Sports performance anxiety has always been a part of my life but I really didn’t understand how much of an impact it had on me. I dealt with it in some form throughout my high school experience but was never pushed to a point where it became overwhelming. However, once I got to college, my performance anxiety on the field took to a whole different level. It ended up being a bigger challenge than I ever expected and took a lot of learning and mental development to work through it.
In high school, I thought it was completely normal that every time before a test or a game (especially when I pitched) I was shaking with nervous energy. I feared being handed a test and knowing nothing, or going out on the field and getting absolutely rocked. However, the shaking and those negative feelings weren’t really a big deal because I usually ended up doing well.
The shaking and the anxious thoughts felt like they went away right after I threw the first pitch because that gave me a stroke of confidence immediately. I was an honor roll student in the classroom and performed well on the mound. I faced Division 1 and pro-level talent consistently in high school and competed toe to toe with all of them. I didn’t really need to take the time to understand why my mind and body acted that way when I had to perform because I was able to just figure it out.
College was a whole different ball game. I started off my freshman year strong in the fall. I made multiple starts on the mound in inter squads, throwing 4-5 innings each time showing my potential to earn a solid number of innings as a freshman that spring. The competition was higher across the board and I was stepping up to the challenge well.
However, everything changed when I came back in the spring. It started off with some rocky bullpens that felt plain weird. Then, when I stepped on the mound for inter squads, that shaky feeling of anxiety would not go away. I was not even close to the zone, the ball felt completely foreign to me and my confidence was nowhere to be found. I remember one instance when I was throwing to live hitters with the batting turtle around the hitter at home plate and all I was thinking was “don’t throw it over the turtle.” It even got to the point where I was questioning my abilities just throwing with a partner.
My confidence was completely shot and throwing a baseball was a mental struggle every time. I felt like everybody’s eyes were on me. Every small mistake I made pushed me farther and farther away from touching the field. I tried to fight through this struggle by doing the same thing I did in high school. Nonetheless, I was never able to throw that first pitch that gave me a stroke of confidence. I kept trying that same strategy over and over because it was all I knew, which ended up wasting almost a year and a half of my collegiate career.
To get over my performance anxiety, I had to truly examine what it takes to be a strong competitor even when success was lackluster. It took longer than I would’ve liked to gain that confidence back, but there are a few keys that I picked up to overcome this battle.
The first was understanding that one singular outing doesn’t make or break you. I put so much weight on myself when I threw to hitters or off a mound. I was so focused on having a good result that I didn’t even realize that what I was doing was merely the process. While there are times that pitching is a result (such as games), I had to understand that a majority of my work was a process. Processes aren’t achieved overnight and I had to trust that even my bad days were part of my development. This realization, along with conversations with my coaches and teammates, loosened me up in lower-pressure situations, like long tossing and bullpens, giving myself those moments back.
My second key was hammering home positive self-talk and actually believing it. My negative internal conversations were tailored around stuff such as “don’t miss the strike zone” or “don’t hit the batter,” aka the worst-case scenarios. I had to change my phrases to those that were built around confidence and success, practicing them and executing them immediately when I got into a game. As a reliever, the leash is extremely short, so I had to find a way to relax my mind and instill confidence with positive self-talk before I threw that first pitch. My phrases centered around reinforcing that I had fantastic preparation and that I was better than any hitter that came up to the plate—also sprinkling in a few expletives to get me fired up.
The third and most important key was to figure out what mentality worked best for me. Pitchers like Max Scherzer look like they’ll rip your head off. Then there are pitchers like Stephen Strasburg, who looks so stoic and relaxed but can kick up the intensity when needed. Pitchers need different levels of intensity in order to maximize their performance. I originally tried to be the “bulldog” type because I loved the intensity of competition, but that didn’t benefit me at all. I was too uptight on each pitch and it increased my negative emotions when I didn’t execute or get the result I wanted.
I found that my perfect mentality was being as relaxed and loose as possible, allowing myself to get comfortable with the game or performance. Once I got comfortable and gained the confidence, then I would kick it up a notch, thrive on the confidence, and ride the emotions. I needed to give myself time to build confidence in the first few pitches so I could utilize it later in my outing, as opposed to expecting perfection immediately and letting my disappointment that I wasn’t perfect drive it. This was by far the biggest realization that helped me improve my on-field performance and understand truly how to compete far past my college playing days.
Working through my performance anxiety was a very tough battle and it took a lot more than the keys I discussed. Tools like understanding the importance of breathing, creating release points on the field, and implementing mental imagery were also important factors in improving my performance. Struggling to perform certainly wasn’t an ideal situation to be in. But it forced me to truly learn about the challenges in the mental side of sports. Sports performance anxiety is real, so don’t ignore it because it may not go away on its own.
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