Overcoming the fear of failure

[Sportyparent]

Does anyone have any advice to help children that struggle to overcome the fear of failure?

This hits close to home! I am a former college athlete who grew up competing at a high level, and I suffered from the same thing — I call it “playing not to lose.” Huge difference between that and “playing to win.” A few things that helped me over the years:

1. redefining success as all or nothing. Binary thinking (if I win, that’s success, if I lose, I failed) puts an athlete under extreme pressure because there are only two possible outcomes. Instead, I began stretching what my version of success was for each match. Could I execute the game plan I made with my coach for half the match? For the full match? Could I correct one bad decision or mistake and consciously avoid it for the rest of the match? Could I have a match that went longer than 30 mins? 45 mins? All of these things seem small individually, but altogether they’re the ingredients an athlete needs when they get stuck in. “Winning” is a house built brick by brick, so start treating each game or match as stacking a new brick. You’re no longer playing to “not lose” — you’re flexing your competitor muscle without the pressure of feeling like you must win at all costs in order for this to all be worth it.
2. Second: mental rehearsal. Also known as scripting, or for some, visualization (but I actually write things down vs just imagining them). Actually play out exactly how you envision the game/match going, especially the beginning. I find it weirdly helpful to visualize mistakes or things that don’t go as expected so I can “live them out” first. That way, if they do happen in competition, I don’t panic because I’ve already been through this and told myself how I’d approach the mistake before the competition even started. This helped me normalize the idea that some things WILL go wrong, so that when they did, it wasn’t unexpected - and I actually had the wherewithal to course correct in the moment.