This document discusses various emotional factors that can impact athletic performance, including anger, fear, and confidence. It notes that anger needs to be controlled and channeled properly to have a positive impact, while uncontrolled anger can lead to poor decisions and reduced focus. Fear of failure or injury is also discussed, and how it can cause athletes to lose confidence or take fewer risks. However, fear can also motivate intense training. The document emphasizes that confidence derived from happiness and belief in one's abilities allows athletes to take risks, focus on their skills, and perform at their best even under pressure.

1. Emotional Factors
Impacting on Performance

2. Emotional Factors
•Anger
•Fear
•Happiness (Confidence)

3. Anger
• Anger is an emotion normally
associated with being offended,
frustrated or wronged.
• Managing anger is extremely
important in sport to avoid reacting
negatively to a situation.

4. Anger
• Anger in sport can be very useful in the
right situation but more often than not
it is about how you control your
aggression that makes the difference.
• Often opponents look to irritate each
other in the hope it puts them off a
game plan or affects their performance.

5. Anger
Watch this short YouTube clip
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_gI7-
2gvhw&index=1&list=PLMn5YXzQucSFwTNu1FQ0Rf2TcwBBkT
CZ5

6. Anger - Tasks
• What may happen during a performances that
could result in you experiencing anger?
• What negative impacts might losing control of
anger have on an athletes performance? Why
may this be the case?
• In what ways may channelling and controlling
anger have a positive impact on performance

7. Anger
Impacts of Uncontrolled
Anger - Negative
Impacts of Controlling
Anger and Aggression –
Positive
 Poor Decision Making
 Breaking Rules –
Fouling
 Losing Focus on what is
important
 Retaliating to situations
 Disrupt team harmony -
Arguing with
teammates
 Can increase
determination
 Can increase
motivation
 Can increase
effectiveness of
actions e.g. tackling

8. A Netball player experiences frustration and anger after being effectively guarded in a
game:
• She starts to try too hard in the game
• She causes fouls as she is too keen to get the ball
• This causes her team to lose possession and scoring chances
• It gives the opposition more possession and opportunities to score
• She loses focus on her role in the team
• She starts to make bad decisions and finds herself being caught out of position
• This reduces the passing options her teammates have on the ball as she is not where she is meant to
be.
• She starts to interfere with the role of others in the team (getting in the way)
• She makes bad decisions when in possession of the ball
• She tries to hard to be successful
• She starts to always go for the difficult play
• Chooses the wrong passing options and often gives possession away
• Chooses to shoot in too difficult a situation result in misses and lost scoring opportunities
• She starts to get frustrated with her teammates
• She there performance for her own poor play
• Causes arguments within the team which reduces cohesion
• Teammates start to lose focus and therefore their performance drops
• Motivation of the team as a whole drops
• Players start not working effectively together

9. Fear
• Fear is an emotion induced by a
perceived threat, which causes you to
quickly pull away or, in sporting terms,
usually hide.
• In sport fear can be a fear of getting
physically hurt or it can be a fear of
failure.

10. Fear
• The following YouTube clips
Fear of Failure in Football
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZCE87XMx1Y&list=PLM
n5YXzQucSFwTNu1FQ0Rf2TcwBBkTCZ5&index=5
Fear of Failure in Tennis
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtjAs3YB36s&index=8&li
st=PLMn5YXzQucSFwTNu1FQ0Rf2TcwBBkTCZ5

11. Fear - Tasks
• When participating in sport what might cause an
athlete to experience fear?
• What affect might experiencing fear have on an
athlete physically and mentally?
• Choose 3 of the symptoms of experiencing fear.
Give an example of how these will have a
negative impact on performance.

