Athletes reaching the top of their respective sporting discipline can often hit a roadblock in performance. This often leads to them adopting an ‘everything to lose’ mindset.
Characterized by the pressure to perform when met with high stakes from previous sporting achievements, athletes can be plagued by overbearing messages that place overwhelming expectations upon their shoulders. This often leads to stress, cautiousness impeding performance, and, in the long run – burnout of the sport they love. Mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety may also develop through this mindset.
Consequently, we must counter this ‘everything to lose’ mindset to help our athletes adequately manage the overbearing nature of being at the top of their game. This article will focus on multiple schools of psychological thought in sports psychology, shedding light on how we can guide athletes away from harmful psychological messages and toward a more open, safe, and relaxed growth mindset that aids sporting performance and positive mental health.
The ‘Everything to Lose’ Mindset
When athletes adopt a mindset of ‘everything to lose,’ they feel a burden of expectation and high stakes derived from an intrinsic fear of failure. This thought pattern is often associated with competitors at the highest level who have achieved and fear ‘losing it all.’
Pressure to uphold titles, fear of disappointing others, and maintaining a sense of inner self-confidence are all factors that drive this common psychological message for accomplished athletes across diverse sporting disciplines.
When there are past successes to build from or mounting big events or matches coming up, a clear theme of ‘everything to lose’ materializes in conversation, with the athletes voicing pressure to defend their titles due to a fear of letting others down.
Although it’s often verbal , an ‘everything to lose’ mindset can also be nonverbal, such as a feeling, thought, or negative self-talk message. These messages can negatively impact an athlete’s performance, leading to limited risk-taking and overly cautious decisions due to added pressure, stress, and anxiety to perform.
An ‘everything to lose’ mindset can damage athlete performance and mental health. Adopting a growth mentality can help manage detrimental mindsets, mitigating their negative impact.
To learn more about positive mental health techniques, check out our mental wellness content on the ISNation App.
Adopting a Growth Mindset
Embracing a growth mindset is a way to describe the acceptance of challenges through learning, feedback, and mistakes for constructive change.
Rather than a fixed mentality that sees challenges as uncompromised threats that cannot be changed, a growth philosophy views tribulation as an opportunity for improvement. As a strategy for combating an ‘everything to lose’ mindset, coaches should actively work with athletes to develop methods of self-awareness that facilitate growth
Through the use of intentional words and even visualizations, athletes can learn to take challenging situations and put a favorable spin on them as a method of growth.
The ‘Nothing to Lose’ Mindset
Another growth mentality to consider is the ‘nothing to lose’ mindset. Athletes with a sense of ‘nothing to lose’ have a minimal fear of consequences. This mentality relieves pressure, instigating heightened creativity, risk-taking, and enjoyment levels due to less stress and anxiety – leading to better performance.
A ‘nothing to lose’ outlook sees challenges as a form of growth – a consequence of limited overthinking, instigating creativity and freedom to think, fuelling success. Shifting to this growth mindset concerns focusing on a journey toward triumph.
As an athlete, concentrate on the process of achievement and the steps taken to realize it, acknowledge your accomplishments, and recognize attainment remains yours (something no one can take away)—similarly, refocus your energy on what you love about your sport, and redefining your goals to reflect growth and improvement, such as asking yourself questions like, what do I want to get better at? – can aid in shifting to a ‘nothing to lose’ growth mindset.
For coaches, facilitating this mindset with the right language and environment for positive development can aid in this process.
Positive Athlete Development is a Mentality
As an athlete, the pressure to perform when met with high-stakes and overwhelming expectations can often lead to underperformance and negative mental health implications.
Developing a growth mindset can mitigate the potentially harmful impact of negative mentalities by turning sporting challenges into positive developmental tools for growth. Working with coaches and relevant figureheads to realize this is essential to positive athlete development.
For more information on methods of mental well-being, including meditation techniques and other free mental wellness tips for athletes, coaches, and parents, check out the ISNation App.
You can learn about:
- The Power of Words by Shedrick Elliott III, Head Coach at Rowan University.
- How to overcome your fear with James “Rob” Slade, Owner and developer of the Sport-Speed-Strength (S3) and strength and conditioning expert.
- The Answer-Based Mindset by coach Elliot Ptasnik, Assistant Head swimming coach at The Queens University of Charlotte.
