How to enjoy sport without suffering for the results?

Sport has been one of the most important human experiences for millions of people for millennia. It is not simply an entertainment or a way of living the present through fun; in many cases it acquires a practically spiritual dimension, both for the people who experience the sport as individuals (whether by watching it or participating directly in it) as well as for societies in general, which project their identities, their values, their fights etc.

Now, the fact that we put our emotions on the line every time we experience sporting events does not mean that we cannot enjoy them because of experiences such as fear of defeat, stress or obsession with trying to control what happens on the field of game. In this article we will talk precisely about it, focusing on athletes: How to enjoy sport without tormenting ourselves thinking about the results?

• Related article: "What is Sports Psychology? Learn the secrets of a booming discipline"

The link between stress and sport

In sport there is always, to a greater or lesser extent, a tension between what we know we are capable of doing, and what we want to achieve. This is one of the pillars of the dynamics of competition, which can be based on the interest in competing against oneself, compete with another person or another team, or both at the same time (this last option is the one that occurs most frequently, in the practice).

This tension means that sport is always associated with stress and a certain level of anxiety. It is not a bad thing in itself, far from it; it is the product of the set of biological and psychological adaptations that allow us to face new challenges and solve them (without limiting ourselves to always apply the same strategies and techniques), and it is also a good part of what makes us interested in sport, in the first place place.

If sporting events did not have that ability to put us in "alert mode", they would produce more than indifference in us. They would not have the capacity to stimulate us physically and intellectually, since in the end all sport is based on a series of arbitrary rules.

Thus, only with what we already know about sport, we already come to the conclusion that these practices do not provide us with a simple form of pleasure and well-being. and without nuances, comparable to the consumption of sugar: it makes us feel good, but at the same time, it makes us feel a little bad, because anxiety and stress are not nice. That is grace: it is a type of complex experience, capable of being linked to all kinds of emotional processes through which we experience life.

• You may be interested: "Types of stress and their triggers"

How to enjoy sport without giving in to the desire to suffer?

Now, one thing is to feel a certain tension and stimulating discomfort, and another is to turn the sport into something that we keep clinging to just to flee from fear. Fear to fail, fear of making it clear that we are not as skilled as we thought, fear of reaching the conclusion that hundreds of hours of training have been useless...

If we get into those toxic emotional dynamics, the time we dedicate to sports will not only bring us nothing good, but it will be a cause of psychological exhaustion that will make us more vulnerable to psychopathologies: insomnia, phobias, generalized anxiety, depression, etc.

To avoid this, it is very important to find a balance between emotional involvement and the ability to analyze what is happening to you from a healthy distance. That is to say: we must learn to self-motivate ourselves, but without linking all our self-esteem and self-concept to the objective result of a game or a sports competition. We must know and feel that we are more than an athlete; we are a human being who has chosen sport as one of his ways to promote his personal development and self-realization.

• Related article: "Types of motivation: the 8 motivational sources"

The key is the state of flow

The state of flow is the concept that describes that psychologically healthy and stimulating balance between the difficulty of a task and the set of skills and aptitudes that we put in place in the here and now to solve that challenge. It is an experience that happens when our consciousness fits perfectly into the needs that the situation poses to us; we are absorbed in what is happening.

But although it may seem contradictory, to be in a state of flow in sport we first need to learn to distance ourselves from it; that way we will be able to play without carrying obsessive thoughts about failure, catastrophic predictions about what will happen (and which are a anticipatory anxiety factory), the limiting beliefs that harm our self-esteem and attribute to us everything bad that happens on the pitch (whether or not our).

In other words, to enjoy sport we must be aware of the importance it has for us, but without merging our identity as people with our identity as machines for practicing sports (oriented only to offer results). This will allow us to both perform better and learn from our mistakes., since looking back and analyzing ourselves will not cause us great emotional pain.

Some tips to achieve it:

• Practice Mindfulness.

• Use visualization techniques to lose the fear of hypothetical situations.

• Manage your time by keeping a clear schedule that includes breaks (this will prevent you from falling into procrastination and from being paralyzed by fear and guilt).

• Use controlled breathing techniques to mitigate stress levels when they get too high.

• Keep an emotions diary (they will help you enhance your self-knowledge and detect dysfunctional thoughts).

• If you need it, go to the psychologist.

• You may be interested: "The 10 psychological benefits of practicing physical exercise"

Are you looking for professional psychological assistance services?

If you want to have psychological assistance or coaching services, get in touch with us.

In UPAD Psychology and Coaching We have extensive experience both in the field of psychotherapy and in sports psychology and the training of athletes. We intervene in processes such as stress management, the improvement of attentional focus management, self-motivation, time management in training routines, detection and neutralization of limiting beliefs, and plus. In addition, we offer our services in person and also online through video call sessions.