I CAN'T MAKE MISTAKES! How To Overcome Fear of … · I Cant Make Mistakes! How To Overcome Fear of...

I Can’t Make Mistakes! How To Overcome Fear of Failure –

_________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 2010 by Peak Performance Sports, LLC. www.peaksports.com

Copyright © 2010 by Patrick J. Cohn, Ph.D. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from Peak Performance Sports, LLC. Published by Peak Performance Sports, LLC. 7380 Sand Lake Road PMB 5012 Orlando, FL 32819 407-909-1700 or 888-742-7225 http://www.peaksports.com http://www.peaksportsnetwork.com/

EBOOKLET I CAN'T MAKE MISTAKES!

How To Overcome Fear of Failure,

Perfectionism, and Lack of Trust

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Foreword

Dr. Patrick J. Cohn, President of Peak Performance Sports of Orlando, Florida, earned his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia in 1991, and founded Peak Performance Sports in 1994. Dr. Cohn is an author, professional speaker and one of the nation’s leading mental game coaches. Dr. Patrick Cohn helps athletes and teams worldwide from a variety of sport backgrounds improve mental toughness for sports. Dr. Cohn is dedicated to instilling confidence, composure, focus, and teaching powerful mental game skills to help athletes, teams and corporate professionals perform at maximum levels. Dr. Cohn also teaches sports parents and coaches of young athletes how to help athletes achieve peak performance through sports psychology training. In addition, he teaches his mental game coaching system, the MGCP certification program (Mental Game Coaching Professional) to qualified coaches, trainers, and sports psychology students in training. Peak performance Sports, LLC also owns and manages two leading online mental training sites for athletes, coaches and sports parents at http://www.peaksportsnetwork.com and http://www.kidssportspsychology.com.

Contact Dr. Cohn:

Peak Performance Sports, LLC 7380 Sand Lake Road, PBM 5012 Orlando, Florida 32819 Phone: 407-909-1700 Toll-free: 888-742-7225 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.peaksports.com Proshop: http://www.peaksports.com/proshop.php Membership: www.peaksportsnetwork.com Membership: www.kidssportspsychology.com


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Introduction

More and more athletes I work with on the mental game come to me with

fear of failure. Fear and fear of failure are a constant source of stress or

anxiety that sabotages athletes' mental game and performance. What is

fear? In sports, most of the fear athletes have is based on their perception of

the importance of a performance or game AND what they assume others

think about their performance.

Most of the time, an athlete’s fear is about avoiding poor results - whether

prior to or during a performance. Athletes often fear the negative

consequences of a poor or less than perfect performance. Athletes worry

about letting their team or a coach down. They worry about disappointing a

parent or not performing up to a parent's expectations. They worry about

many things that are often not under their direct or immediate control and a

lot of this worry is unnecessary.

What are the common types of fears for athletes?

It’s not enough to know that you have fear of failure when competing.

What’s more important is to know what type of fear holds you back. As you

can see from the list below, fear of failure often is related to what you

assume others think about you, which we call social approval.

Fear of losing a match, game, or race – you badly want to win and are

afraid you will not win.

Fear of negative social evaluation – you fear others will view you as a

failure in sports.



Fear of embarrassment – you are afraid to embarrass yourself in front

of others if you don’t perform well.

Fears of letting others down – you do not want to let others down

such as a coach, parent, or teammate.

Fear of putting in the effort and not ever getting the “pay off” or not

playing to your potential. You don’t want your hard work, talent and

long practices to be for not.

Fear of not performing up to others’ expectations – you worry about

not meeting others’ expectations for you, such as a parent.

Fear of being rejected, losing respect, or not gaining approval.

Fear of making mistakes and not performing perfectly after having

worked so hard at it.

Do any of the above fears sound familiar to you? The first step in managing

your fear of failure is to understand the specific source of your fear so you

can deal with it head on. For example, if you realize you're afraid to let down

your parents with a poor performance, the obvious solution is to learn how

to play for yourself instead of others.

The Relationship Between Perfectionism and Fear of Failure

Perfectionist athletes often do not perform up to their potential because of

fear of failure.

They often lose sight of the real goal in sports – to use training to perform

well in competition. They become so engrossed in training and practice that

perfecting their technique or working hard in practice becomes the primary

goal instead of performing with confidence in competition. In competition,

they believe anything but perfect execution or winning is deemed as failure.



The table below describes how perfectionism is related to fear of failure.

How Perfectionism Causes Fear

Perfectionism Trait Fear of Failure

High motivation and work ethic to train and practice. High emotional investment.

