Helping The Anxious Athlete Stop Overthinking And Start Playing With Confidence W/ Sami Halvorsen

welcome back to the Raising Unstoppable Girl Athletes Podcast. I'm Coach Brie, an elite competitor coach for female athletes, and I'm really glad that you're here. Whether you are a sports mom who has lots of seasons under your belt, or maybe you're just getting started on this sports journey with your daughter, this podcast is for you to help you know how to build your daughter's confidence, get her to play to her potential, and enjoy this whole sports journey. For both you and for your daughter, because honestly, it's for both of you. So happy that you are here. Today's episode is a really great one. I had the opportunity to sit down and interview Sammy from the Teen Life Coach School podcast. Now, Sammy specifically works with teens with anxiety, so she helps teens manage anxiety and overwhelm. Stop overthinking and overanalyzing, be self-confident and love who they are. Sounds pretty awesome, right? And I know that as high achieving athletes who. Sometimes struggle with perfectionism with those, anxious socks before competing. We all likely have an athlete who has experienced this from time to time in her life, if not something that is on a daily basis that's impacting your daughter. So Sammy offers some really tangible strategies that you can be doing to support your teen athlete if she does struggle. With anxiety. Now, before we get into the episode, I have a shout out for one of the moms in our community. I was really excited to see what this mom posted within our private community. Her daughter, it's a gymnast, and I'm just gonna read what she wrote. She said I had to share some big wins from this weekend's competition for Coco and me for probably the first time since she started competing at seven years old. I was able to watch her compete and just enjoy. What an incredible athlete she is. Wasn't checking the scores or placements or doing the math, just being amazed at what she's been able to accomplish this year, and she went out there knowing her skills and routines weren't exactly where she had hoped they'd be by the start of the season, but gave it her all and was beaming after each routine, knowing she had given it her all. No holding back afterwards. She didn't dwell on her mistakes. She celebrated her wins and outlined what she was going to work on before the next competi. Wow. Pretty awesome. Specifically because I know some background behind, this mom and this athlete. They've been working for a while to help this athlete overcome some mental blocks and get to where she wanted to be, and this is a huge win. So I'm super proud of both of you, Laura and Coco. You should be proud of yourselves as well for committing to this process. And it just, You know, like a really freeing and relieving experience as a mom to be able to just watch, enjoy your athlete as she's out there without hyper analyzing things, we're trying to fix things. And then for Coco herself to be able to assess her performance like this objectively be able to move on, be able to know what she wants to work on without beating herself up. I mean, truly this is really. All right, moms, let's get into the episode today with Sammy of Teen Life School Podcast. I hope you enjoy. All right. Hello Sammy. Welcome to the Elite Competitor Podcast. Hi. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to be here. Yes, I'm excited you are here too. We're talking specifically about anxiety in athletes, and this is a topic that I hear a lot from parents and I'm experiencing, as a coach of athletes. You know, I see athletes who are managing. Anxiety and managing nerves. And so we're gonna get into, that difference between nerves and anxiety and all of that. But first, can you kind of fill us in on your background and what you do? Yeah, totally. I have to say that I love sports first. I am an avid pickleball player. Ooh, you're, I haven't been getting into pickleball too lately. Yeah. Late later on in my life. My body is kind of falling apart. I've done so many s. Sports and stuff, but now I'm totally into pickleball and I love it. and I love competition. It is one of my most favorite things in the whole world, is just like a good competition. So I understand the athlete mindset and the drive and, my personality was made for sports. But that being said, I am a teen life coach and I am the host of the Teen Life Coach podcast, and I work with teens with anxiety and that's kind of my jam. And I love the teens that I work with. I have coaching programs for teens. I am. Just creating my online course that's coming out for teens with anxiety and, they're so great. The teens are so fun, and I love to watch them change and grow and be able to understand their own brains and their minds so that they can have less anxiety and be like a normal teen. Right. There's so many teens that I'm like, I just want you to be happy and live your normal teen life. But there's a lot of anxiety that stands in the way. And so that's what I do. If that's what you're asking. Yeah. No, I just find it so fascinating because you work with teens with anxiety, which in my experience, I feel like that's most teens, right now. And so can you speak to kind of the difference between like a normal. Stress that, you know, we all experience in teens experience and when it crosses the line to what would be considered anxiety. Yeah, so everybody has anxiety, like all teens have anxiety. it's normal, right? We want to have anxiety, like when we're crossing the street and there's a car coming, like anxiety is what saves our life. Yeah. And so there's really good anxiety that we want to have in our lives, but then there's also bad anxiety and anxiety is good. Basically