What Inside Out 2 Teaches Us About Sports Performance Anxiety
Last week, I took my family to see Inside Out 2 at the movie theater. Reminder, “Inside Out” is the series that follows the 5 Emotions- Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust- of a little girl, Riley, and shows how our emotions impact our decision making and perception.
In this second movie, Riley, now a teenager, enters puberty, where we are introduced to new Emotions- Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Boredom- and how they interact with the OG Emotions, thus impacting Riley’s mood, perception, and decision making.
This isn’t a movie review, so all I’ll say is– go see it. But I will give it a 5-star review for how they portrayed Anxiety. In this blog post, I wanted to share some observations about their portrayal of Anxiety & the truths we learn about Sports Performance Anxiety.
#1 Anxiety is not “bad.”
One of the things I appreciated most about this movie was that it showed the benefits of Anxiety. Something I see too often is anxiety being used as an excuse. Do you suffer from anxiety or do you experience anxiety? Because those 2 are very different.
I once heard a saying that went something like this, “Our bad traits are our good traits run amuck.” The same is true for Anxiety. Anxiety is not bad, Anxiety run amuck is bad.
One reason Anxiety seems “bad” is because it runs amuck so easily and it plants itself in our brain and makes itself comfortable.
We saw this illustrated so well in the movie. Anxiety moves into the control center and very quickly it starts adding its memories to the core memory center. None of the other new emotions did this, but that is Anxiety’s M.O.
#2 Anxiety has an important preparatory purpose.
Above all else, Anxiety is a planner. And making a plan is very important to athletic success. Ever heard of goal setting? Planning. Process orientation? Planning. Anxiety does an excellent job of preparing for upcoming events.
So to Point #1, for us to reap the benefits of Anxiety without its drawbacks, we need to keep it from running amuck, meaning we need to be deliberate with our planning.
If we were to plan out how the next year of our lives were to go, without being deliberate, it could look something like this.
“I’m going to practice 4 times a week throughout the off-season and get a personal trainer and make sure I’m playing on the best club team and make sure I go to those practices and travel with the travel squad. And if I do all that and it falls into place for me then I will achieve my goal of playing varsity next year.”
All of that pretty good, right?
But the problem with that is there will be challenges to those steps all along the way–things won’t go perfectly, and that is where Anxiety comes in and starts rearing its ugly head:
What if you only practice 3 times a week for one month?
What if you get the wrong personal trainer?
What if you don’t make the best club team?
What if a travel tournament interferes with a family vacation?
And the list could honestly go on and on–that is Anxiety running amuck.
Instead one of my favorite simple approaches looks like this:
One Year: Make the varsity team
In 6 Months: Make 60% of my shots in practice/games.
In 3 months: Make 50% of my shots in practice
This Month: Shoot 2000 Free Throws
This Week: Shoot 500 Free Throws
Today: Shoot 100 Free Throws
Can I make the Varsity team? The honest answer for most athletes is “I don’t know.” And it’s that lack of certainty that invites Anxiety to the party. We let it run amuck by planning outcomes goals all along the way. We can keep it reined in by being deliberate with our planning.
#3 Anxiety Attacks are real.
At one point Anxiety was running amuck and things weren’t working out, thus causing an Anxiety Attack. There was a clever piece of dialogue that, I thought, articulated an excellent way of calming Anxiety. Joy asked Anxiety “Is that happening right now? Then tell me something that is happening right now?” It brings our attention back to the present moment and away from the muck of the unknown future.
When we are experiencing the emotion of anxiety, we can name 5 things to ground us to what is happening right now:
What is one thing I can see?
What is one thing I can hear?
What is one thing I can taste?
What is one thing I can smell?
What is one thing I can feel?
#4 Anxiety & Fear get along.
Of the OG Emotions & the New Emotions, there were 2 clear ones that got along–Fear & Anxiety. Fear appreciated that Anxiety was preparing for future threats. These two get along really well. Anxiety plays upon our fears really well.
Imagine you were Anxiety and you were responsible for planning for the future. What sort of things would you plan for? I’d head straight to my list of fears. Those are the things that we need the most preparation for, so it’s a great place to start.
And even if we had no fears, Anxiety gets familiar with and creates fears for us. That’s why unknown things are so scary to us. It’s not a tangible thing that we can identify. Anxiety creates endless possibilities from the unknown of what we could be afraid of.
#5 Anxiety likes to take charge.
When the New Emotions showed up, it’s no surprise that Anxiety quickly asserted itself as the leader. It’s not like Embarrassment was gonna start calling the shots; that would be uncharacteristic–embarrassment likes to be alone. Envy wouldn’t take charge, it’s a natural follower. Anxiety, however, likes to flex it’s planning muscles and makes it seem like those preparations for the future are Mission Critical.
Though it feels like they can, your emotions can’t control you. Well, I guess a better way to say that is that emotions WILL control you if you let them. However, you control 2 important things about your emotions:
1- How you express that emotion.
2- How long you express that emotion.
Our emotions can work FOR our good
No spoilers here, but what finally brought resolution to the conflict in the movie is the same thing that brings resolution to our lives: Acceptance.
All emotions have a place in sport. As Riley played hockey, we saw that all emotions took a turn at the controls.
Anger helped her play well.
Fear kept her safe.
Disgust helped her stay healthy.
Joy helped her find enjoyment.
Sadness helped her express empathy.
Anxiety helped her set her goals.
Envy helped her find a good role model.
Embarrassment kept her socially safe.
Boredom helped her keep things simple.
Some emotions may be more important to athletic success than others, but ALL emotions have a place in sport. What matters is our ability to manage those emotions and express them deliberately.
If you want help managing your sports performance anxiety, request a free 15-minute consultation to get started!
Start building your mental toughness today!
