Sports and Performance Psychologist Top Tips

Annika McGivern, Sports and Performance Psychologist joins us to answer some of our questions on mental preparation for competing.

I get so nervous in the warm-up arena and I tense up which affects my riding and ultimately how we perform, what can I do to manage my nerves before a competition?

You are not alone! Handling competition nerves is something all riders deal with. One of the biggest challenges of our sport is that our emotions impact us and our horse, making it doubly important that we learn how to manage our emotions effectively.

Some sort of fear is always underneath our feeling of being nervous. It’s useful to think about what it is that we are scared of, so that we can challenge the assumptions this fear is making in our head.

Although the fear of falling is present for many riders there is usually a set of deeper fears feeding our nerves that must be faced before we can begin to reconnect to our confidence. These are the fears of making a mistake, of failing, of letting our horse, or our coach, or ourselves down by not performing to the expected standard. This fear is based on the assumption that making a mistake or failing means we aren’t good enough, and this is often much scarier than a possible tumble to the arena floor.

So – let’s challenge this assumption. Does making a mistake or failing actually mean we aren’t good enough? If that is true then every single rider in the world is not good enough, because we all make mistakes. Shake up your fear by recognising that mistakes and failures are unavoidable and an important part of our learning process. If we aren’t making mistakes, then we aren’t learning. We have to keep learning in order to grow into the riders we are capable of being. Remember this: we have to be brave enough to make mistakes, even fail, if we want to become the best rider we can be. Making a mistake doesn’t mean anything. How you react to it does. In the warm-up ring, remind yourself that you are capable of managing anything that happens, success or mistake, and learning from it all. Then, take a few deep breaths and focus on what you want to have happen when you get into the ring.

I had a really bad fall a few years ago and it still haunts me to this day what steps can I take to start to work though this trauma?

This is a common challenge for riders because of the inherently risky nature of our sport. First of all, it’s very important that we don’t try to resist the fact that we are afraid. Sometimes equestrian culture encourages us to not admit to our fear to avoid looking weak. There can be a prevailing narrative that good riders don’t feel fear that we are supposed to just brush ourselves off and get back on without a second thought. This is not something we should expect of ourselves because as soon as it’s an expectation, then it becomes something we can “fail” at. I’ve met many riders who are simultaneously battling the fear and trauma from a bad fall and the guilt and shame they feel over not being “brave enough” or “strong enough” to quickly dispel the fear and get on with things. Only you can release yourself from this expectation. You do this by owning your fear and seeing it as something to tackle directly instead of suppress. Fear lives in the part of our brain that’s primary purpose is to keep us safe and alive. So, our fear is just trying to protect us. I find it useful to think about my fear as an over-reactive, overly sensitive little superhero in my brain. She’s trying really hard to keep me safe, but very often she mis-reads the situation and completely overreacts. So, I need to take action to let her know that everything is okay and tell her she can calm down.

When trauma is affecting us, it often causes us to disconnect from our senses and freeze. The antidote to this is to consciously reconnect to your senses and consciously engage and control your body through movement. So, what does all this mean? It means that when we feel ourselves freezing up with fear, we need to take action in a number of ways.

• Breath. Breathe in a very intentional, deep breath right down into your stomach, and release the breath slowly through your mouth. Pause before breathing in again. Keep breathing this way until the fear starts to feel manageable.
• Move your body. If you’re out of the saddle this might mean stretching or walking a few laps around wherever you are. If you’re in the saddle it might mean consciously wiggling your toes, intentionally stretching into your heels, twisting from side to side in the saddle for a moment, or halting and stretching.
• Engage your senses. Focus on the feeling of the reins between your fingers, your feet in the stirrups, your legs and seat in the saddle. Engage your sight, what are you looking at? Focus on colour and detail around you. Engage your hearing, what can you hear? The rustle of leaves? The impact of your horse’s hooves in the area footing? Your instructor’s voice? Listen for the detail and nuance in those sounds.

