High expectations often destroy many athletic performances and sometimes careers. While expectations can provide motivation and goals to strive for, excessively high expectations can have damaging effects that create pressure, anxiety, loss of confidence, and fear of failure. The reason is that these expectations are result oriented and focused on things beyond one’s control. However, having high expectations on things within your control can actually help you. Shift the expectations to your “why”, the controllables, and/or on processes vs results and watch your game soar.
*Stay focused on your “why.” Why do you do what you do? What is your bigger purpose- more than the wins, results, etc.? If you don’t know your “why” it’s easy to get disconnected from your team or to struggle with your confidence and your focus. Knowing your “why” keeps you afloat during challenging times and gives you a clearer vision to see the “this is good” moments. It steers your focus to what you need to do in the moment. When your “why” is bigger than winning or losing or playing time, it becomes more powerful. What is the bigger picture you are journeying toward? When we can honestly answer this question, finding the “this is good” in bad things that happen is much easier.
Stay in your Me Circle. Staying focused on the controllables has a strong correlation to increased confidence. Things such as effort, focus, and attitude are within your control, so they are inside your circle. Things such as coaches and administrative decisions, winning, scoring, and teammates are not 100% within your control so they are outside your circle. When you focus on things within your “Me Circle” you are more likely to have a positive experience. EXERCISE: Draw a circle on a piece of paper. Inside the circle, write everything in your sport you can control 100%. Then, outside the circle, write things you cannot control 100%. This exercise can be found in “The Confident Athlete.” 
*Stay focused on the processes. Direct your attention and efforts towards the steps and actions that lead to a desired outcome, rather than solely fixating on the outcome itself. Think about the little things that if you do consistently lead to consistent results. Ex. A baseball or softball pitcher may have better control when they take a deep breath and focus on hitting their spots vs focusing on outcome.
Tami Matheny is owner of Tami Matheny Coaching. She is a Mental Game Coach and Author. Her books include: “This is Good” at: https://r2lc.com/this-is-good-a-journey-on-overcoming-confidence, “The Confident Athlete: 4 Easy Steps to Build and Maintain Confidence” https://r2lc.com/the-confident-athlete-4-easy-steps-to-build-and-maintain-confidence/, “Challenger Deep: Stories, Fables, and Lessons to Help You Rise Above Adversity” https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Deep-Stories-Fables-Adversity/dp/B09MYVSLMR and “The Confidence Journal”. All books can be purchased online at Amazon. For group discounts or signed copies contact tami@tamimatheny.com
For more information on mental training contact tami@tamimatheny.com, follow us on twitter @tamimatheny and @r2lcoaching and visit our website: http://www.tamimatheny.com.
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