatic and part of your performance DNA.
This process ensures that anxiety management becomes truly yours - a system tailored to your personality, sport, and performance goals, not a generic checklist. The result? You stop copying what works for others and start mastering what works best for you.
💭 You Might Be Wondering…
Let’s tackle a few common questions athletes often ask once they start exploring anxiety management.
“If anxiety is helpful, why does it feel so uncomfortable?”
Because it’s energy - and energy feels intense.
Think of anxiety like the accelerator pedal in a car, press a little and you move forward smoothly, press too hard and the ride can be rough.
The goal isn’t to take your foot off the accelerator, because then the car will then slow to a stop. The goal is to learn how to control the accelerator so the car drives as you’d like it to. Once you master that balance, discomfort turns into controlled power.
“I’ve tried breathing or routines before, but they don’t seem to work when I’m really nervous.”
That’s normal - these tools aren’t an instant hack!
They’re skills, just like any technical or physical skill in sport. They work better when they’re practiced, refined, and personalised. With guidance, you’ll find the timing and combination that clicks for you - so that in pressure situations, your response is automatic and effective.
“What if managing anxiety takes away my edge?”
It won’t!
Anxiety is an emotion. The word emotion means ‘energy in motion.’ Managing anxiety doesn’t mean managing that energy away - it means directing that energy more purposefully.
You keep all your competitive drive, just with more control and intention.
🌟 Key Takeaway: Anxiety isn’t the Enemy
When you stop fighting anxiety and start working with it, you reclaim control.
To recap:
Reframe anxiety as a natural, helpful force - your body gearing up for action.
Use practical nudge techniques like breathing, imagery, and routines to guide your energy.
Individualise your approach so it fits you, your sport, and your environment.
Do these three things consistently and you’ll notice:
More focus under pressure
More confidence and self-belief in competition
Fewer mental downward spirals
A deeper sense of enjoyment and mastery in your sport
The goal isn’t to be calm, it’s to be ready - steady enough to trust your skills and alert enough to rise to the moment. You’ll perform better not because you’ve eliminated anxiety - but because you’ve learned how to harness it.
🎯 Next Steps for Athletes Who Want to Perform Better
If you’re ready to turn anxiety into performance fuel, here are two great ways to start:
👉 Book Your Free Discovery Call - Let’s explore how personalised coaching can help you manage pre-competition anxiety, build focus and confidence, and perform your best when it counts. We’ll identify what’s been holding you back and create a clear mental performance plan to move forward.
📬 Subscribe to The Game Plan - My free newsletter filled with practical mindset tools, performance insights, and stories from athletes who’ve turned anxiety into their competitive advantage.
You don’t have to silence your nerves… just learn to listen to them.
You’ve got this - and the calm confidence you’re looking for is already within reach.