By working to reconnect with our senses and our body in moments of acute fear, we build our capacity to handle the feeling of the powerful horse beneath us, without triggering the jumpy superhero in our head and flying into survival mode. Be patient with yourself through this process and focus on small improvements each time you’re in the saddle.

I have a real issue remembering my tests. I focus on one test – if I happen to be doing several on the day – but I always seem to get myself worked up and nervous and then go wrong. Any tips on how to learn and remember tests and to help put my mind at ease?

It is useful to know that when we are nervous, the part of brain whose job it is to keep us safe takes over. Imagine it like this: there is an overly sensitive superhero in your head that jumps into action when they sense danger. When this happens, we get cut off from the part of our brain that thinks calmly and reasonably about things (AKA the part of our brain that knows we are not likely to be in real danger riding a dressage test) and the part of our brain that stores memories and information for us (AKA the part of our brain that’s memorised our test). So, it’s the getting worked up and nervous that is the main issue here. If you are able to remember your test perfectly well at home, then you are memorising your test just fine but losing access to that memory due to strong nerves when in the competition arena.

When this is happening it’s useful to remember that your test is still there in your head, the challenge is not to remember the test, but to calm down enough that you can access it again. Instead of following the feeling of panic and searching desperately through your head for the next movement, you will be more successful if you focus on relaxing and trusting your instincts. The knowledge hasn’t abandoned you; you’ve abandoned the knowledge. See some of the earlier answers for tips and technique to manage nerves successfully, such as developing skillful breathing and facing the fear of failure and mistakes head on.

Once we have learned a test it is remembered by our subconscious mind. Our job is to maintain our focus on the present moment and trust that we will know what to do and where to go when we get to the next movement. This is the way we tend to ride our tests when practicing at home without the pressure of a mistake hanging over us. Practice learning your tests with this type of moment-to-moment focus. Also, visualise how you are now going to react differently if you get lost in a test again in the future. Instead of following the panic, you will return to calm and trust that what your instincts are telling you to do is correct. Stay emotionally neutral. When we try TOO HARD we get into trouble.

How can I manage the pressure and mentally prepare for a bigger competition? I will be heading to my first Area Festival Championship later this year and I am really nervous!

Congratulations! Remember that moving up to a bigger challenge is a reward not a punishment, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Also, it’s useful to know that nerves aren’t all bad, they can help us perform better in the right amount.  There is an interesting balance point between nerves and performance. Not enough nerves can cause us to underperform because we don’t care enough and are therefore easily distracted. However, too much nervousness can also cause us to underperform because we get equally distracted by our anxious thinking. A mentor of mine always describes it using the analogy of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Is your “porridge” too cold, too hot, or just right? We know our porridge is too hot when our nervousness is taking over our thinking and blocking us from trusting ourselves and the skills that we have invested thousands of hours into learning and refining. When our porridge is too hot, we often overthink things and start trying too hard, which leads to tension.

So how can we cool down our porridge? It helps to think ahead and identify what will be different about riding in a championship and what will be the same. Make a plan for how you will react to and deal with what’s different and remind yourself that the test will be exactly the same as previous competitions. In fact, the main thing that will be different will be your own brain telling you this is a way bigger deal because it’s a championship! What helps with this is to consider how you’re setting up your expectations for your championship debut. Aim for the stars, but don’t expect a perfectly smooth ride on your way there! There will be bumps along the way and that is completely normal. What matters is how well we manage those bumps. Be willing to make mistakes along the way, just ensure you learn from them

In summary, a little bit of nerves will sharpen your focus and help you perform. However, if you feel those nerves tipping over into “hot porridge” either before or at the competition remember that you need to dial back to “just right.” Find your way there by re-framing mistakes and what they mean, anticipating any new challenges and obstacles and preparing yourself thoroughly to meet those challenges, and reminding yourself that you have most of the skills you need already!