Publish at May 21 2018 Updated May 07 2026
How can we overcome the fear of failure experienced in situations of performance stress? What are the concrete steps towards success for athletes, students and professionals?
Performance stress affects students, student-athletes and professionals in very specific situations. Failures can be devastating and devaluing. Here's a concrete example of a student-athlete's under-performance.
Julien is an excellent goalie in a CEGEP field hockey league. He has mastered advanced techniques and has been training for nearly ten years. Some evenings, without knowing why, he's unbeatable in front of his opponents, unlike other evenings when he may perform poorly. Yet every time before he laces up his skates, he believes he'll feel perfectly in control when he finds himself in front of the opposing team. So he doesn't understand why he experiences such intense highs and lows during his sporting performances.
Performance stress is experienced regularly, by the same people, during academic, sporting or professional events. It is experienced in relation to the fear of failure, the tendency to overestimate or underestimate the risk involved in a stressful event or situation, and the ability to cope. Recalling memories of failure in situations of performance stress is enough to generate other similar situations, forming a vicious circle.
Clues are easily detected when a person in a situation of failure describes him/herself as a "loser" or as being doomed to fail at everything in life.
Primary stress is considered to be the highest, and it is necessary to identify its source in order to attempt to control it. Faced with a surge of primary stress, the student-athlete can try to control his or her symptoms by asking himself or herself:
Is this event an issue for me?
Do I feel like I'm failing?
Do I perceive this event or situation as a threat or a challenge?
If Julian identifies the cause of his own performance stress in a positive way, and facilitates its transition to secondary stress, then he helps to resolve it.
Following this line of questioning, the factor causing the stress can be pinpointed as a first step towards the perception of control over the situation. In a situation of secondary stress, Julien can ask himself :
What resources do I have to control it?
How can I change my perception with my resources?
The aim here is to draw on his toolbox to integrate an adjustment strategy aimed at countering the stress experienced as a state of panic.
With the right mental preparation tools, performance stress can be controlled rather than fed. Performance can be achieved with the following elements:
Executional elements: by mapping out a path through which goals can be set and results achieved;
Positive stress: providing energy, enabling you to step out of your comfort zone and perform.
If Julien wants to experiment with this mental preparation, he should listen to the perceptions he experiences, so as to be able to vary the intensity as he feels the need.
However, the help of a performance coach is useful if Julien :
needs more support;
is unable to achieve secondary stress, and therefore lacks panic resources.
Now that Justin is able to use his resources and vary their intensity, performance activation can improve his mental preparation and give him better results.
It's a question of dosing the intensity of stress so that it's used in the right quantity and at the right time.
Too much or too little stress is counterproductive in both cases. In the first case, it's harmful and Julien may lose his nerve. In the second case, Julien's lack of interest in his field hockey games could be perceived.
A sports performance activation plan allows you to establish a strategy and capture its key moments. For example, the strategy recommended by a sports coach might be :
Break down the teaching of techniques, to help identify the key moments to target;
Identify the moment when performance needs to start, in order to be in the ideal activation zone;
Qualify the level of activation that will be considered ideal;
Find strategies to avoid exceeding the ideal zone (watch a video, use positive visualization, listen to music, go out, take your mind off things, etc.).
Once all the elements of strategy and the key moments for activating an ideal zone have been deconstructed, the results will also have to be deconstructed, with the aim of nurturing feelings of performance and anticipating gestures down to the smallest detail, which is called the "focus point".
Ways of reaching this focus point will have to be identified and followed, such as going to bed early, positive visualization and yoga.
Julien can discover other more appropriate and motivating ways to condition himself to reach his focus point.
If Julien recognizes that he needs the help of a sports coach to perform well on goals on a regular basis, if he has tried unsuccessfully to do it himself, he should establish a routine in his activation plan and follow its steps in a disciplined way.
Performance stress at school and at work has the same stages as sports stress and is manifested in the same way. The difference between the three lies in the presence or absence of a coach, the role the coach plays and the stages in which he or she is involved.
If Julien chooses not to worry about his performance stress, he may believe that he's no good as a goalkeeper and devalue himself, whereas this has nothing to do with reality.
Sources
s.a. L'anxiété de performance, s.d. http://www. evolution-101.com/anxiete-de-performance/
Hogue, Michel. Performance sportive : 4 bénéfices à utiliser un préparateur mental, October 6, 2014.
https://cmpcoaching.ca/benefices-preparateur-mental/
You might also like:
Tonight, I'm revising with ChatGPT and Gemini
The initial reaction to artificial intelligence in the education sector was one of mistrust. Since then, some teachers have embraced the tool, and learners even more so. If used properly, robots can help with both comprehension and revision.
How can universal design for learning be applied?
Access to learning is supposed to be a universal right. In reality, however, schools reproduce, whether unconsciously or not, biases and divisions based on various criteria such as socio-economic background, gender, ethnic origin, etc. Can we introduce an inclusive pedagogy for all students? Is it possible to introduce an inclusive pedagogy for all students?
Teaching music at a distance: an achievable challenge
Are some subjects impossible to teach at a distance? Some, including music, seem more difficult. Yet, with the covid-19 pandemic, music teachers have had no choice but to start teaching classes without attendance. An obstacle, to be sure, but one that can be partially overcome with many online tools.
Taking a class outside is often perceived as an "ordinary" class in a less controlled context. We almost forget that outdoor learning can lead to play. There's no added value in just lecturing in the forest. Taking advantage of the setting so that students can have fun in it makes much more sense.
The importance of adults in the development of school perseverance
Perseverance is like a muscle: if it is never stimulated, it will not get stronger. Thus, all adults in the child's life are of paramount importance in improving this skill. From teachers to parents to close family or even passionate strangers, the idea is to encourage young people to learn, not just in the classroom. Moreover, by stimulating effort and avoiding comparisons, the chances of discouragement are greatly reduced.