You try too hard to win and thus get in your own way. You fear not winning after all the “investment.”

Unrealistically high expectations for your performance.

Easily become frustrated when you do not perform up to your expectations and then try even harder to not fail.

Love to practice – high confidence level with your performance in practice.

Low self-confidence in competition because you are more comfortable in practice – causes anxiety in games.

High motivation leads to wanting to win or succeed badly in your sport.

Creates a tentative mindset because you are afraid to make mistakes.

A focus on results or outcomes of your performance because you want to play up to expectations.

Worry about negative results or failure cause you to perform tight, anxious, and lack trust.

You may think that others are going to criticize your performance, that they will be disappointed if you don’t win.

Feel as if your self-esteem is threatened when you do not perform up to your own expectations.

You don’t want to let others down. You want to perform up to others’ expectations.

You have a fear of letting others down if you don’t perform up to their expectations for you.

You want your performance to be perfect. You think perfect mechanics help you play your best.

You have difficulty playing relaxed/free (you over-control your performance) and lose trust in your abilities.

You want performance to look perfect so coach keeps you as a starter or on the team.

You have a fear of making mistakes in front of your coach and getting yanked from the line up.

You dwell on past mistakes during a competition.

You try to avoid making future mistakes and become cautious with your performance.



Signs You May Have Perfectionist Tendencies

What are the signs of perfectionistic behaviors in sports?

You generally perform better in practice than competition.

You want to win badly, which leads to anxiety and fear of failure.

You worry too much about what other people think about your game.

You view your performance as either good or bad, with no middle

ground.

You have unrelenting work ethic and very high commitment in sports.

Do You Set Yourself up for Failure?

Many perfectionists hold high expectations that can set them up for failure.

What are expectations? Expectations are strict demands or judgments you

have about your performance. Expectations are usually about results such as

obtaining a specific score or achieving a personal statistic such as a batting

average.

Expectations are not the same as having confidence in your ability to perform

well, such as having confidence in your ability to get a hit or make a layup.

Expectations are demands you place on your performance and cause you to

judge how you are doing compared to how you think you SHOULD be doing.

Expectation is more absolute than confidence and judgmental. Expectation

often comes with added pressure.

Having strict or unrealistic expectations can undermine your sports

confidence. This is especially true when you feel that you are not meeting

your own performance expectations. Essentially, high expectations set you

up for failure before you even begin a competition.



Says one tennis player, “I try to be perfect with every shot I hit on the tennis

court. When I don’t perform exactly as I expected then I get really upset –

like I am doing something wrong and then lose my confidence. I get so

frustrated after mistakes that I feel that I am a failure and should stop trying

– I feel helpless.”

How do you know if you have strict expectations? Here are a few questions

to ask yourself:

1. Do your “goals” for a competition focus on outcomes or results only?

(Expectations can often be disguised as goals.)

2. Do you constantly judge the level of your performance based on your

personal standards?

3. Do you become upset when you do not perform up to your own set

of standards?

4. Do you lose confidence when you do not play to your personal

standards?

5. Do you maintain expectations about the quality of your performance

at the start of competition such as expecting to make zero mistakes?

How do expectations cause you to feel more pressure and try harder? Let’s

look at a few examples from my students…

Examples of expectations that imply greater pressure and more trying by

athletes:

Golf: “I need to strike the ball perfectly today to play my best.”

Tennis: “I can’t make any errors against my opponent today or I will

lose.”



Auto Racing: “My team can’t make any mistakes today if we want to

win.”

Football: “I have to execute my passes with perfect technique so that

the receiver will catch them”.

Gymnastics: “I must control my performance and stick my landing to

score well today on my routine.”

Basketball: “If I don’t make 15 assists today and 10 rebounds I haven’t

performed up to my ability.”

Your goal should be to play without any expectations – good or bad. Your

expectations set you up for failure and only cause you to judge how well you

are doing.

Your goal is to replace expectations with more manageable tasks or process

goals. Setting more manageable tasks help you focus on what’s happening in

the present moment. You need to stop thinking about the future—about the

score, the win or not disappointing your coach. For example, you might

decide in golf that you want to focus on hitting more fairways. You might

focus on one tee shot at a time. A football player might set a process goal to

commit to a play called, for example.

How should you use your process goals?

1. Decide what you want to improve or think about during the game.

2. Set one or two process goals that will help you focus on staying

grounded in the moment.

3. When you start to worry about scores refocus on your process goals.

You don’t want to judge whether or not you are reaching your goals. Your

process goals can turn into expectations if you start to judge your



performance. You can evaluate your process goals after the competition is

over.