12. Fear
Negative Impacts of Fear
 Experience negative thoughts and feel less confident in their
ability
 Athletes can tighten up and perform below their normal level.
 Can prevent athletes from taking risks due to worry about
what will happen if it doesn’t work. This can stop performers
trying something inventive that may be succesful
 Athletes can lose focus on what is important in order to
perform well as they are worried about the outcome. This can
negatively affect decision making
 Athletes can become indecisive as they fear their decision
being wrong

13. Fear – Positive Impacts
• Although fear of failure is seen as a predominantly negative
emotion, some athletes view that fear as something that has had a
positive impact on their performance.
• This quote from Tanni Grey-Thompson who won 11 Paralympic gold
medal medals during her wheel chair racing career give her view on
how fear help her perform to her best.
“The fear of losing made me train really hard. I was terrified of being
on the starting line and not having done everything I possible could”.
• A further quote from Sally Gunnell (Former Olympic 400m hurdles
champion) gives her opinion on how fear helped her level of
performance.
“I trained bloody hard because I was scared of losing”

14. Fear – Positive Impact
Champion Jockey A P McCoy talks about fear of failure
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D01KhiP4x2A

15. A Table tennis player experience fear of failure in a
big match:
• Only plays “safe” shots as worried about making errors
• Doesn’t put opponent under enough pressure
• Opponent can take the initiative
• Opponent can play attacking shot
• Puts player under pressure & results in losing points
• The player experiences self doubt and he feels tight.
• He starts to over think the situation
• His movements become less fluent and skilled
• Errors are made due to this which results in the loss of points.
• The player starts worry about the outcome of the match – In particular
worrying about defeat.
• He loses focus on what will help him perform well such as tactics
• He forgets his pre-match plan and stops playing the ball to his opponents
weaknesses
• His decision making is poor
• This lead to his opponent having easy chances to win points

16. Happiness (Confidence)
• Happiness is a positive emotion that ranges for
contentment to intense joy. A person who is
happy will feel good about themselves and their
lives in general.
• Happiness impacts on sport through impacting
on other qualities such as confidence and
optimism.

17. Confidence
• Confidence is commonly defined as the
sureness of feeling that you are equal to
the task at hand.
• Confidence is YOUR belief in YOUR ability
to complete a physical skill or task
required in your sport.

18. Confidence
Introduction to self-confidence
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIIqxYJX_I4&index=2&list
=PLMn5YXzQucSFwTNu1FQ0Rf2TcwBBkTCZ5
Impacts of confidence on performance
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB590DzHpM8&list=PLM
n5YXzQucSFwTNu1FQ0Rf2TcwBBkTCZ5&index=3

19. Happiness (Confidence) Task
In groups discus how being
confident will have a positive
impact on your performance in
sport.

20. Low Confidence – Negative Impacts High Confidence – Positive Impacts
 An athlete will experience doubts
that will impact on their ability to
perform to their best.
 An athlete may be indecisive or not
fully commit to their decisions.
 Distractions such as fear of failure
may cause the athlete to lose focus.
 An athlete will stay in their comfort
zone and avoid taking risks. If
possible they will try to hide when
performing.
 Athlete believes in their ability to
perform well and be successful
 Decisions are made and carried out
with conviction increasing the
chance of success.
 Don’t worry about negative
outcomes so able to focus more on
what is important
 A confident athlete is more likely to
take risks that can lead to success.
 A confident athlete will focus on
how they prepare and how they
perform and won’t worry about
what others are doing.

21. A handball player is happy with his role in the team. This leads to him playing with
great confidence during the game:
• He plays with a real self belief in his ability
• He is constantly looking to get possession of the ball.
• He communicates with teammates to let them know he wants the ball and is confident he can create
scoring chances. This creates passing options for his teammates
• His teammates confidence and motivation is increased due to the influence he is having on the team
and game. This takes pressure off of teammates
• His decision making is effective
• He doesn’t have any doubt in his decisions and executes them with conviction.
• He looks to player through balls at the correct time and doesn’t worry about losing possession. This
can create scoring chances.
• He shoots at the right time and doesn’t shy away from the responsibility
• He is willing to try out of the ordinary things when in possession.
• He isn’t worried about not being successful or what people will thin
• This often leads to him making unexpected plays
• This can catch defenders out and create scoring opportunities
• He can perform well even in highly pressured situations
• He doesn’t doubt his ability regardless of the situation and doesn’t worry about negative outcomes
• Even when under pressure he is calm and makes effective decisions
• His movements are fluent and skilled as he does not get tense
• He not effected by distractions as he is only concerned about himself and his belief that he will be
successful