The Sport Psychology of Success

How your definition of success impacts your performance & satisfaction

The Sport Psychology of Success

If you are someone who feels like your self-worth is dependent on your performance; if you use your achievements and pursuits of excellence as a mechanism to try to earn confidence and finally feel good enough; and if you experience so much anxiety that it makes you want to shut down and walk away from your pursuits, you are not alone, and you are in the right place.

There is a hidden battle that so many high achievers are fighting on a daily basis. This battle is oftentimes misunderstood by supporters, and misunderstood by the athlete themselves. The battle is perfectionism. One aspect of perfectionism, as I have come to know it, is the instinct to put your sense of self-worth or your confidence on the other side of an outcome or on the other side of an achievement. When things are going your way, this often does not feel like a problem—in fact, it tends to feel great. If you put your sense of self-worth and confidence on the other side of making the team, and then you make the team, great! Now you feel confident and full of worth… until we move the goalpost. If you put your sense of enoughness on the other side of hitting a certain number in sales, and then you hit that number, great! Now you feel enough… until you move the goalpost to a new number.

The reason perfectionism can be so insidious is because it is often misunderstood as the most effective (and only) way to be successful. After a lifetime of using it as a tool for motivation and achievement, we start to believe that it is essential for that achievement. Unfortunately, it is not until perfectionism starts hurting us that we ever stop to question the method… after all, it was working so well up until this point.

There are many facets that factor into perfectionism, and therefore many facets that would need to be addressed in order to unlearn perfectionism and adopt a new way. For the sake of this article, we will focus on the instinct to put your sense of self-worth or your confidence on the other side of an outcome or on the other side of an achievement.

We have addressed the ways in which this feels helpful at first, because it feels like you are controlling your self-worth and your confidence when things are going your way. However, what happens when things stop going your way? What happens when you have attached your sense of self-worth to getting a job, making the sale, making the team… but then you don’t? What happens when you attach your permission to feel confident to your boss or your coach liking you and choosing you for the promotion or to be a starting player… but then they don’t? You are then left feeling low self-worth, low confidence, and most of the time very anxious. If this cycle goes on for long enough, it starts to lead to ideations of quitting. That is because as high performers, we are used to winning and succeeding. We like to feel good, adequate, and competent, and when we don’t feel those things, we feel stripped of our self-worth and our confidence. The human brain doesn’t like feeling bad at things, and so oftentimes, in order to protect itself from feeling bad, the brain will reason that you should just change jobs, industries, sports, or goals. The perfectionistic mind tells us that we can’t mess up if we never have the ball, if we never step on the field… but let’s back up.

This cycle started because we put our sense of self-worth and our confidence on the other side of an achievement, an outcome, or on the other side of our performance. Yet, we do not have complete control over those things. In other words, we are hinging our self-worth and our confidence, to some degree, on random and uncontrollable variables. Let’s read that one more time: we are determining our self-worth and our confidence, to some degree, on random and uncontrollable variables. Hopefully, something that felt incredibly helpful at one point can now be seen for what it really is: incredibly dangerous. So, what do we do?

Redefine success based on process instead of outcome (release attachment to outcome).While it may seem like we have control over the outcome because we influence it, the reality is that we do not have complete control over the outcome of anything. What we do have control over is the process that we engage in. Succeeding at the highest level in any area will require you to refresh your own definition of success based on what you can actually control. The reason this is so important is because many people don’t realize that a huge component of your motivation and will to persist in the face of setbacks has to do with your sense of competency. Simply put, humans don’t like being bad at things and will often avoid things that make them feel bad. However, your perception of your competency doesn’t actually have to do with just your performance. It is the difference between your expectations and your appraisal of your performance. By redefining success based on your process that you can control, instead of an outcome that you cannot control, you give yourself the opportunity to maintain a sense of competency that will create motivation and resilience in the face of inevitable adversity.

Define success as where you are, not where you are going (rely on competency to drive you forward, not your inner critic).Many of us are taught from a young age that we need to set big goals and dream big dreams in order to be successful. While it is true that big goals and dreams are important, somewhere along the way we start to conflate big goals and dreams with expectations. We believe that having incredibly high (and often unreasonable) expectations for ourselves is the key to being successful, when in reality it is stripping us of our sense of competency. We become so preoccupied with where we “should be” that where we are feels like a constant failure. Even though it feels bad, we often withhold the permission to change; we withhold the permission to feel successful in the present moment, believing that if we “lower our expectations” and allow ourselves to feel successful, we will stop being motivated to achieve and succeed. However, when we learn to define success as where we are and learn to give ourselves credit for all that we have already accomplished and the work we are currently putting in, we are better able to complete the task at hand AND increase our sense of confidence, competency, and motivation to continue on.

Redefine success based on controllables. We often define success based on outcomes, because that is what we have been conditioned to celebrate. However, by defining success based on outcomes, we are, to some degree, hinging our sense of self-worth and confidence on random variables that have nothing to do with us. Not only is it not helpful, it’s also not accurate. By redefining success based on controllables, you reclaim your sense of self-worth and your confidence.

Journal Prompts: 

1. How do I currently define success? 

2. How can I redefine success based on ‘controllables’ & ‘process’ 

3. How can I give myself credit for the ways in which I am already successful (Optional: How would the version of you 5 years ago view all that you do and have achieved in the past 5 years.)

Each and every one of us has a unique relationship with success, and our own unique obstacles to being able to reclaim our power. If you would like to start exploring your own, try working through these journal prompts or reaching out to one of our expert sport psychology providers or therapists for athletes and high performers. At The Mental Edge, we are a Boston-based sport psychology and athlete mental health therapy practice that focuses on helping high performers release their anxiety and live their fullest potential. Reach out today for a free consultation.