Beyond Physical Strength: 11 Ways to Become a Stronger Athlete Mentally
Much of sports comes down to what happens between our ears and above our chin, not just our physical ability. Our mental and emotional well-being is just as important as our physical health, playing a major role in our performance, confidence, and long-term success. Just as we train our bodies, we must also train our minds.
Below are 11 ways we can strengthen the mental and emotional side of sports, helping us grow beyond our size, strength, or athletic ability.
1. Separate our self-worth from performance
Intense emotions are normal in sports. We don't need to avoid them; we can simply redirect the energy. After a mistake, we can practice talking to ourselves the way we would talk to a teammate. We can protect our relationship with sports by having consistent hobbies and routines outside of sports to help us detach.
2. Control what we can control
As athletes, we are often focused on parts of the game we cannot control, such as playing time, who we play, officials, spectators, coaches, or the scoreboard. What we can control is how we prepare, our effort, attitude, body language, focus, how we treat our teammates, and how we respond to mistakes. If we focus on what we can control, we conserve mental energy and put ourselves back in a solution-focused state of mind.
3. Stop comparing
We often trap ourselves into comparing our internal struggles to our teammates' or opponents' abilities. This can create anxiety and cause us to play to avoid mistakes instead of playing freely. If we compare ourselves to yesterday's version of ourselves, we can save energy and avoid tying our self-worth to aspects that are out of our hands.
4. Process over outcome
When we use stats and scoreboards to dictate our progress, our emotions go up and down like a roller coaster. If we use outcomes as data to grow 1% better every day instead of letting them tell us whether we failed, we can remain more levelheaded in the most pressurized situations.
5. Respond instead of reacting to mistakes
When we react instead of respond, such as putting our heads down, throwing our hands up, or complaining to an official, we can create a domino effect of mistakes because we are mentally absent during that portion of competition.
When we respond, accept our mistake, and shift our focus, we take away that possible snowball effect. Responding requires us to pause, step back, and use the logical side of our brain. We can use a cue to help us reset, such as slapping our hands or saying "next play."
6. Hold ourselves accountable without criticizing ourselves
We athletes often fall into a trap of using a mistake that happened in practice or a game to attack our personal character, which can lower our confidence not only in our sport but also outside of the gym or field.
Instead of saying, "We played like trash," we can focus on objective aspects of our game that we can work on, such as footwork, balance, and strength.
7. Be a good teammate
Bringing positive energy to those around us is something we can do regardless of what the scoreboard or stat sheet says. We can build relationships with our teammates by laughing, smiling, showing empathy and vulnerability, and putting our individual goals secondary to the goals of the team.
8. Play without fear of failure
Playing with a fear of failure can cause us to play to avoid mistakes instead of trusting ourselves and our abilities. We can give ourselves permission to be imperfect, make mistakes, and learn from them. We can adopt the mindset that if we never make mistakes, we cannot learn and therefore cannot grow.
9. Build confidence through preparation, not validation
It can be easy for us to rely on parents, coaches, teammates, and friends for our confidence. Don't get us wrong, having a support system as athletes is amazing. However, building trust in who we are through the work we put in will set us up for the adversity sports can send our way.
10. Decompress after games, practices, and trainings
For at least 30 minutes after we compete, we can stay away from talking about sports. We can call this the "evaluation window."
We can listen to music, talk about another subject, or even have some quiet time. Our brains cannot objectively evaluate a performance when our adrenaline is still rushing. If we do so, we are more likely to criticize ourselves.
11. Find our identity outside of sports
Sports are an integral part of our identity. Unfortunately, sports inevitably end for all of us, and with that, we lose the things that come with sports, such as being part of a group with shared goals, the physical and mental release, and structure.
Finding hobbies we enjoy outside of our sport that share some of these similarities can help us maintain balance now and bridge that gap once we stop competing in our sport.
Final Thoughts: Mental strength is part of our athletic development
Training our minds is just as important as training our bodies. Our mental and emotional well-being influence how we handle adversity, respond to mistakes, build confidence, connect with teammates, and experience our sport as a whole.
Prioritizing our mental health doesn't mean we'll never feel nervous, frustrated, or disappointed. It means learning how to navigate those emotions in ways that support our growth rather than hold us back.
We can start small. We can choose one or two of these strategies to practice consistently and give ourselves time to develop them. Just like physical skills, our mental skills improve through repetition.
Wyatt Lynch is a therapist and AAU basketball coach on the Eastside of Washington who is passionate about helping athletes prioritize their mental and emotional well-being both on and off the field, as well as those dealing with grief, anger, anxiety, family conflict, burnout, and perfectionism. He sees people virtually across Washington State. More about Wyatt’s work can be found across his website or by contacting him through his contact page above, or through the info below.