Worrying about Making Mistakes

One of the signs of fear of failure is an athlete who worries too much about

making mistakes. If you do this, you play too carefully or cautiously. In this

mindset, you try not to lose and try not to make mistakes. You’re stuck in

what we call a “fear-driven mindset.” The golfer tries not to hit the ball in the

water. The skater avoids falling on her jumps. The tennis player avoids

double-faulting on serve. The batter avoids striking out.

Ironically, fear causes you to focus on what you don’t want to happen. Your

performance is based on a state of tension, indecision, and carefulness -

none of which help you perform well!

When performing tentatively, your body does not flow. You cannot execute

your skills the way you trained yourself to do. Worrying about mistakes leads

to a lack of trust. Later on in this e-book, we’ll address how to trust in your

practice.

When you’re focused on not making mistakes, you’re not focused in the

present. Your mind might be racing ahead to the outcome of the game. A

basketball player might focus on not missing a shot for fear of causing his

team to lose the game. Hence, he does not want to disappoint his

teammates and feel like a failure.

The key is to focus on what you want to do instead of what you want to avoid

doing. I call this a success-driven mindset in The Fearless Athlete CD

program. Here’s an example:



The Fear-Driven Mindset

“I feel like I need to be perfect in today’s game so my coach will put me in as

a regular starter.”

The Success-Driven Mindset

“I know if I work my game plan and focus on one play at a time, I’ll feel

confident and succeed.”

Developing a Trusting Mindset

As mentioned earlier, when you fear making mistakes, you can tighten up

and perform tentatively, which causes you to lose trust. You must learn to

have trust in what you trained yourself to do.

In other sports like golf, perfectionists can become enamored with their golf

swing or technique. They spend most of their practice time on the practice

tee working to improve mechanics of the swing and very little time playing

on the course. This scenario also makes it difficult for the golfer to transition

to a trusting mindset in competition. These golfers look like stars in practice,

but hackers on the course.

Says a tennis player, “During a match, I sometimes lose my intensity and

freedom of "going for" my shots. I find myself becoming tight, and not

finishing my stroke. Even though I am aware of this, I don't know how to

regain the confidence to let go and play like in practice. My timing is off, my

shots don't work, and I lose confidence in my ability. This usually happens

when I play against a player of similar ability - one I know is "beatable" if I

play well.”



A trusting mindset is essential to help you perform your best in competition.

Trust is your ability to let your skills “happen” instinctively by relying on your

practice instead of consciously directing your movements. In the trusting

mindset, you have the ability to rely on your practice, perform freely, and

allow your skills to flow without excess thought.

How can you improve trust?

One way is to learn how to perform efficiently instead of perfectly. The idea

here is that you DO NOT have to be perfect to perform your best. You are

human and humans can’t be perfect. You will make mistakes and you have to

accept mistakes. “Winning ugly” means you get the job done even if it’s not

perfect execution.

In golf, for example, winning ugly is called scrambling. A golfer finds a way to

get the ball in the hole without obsessing about the “the proper way” to

complete the job.

Worrying About What Others Think

A golfer asks, “I worry about embarrassing myself if I shoot a high score and

this affects how I play during the round. I am afraid to make mistakes and

make big numbers. How do I stop worrying about what other people will

think about my score?”

Perfectionistic athletes often worry too much about what others think of

them. They want to be admired, accepted, respected or liked by others. To

some degree, this is normal because we are social beings who want to be

liked by others.



Athletes who crave approval from others often become anxious or are afraid

to fail in competition. They worry about public embarrassment.

Perfectionists rely too much on what they think others think about them to

boost their own feelings of self-worth. They attempt to gain self-worth by

enhancing their success in sports.

Perfectionistic athletes think they may lose approval from others by playing

poorly or making mistakes. This worry supports an athlete’s fear of failure.

Athletes are afraid to fail because they believe that there is potential for

embarrassment, loss of respect, or not being liked by others!

Worrying too much about what others may think encourages a process I call

“mind reading.” Mind reading is when you make assumptions about what

others might be thinking about you. When you are trying to read others’

minds, you try to avoid embarrassment.

Here are some signs you worry too much about what others think:

Spend too much time thinking about others’ judgments about you

Feel anxious, scared, or tight when others are watching or are present

Perform tentatively and are afraid to make mistakes or take risks for

fear of negative social evaluation, such as what a teammate might

think if you miss the basket

Outwardly display emotions, such as frustration, to convince others

that you are actually a better athlete than your performance would

suggest

Make comparisons to other athletes who you think are better than

you which hurts your confidence



Want to win badly so you can have “bragging rights” and tell others

about your success in sports so you can feel superior to others or

better about yourself

You’ll want to focus on your own performance rather than thinking about

what others might be thinking about you. Listed below are 6 tips to stop

worrying about what others think.

