The following article appeared in the August 2007 issue of Australian Clay Target Shooting News. Our thanks to Michael Kruger-Davis for permission to reproduce his articles. See the "For Sale" page for details of a CD of his articles available for purchase. Michael
Kruger-Davis is a psychologist and a member of Narrandera Clay Target
Club. |
This article explores fear and anxiety in relation to sport. Some parts of this article appeared some time ago in another article entitled Fear and Anxiety. In past articles I have explored the elements of mental toughness which is defined as a set of beliefs about yourself, your work, your sport and how they interact. Those behaviours and beliefs; competitiveness, confidence, control, commitment, composure, courage and consistency are all skills that we can learn and adopt easily. Why then don't we all have them? Why aren't we all mentally tough all the time? What gets in the road of us being mentally tough? Before answering these questions, I asked what shooters would be scared of. The simple answer is that we get in our own way. Our own self defeating thoughts and behaviours are the roadblocks that undermine our ability to perform: fear, anger, anxiety, self-consciousness, and perfectionism, and stubbornness, lack of motivation, competitiveness, distractions and persistence. Fear is a mental response to a perceived danger or threat. It's a primitive response that allows us to fight or flee from a threat. The fight/flight response was necessary when as cavemen we wandered the jungle and had the threat of sabre-toothed tigers lurking behind every bush. We had to develop a system that allowed us to either stay and fight or get the hell out of there. The threats have now gone but as modem man we have retained the fight/flight response when the majority of our fears are not life threatening at all. Recently, I did a workshop with the cycling squad for the Southern Sports Academy. Not knowing much about cycling, I did a bit of research before the presentation and realized that fear was an integral part of the sport because of the dangerous nature of cycling. Crashing your bike during a competition is one risk but so too is the danger of training on roads and being at the mercy of car and truck drivers. So what is so fearful about clay target shooting? Most readers will probably have answered this question with "missing". But is it? Maybe the thought of missing and the fear of failure presents itself as our greatest fear. Look at the following statements:
1.
I am OK at practice but cannot follow through in competition.
2.
I am more confident about my shooting when I practice than I am in
3.
My performance is cautious because I want to win and afraid of
4.
I focus on the outcomes (score/results) and not the process.
5.
I am impatient in competition and want the improvements that
6.
I feel bad about myself when I do not perform up to my expectations.
7.
I worry about what others will think about my performance.
8.
I worry about letting others down if I perform poorly.
9.
I tense up in competition.
10.
I get too tensed up when I shoot and have trouble shooting in a
11.
I do not trust my ability and end up doubting myself.
12.
I try to be perfect.
If you were able to tick 5 of these questions then it is possible that fear of failure hinders your focus in competition and cause you to doubt and trust your ability. Whilst missing a target may seem bad at the time and may deny you the opportunity of winning, your world as you know it will not come to a screaming halt just because you missed a target. There won't be lightning bolts or terrible troubles that will beset you. The only thing that will happen is that you may be too hard on yourself: and the more you punish yourself the poorer you will perform and the fear of missing will be greater next time. This will happen because fear will lead to failure and the failure will lead to the fear of failing again and this will manifest itself as anxiety. So what are the common types of fears that athletes experience? According to Patrick Cohn, The Fearless Athlete, there are several types of fears that we all experience from time to time.
•
Fear of losing a match
or competition: you want to win so badly but
•
Fear of negative
social evaluation: the fear others will view you as a
•
Fear of embarrassment:
the fear you will feel embarrassed in front of
•
Fear of letting others
down.
•
Fear of putting in the
effort and not getting the rewards or shooting to
•
Fear of not meeting
others expectations.
•
Fear of being
rejected, losing respect or not gaining approval.
•
Fear of not performing
perfectly and making mistakes.
These fears usually manifest themselves as anxiety. Anxiety and fear are not the same; anxiety is your response to fear - apprehension, heightened vigilance, and hyperventilating, dilated pupils, sweating, racing pulse and running faster than a speeding bear. (Fambach, 2001) Farnbach defines anxiety as a state of heightened arousal of the mind and body, associated with a belief that the individual is at risk and that he/she has a diminished capacity to control what is happening, or what might happen, to him or her. Anxiety can range from mild to severe. The effects of anxiety can be on the mind and/or the body and can involve;
•
The emotions or
feelings - effects can be irritability, apprehension,
•
Mental or cognitive
functioning; the mind can be racing, frozen, disor
•
Physiological or body
reactions - can be either increased muscle ten
•
Behavioural patterns -
including restlessness, talking excessively, irrit The problem with fear and anxiety is that they have the ability to interfere with what we like to do. Because humans do not like being in an anxious state we often subconsciously do things to avoid it. If we are shooting well and are starting to get nervous about shooting so many straight, then when we miss a target we subconsciously feel relieved because now we do not have to worry any more about missing a target. The same thing happens when we freeze on the trigger; the fear of missing a target creates anxiety that stops our ability to move our muscles and therefore we can't even pull the trigger. This then makes us more anxious and so on and so on. Anxiety, self-doubt cannot exist if you trust in your
ability, feel confident in what you are doing and are competent in doing it. |