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“What you think affects how you feel, and how you feel affects how you perform.”
— Aaron Beck, In sport, thoughts move fast. Under pressure, they move even faster. Some help. Some hurt. And some, if left unchecked they kill performance.
We refer to these as ANTs: Automatic Negative Thoughts.
These are the rapid, often subconscious self-talk statements that pop up before, during, and after competition. Everyone has them, even elite athletes. But the amount and volume of ANTs tends to spike under pressure or after mistakes. Unless you learn to work with them, they can become a serious performance liability.
Thought & Emotion Management: Your In-Game Anchor
When it comes to managing your mental game during competition, your ability to manage your thoughts and emotions is critical. Emotions act as flags, signalling that something is happening - maybe pressure, frustration, opportunity, or threat. But it’s your response to those flags that determines performance.
Automatic negative thoughts, if left unchecked, can hijack your mindset and focus, dragging attention away from the task and toward internal noise. This cognitive interference often leads to hesitation, overthinking, and reduced execution quality in key moments. Learning to notice and regulate both thoughts and emotions is a foundational mental performance skill — one that separates athletes who crumble under pressure from those who stay composed and deliver.
Not All ANT's are BAD - But You Need to Know How to Use Them!
Not all ANT's are bad. Some can energize, focus, or prepare you. For example:
- “Angry ANTs” - a small dose of ANT's can raise intensity, awareness, and commitment. Like a spark, this can fuel performance when channeled constructively.
- “Alert ANT's” - thoughts that heighten readiness (e.g., “This is big - stay sharp”) can orient attention in clutch moments.
However, most ANT's need to be recognized and released:
- Frustrated ANT's (“Why can’t I get this right?”) put your attention to the outcome, instead of "The Process", your "Process" for getting things done.
- Doubtful ANT's (“Don’t miss this pass”) increase self-focus and tension, often leading to exactly the mistake the athlete fears.
- Catastrophic ANTs (“If I mess up, I’ll cost us the game”) spike anxiety and narrow cognitive bandwidth (thinking skills).
High-performing athletes learn to notice, name or label, and navigate these ANT's rather than being run by them.
Harnessing ANTs: Label, Accept, and Perform
One of the most effective ways to use ANT's to your advantage is to adopt a “label–accept–perform” approach:
- Label
When an ANT appears, don’t push it away or get tangled up in it. Instead, name or label it (“That’s doubt,” “That’s frustration,” “That’s fear”). Labeling creates psychological distance, reduces the thought’s emotional punch, and activates your self-regulatory systems.
- Accept
Acceptance doesn’t mean agreeing with the thought, it means acknowledging its presence without judgment. Everyone experiences ANT's, even top performers. By accepting their presence, you avoid wasting mental energy fighting them, which often makes them louder.
- Perform
Once labeled and accepted, refocus on the task at hand and act in alignment with your performance identity, not your thoughts. This is where mental toughness and psychological flexibility intersect. You don’t need to eliminate every ANT to perform well, you need to perform and execute despite their presence. That’s the mark of a mature mental game.
This approach aligns with Acceptance and Commitment Theory (Hayes et al., 1999) and has been shown to improve focus, reduce cognitive interference, and enhance performance under pressure.
3 Practical Strategies to Manage ANTs
- Notice and Label
Build awareness through mindfulness or pre-performance routines. When an ANT appears, mentally label it to create distance between thought and action. This disrupts automaticity and activates self-regulation.
- Replace or Reframe
Swap unhelpful ANTs with task-focused cues (“Eyes up,” “Strong follow-through”) or process affirmations (“I’ve prepared for this,” “Next play”). Evidence shows that instructional and motivational self-talk improves accuracy and confidence (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., 2009).
- Reset and Refocus
Pair cognitive strategies with physiological resets — like diaphragmatic breathing or quick grounding cues. This lowers arousal and clears cognitive space to re-engage with the task at hand.
The Science Behind ANTs
From a sport psychology lens, ANT's sit at the heart of cognitive appraisal (how you interpret what is going on) the way you interpret and evaluate situations in real time (Lazarus, 1991). These interpretations directly shape your emotional response, physiological activation, attentional focus, and ultimately, execution under pressure.
- Cognitive Behavioral Theory (Beck, 1976) shows that automatic thoughts influence emotions and behaviors often without conscious awareness.
- Research in self-talk and performance (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., 2011) shows that instructional and motivational self-talk can enhance focus, confidence, and motor performance, while negative or ruminative self-talk disrupts concentration and increases anxiety.
- Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck et al., 2007) explains why high volumes of ANT's can impair the brain’s ability to stay task-focused under pressure, leading to lapses in decision-making and execution.
Self-Reflective Question
What types of ANTs show up most often in your performance — and how do you respond to them in the moment?
Key Takeaway
Thoughts are powerful.
Use the few that help. Lose the many that don’t. Harness the rest.
By learning to label, accept, and perform through ANTs, athletes free themselves to focus on what matters most: executing their game under pressure.
Do you want help with your Mental Game?
For more information or to set up your own session with a Certified Mental Performance Consultant to help level up your mental game, click on the button below for a free intro session.
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References
- Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.
- Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Zourbanos, N., Galanis, E., & Theodorakis, Y. (2011). Self-talk and sports performance: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
- Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion.
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change.
- Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and Adaptation.
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