The Cost of Overthinking During Competition

Open your calculator app.

Think back to the last mistake you made during competition. How long did it actually last? Half a second? Two seconds? Five?

Now estimate how long you've spent thinking about that mistake. Thirty seconds? Ten minutes? Three days?

How many times longer have you spent thinking about the mistake than actually making it? Do the math.

What number do you get?

You've probably spent dozens—or even hundreds—of times longer thinking about the mistake than in making the mistake itself.

Now ask yourself one question: Does that seem like a wise investment of your attention?

The problem isn't that mistakes capture our attention. The problem is how long we allow them to keep it.

A common thing we hear from our clients is, "I struggle to reset after a mistake." Or, "I can deal with one mistake, but if I make another one, I might as well just go home."

Mistakes matter. They're how we learn, and every athlete wants to improve. We need to notice our mistakes if we're going to benefit from them.

In other words, focusing on the mistake means your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Our brains are remarkably good at detecting errors. In fact, neuroscientists have named this response an Error-Related Negativity (ERN). Within a fraction of a second of a mistake, your brain automatically generates an ERN signal. You don't consciously choose this—it happens automatically. Think of it as an internal alarm that something didn't go according to plan and deserves your attention.

Noticing our mistakes is essential if we're going to learn from them. The challenge is that the ERN tells us somethingwent wrong, but it doesn't tell us how long to spend focused on it.

When we hold ourselves to high standards, mistakes can feel especially significant because they violate our expectations. That can make it difficult to disengage our attention, even when it's no longer helping us perform.

Once you've identified what happened and what you want to do differently next time, continuing to replay the same mistake rarely produces new insight. Save the replay for film—when it's actually useful. During competition, notice the error, extract whatever lesson you can in a few seconds. If the solution isn't immediately obvious, save it for later. Then redirect your attention toward the performance that's unfolding around you.

Performance follows attention

Once we've learned what we can from the mistake, the question changes:

Where does our attention go next?

When athletes tell me they're stuck on the last play, they're rarely thinking about the play itself anymore. They're thinking about what it means.

What if I do it again? What if I let my team down? I just cost us the game.

Their attention has shifted away from the task in front of them and toward imagined consequences. That's a problem because attention is one of your most valuable performance resources. Like any limited resource, where you invest it matters.

If your attention is tied up replaying the last shift, the missed putt, the turnover, or the shot that didn't go where you wanted, it isn't available for the next decision you need to make.

The competition keeps moving. If you're stuck on your last mistake, your attention doesn't move with it. You're still playing the last play instead of the one that's unfolding in front of you. That's rarely a recipe for success.

When you notice you've become stuck, simply recognize where your attention has gone and deliberately choose where it needs to be instead.

You don't need to stop thinking

One of the biggest misconceptions in sport psychology is that mentally tough athletes don't have distracting thoughts. They do. The difference is that they're quicker to redirect their attention toward the current objective.

The very best athletes don't ignore mistakes. They revisit them later using a structured process they've refined over years of practice. They learn everything they can from the error—just not while they're still trying to perform.

During competition, the goal isn't to empty your mind. The goal is to recognize when your attention has drifted somewhere unhelpful and invite it back to what matters right now.

A simple question can help: How should I spend my attention right now?

Whether you're leading the competition or trying to recover after a mistake, only one moment is still under your control.

The next one.

One final thought

Go back to your calculator.

This time, divide the length of the mistake by the total length of your competition.

Is that really the moment that defines your performance?

If not, why are you allowing it to define your attention?

Every second you spend replaying the last mistake is a second you're not investing in the next opportunity. Mistakes are part of sport. Learning from them is essential. Living in them is optional.