6 Tips to Stop Worrying About What Others Think

1. Understand why you care so much about others’ opinions of you.

Understanding what you “need” from others will help you put a stop

to some of the irrational assumptions you make.

2. Stop your mind reading. Be aware when you begin to engage in mind

reading (worrying about what others think) and refocus on the

current shot or play.

3. Do a reality check. How do you know what others are truly thinking

about you? Test out your assumptions and ask a good friend what he

thinks about your game when you play well or poorly.

4. Know who you are on the inside. Know your own self – called self-

concept – and believe in who you are on the inside. Keep in mind that

it should not matter what others think if you play for yourself.

5. Have self-respect not other-respect. Stop searching for respect or

admiration from other people. You won’t need it if you have self-

respect and give yourself the stamp of approval!



6. Separate self-esteem from your sports success. Your person is more

than a score. Keep in mind that you are a person that happens to be a

good athlete, not vice versa.

6 Tips For Coping with Fear of Failure

So you have learned that fear of failure is linked to perfectionism and social

approval (worrying about what others think). You also know that these

mental roadblocks associated with fear of failure cause you to focus too

much on mistakes, perform tentatively, and lose trust in your learned skills.

Use these tips to help improve your mental game and performance:

1. Focus on success or what you want to happen instead of failure.

Never set goals to avoid mistakes or failure such as to "not strike

out." Always set positive goals, such as to have a quality at-bat and

strive for success. Don't be obsessed with avoiding failure, pain, or

embarrassment.

2. Focus on execution, instead of fearing negative results. Fear of failure

causes an athlete to focus on outcomes and negative consequences.

So your task is to stay grounded in execution in the present moment.

3. Embrace the challenges of competition instead of fearing the

consequences. Love the challenges that come with sports such as

playing a tight match. Set simple objectives that are positive, such as

“play with trust and confidence for 60 minutes.”

4. Simplify your performance, instead of over think your game. Use

simple images and performance cues to perform and trust your



athletic reactions in competition. Let go of verbal instructions, over-

coaching yourself, or over thinking your performance.

5. Perform freer with a less serious mindset. Try less and perform freer

in competition. Don’t be so serious that it‘s nerve-racking and feel as

if you have to perform perfectly with no mistakes.

6. Let go of mistakes quickly. Don't dwell on mistakes or errors. When

you dwell on mistakes, you fear making more mistakes. Accept that

mistakes are a natural part of sports. Learn from your mistakes after

the game; don't analyze them in the middle of the game.



Peak Performance Sports Products and Services

About Dr. Patrick Cohn Dr. Patrick J. Cohn, President of Peak Performance Sports of Orlando, Florida, is an author, professional speaker, and the nation’s leading sports psychology expert. His mental coaching programs instill confidence, composure, and mindsets that enable athletes and teams to reach peak performance. Dr. Cohn has helped amateur and professional athletes, and teams from a variety of sports develop mindsets needed to achieve peak performance. World-class golfers, runners, shooters and auto racers, as well as motocross, tennis, baseball, softball, football and hockey players, are among those who have benefited from his mental game coaching. As a leading authority on mental training for peak performance, Dr. Cohn has built a proven training system based on extensive experience as an athlete, mental coach to pro athletes and sports psychology researcher. In addition, he has written a number of sports psychology books and operates the world’s most comprehensive online mental training system at peaksports.com.

Peak Performance Sports Publications & Services Downloadable E-books:

Focus! Mental Strategies for Zone Concentration

Confidence! Mental Strategies to Think Like a Champion

Mental Preparation: Pre-shot Strategies to Think and Perform Like a Pro

Get Psyched for Sports! Pregame Mental Strategies to Perform Your Best

The Confident Athlete CD/Workbook Series: The Confident Athlete: A 14-Day Plan for Ultimate Self-Confidence

The Focused Athlete: A 14-Day Plan for Superior Concentration

The Composed Athlete: A 14-Day Plan for Maximum Composure

The Fearless Athlete: A 14-Day Plan to Unbeatable Trust

The Relaxed Athlete: A 14-Day Plan for Optimal Mental Preparation

The Ultimate Sports Parent: A 14-Day Plan for Kids Success in Sports

Mental Game Services by Peak Performance Sports

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