until it's not Ok. Right. and when it starts to become not so good is when it be starts to become debilitating and we're not able to do the things that, a normal teen would be able to do. Right. And we start avoiding things like our friends and going to school and avoiding activities that we used to love. so when we kind of start to live our. Around the anxiety. I would say that's when it starts to kind of be a problem, like the anxiety is winning in our lives instead of us. Mm. Yeah, that's a great distinction because I would assume our goal isn't to necessarily live a life where there's absolutely no anxiety, zero stress, because it's a, mechanism that actually helps us in many situations. Totally. So, yeah. Yeah. But when it gets to that point where it is, debilitating or, yeah, it just kind of averting from what we would normally do, I think that's a great perspective to have and, hopefully moms are seeing. All right, so this. You know, a, level that she can manage and this is, you know, too much. And am I right in assuming that that threshold is different for every teen? It's absolutely different for every teen, and it's absolutely different at different times in our lives. Right? Mm-hmm. like a lot of times we can be fine and then we have an event in our life that just kind of throws us, and that can make our anxiety worse. So it depends on our circumstances in our lives. Like a lot of kids who have changed, parents getting divorced, loved ones die, dogs dying, you know? Events that happen in their lives that can trigger a lot of anxiety. And so it really just, it is absolutely An individual thing. but like I'll tell my teens like, when was the last time you woke up? Five minutes before you had to leave? Like has your alarm ever not gone off? And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, so how did you get out of the door in five minutes? I'm like, anxiety. Anxiety is the thing that got you out of the door in five minutes. So it's not a bad thing. Like it really is to help us. We just. Nowadays our brains are more susceptible to using it in ways that we don't need it, if that makes sense. Totally. Yeah. So, one specific area where I see a lot of, athletes, the athletes that I coach in, the athletes in our programs are experiencing a lot of anxiety, is. Leading up to competition. And so I hear athletes saying things like, you know, even a day before competition, they like, aren't hungry. they're worrying about what's gonna happen, kind of overthinking things and just like working themselves up. They can't sleep. and then like right before competition, it's like they're. Thoughts are scattered. They, you know, they're just all over the place and it actually is, in some cases, impacting the, way that they play. It's not like you know, whistle blows and then it goes away. it's really impacting how they're playing. So can you speak to, like why this is happening in this certain situation? Yeah, totally. So, Let me just define anxiety for you to all the listeners so that they can better understand this. and the way that I like to define anxiety is anxiety, is uncertainty about the future. All right? So when it comes to competition and when it comes to athletes, like the uncertainty there is like, how am I gonna play? Are my teammates gonna be mad at me? am I gonna mess up? Are we. Win or are we gonna lose? am I gonna be a disappointment? Are my parents gonna be mad at me? Like I could go on and on about all the uncertainty associated with playing in a game and competing. So that's, the anxiety right there is, is basically all those uncertainties and I didn't even scratch the surface of the uncertainties. the reason why anxiety is so, Uncomfortable is because of the physical symptoms, like you were saying, like our stomach aches or we all have different physical symptoms when it comes to anxiety and It's our fight or flight mode, and so we all have different fight or flight modes, but yeah, it's just the reason it's so uncomfortable is because we have those physical symptoms with it, like the racing heartbeat or the urgent need to go to the bathroom or like the overthinking and the overanalyzing, like when we go into fight or flight, our brains are meant to like analyze and think and be quick and do all those things. And so it's. Body is physiologically designed to do mm-hmm. and it's just uncomfortable because it doesn't feel good. Right. Yeah. Okay. So that's totally in line with what I'm hearing from athletes. And honestly, as an athlete myself, I experienced that too. yeah, like, so you have the uncertainty about all the things mm-hmm. And then along with that, you have the uncomfortable physical sensations and you really do you feel horrible. Right. Okay. So what have you found helpful to help athletes navigate that anxiety, that pre-competition nervousness? Yeah, so, there's a lot I think the first part is to, one. Just recognize, okay, this is anxiety, and these are my physical symptoms of the anxiety that I'm having. Like, this is why I'm feeling like my legs feel like jello. It's just because my body's in like fight or flight right now. I think it's really, really important to label what we're feeling. Even the act of labeling our emotion, that decreases the emotion by about half. That way, it's not something that's unknown to our bodies, mm-hmm. It's like if we can label it, then we're like, oh, okay. This is anxiety. I see what's going on. All right. not such a big deal. My body is doing what it's designed to do. Mm-hmm. So first definitely label it. And then, and parents, you can help your teen or your athlete label it like, Help them learn the vocabulary about what's going on in their brain and in their bodies. Mm-hmm. and they, may not see it as like anxiety. They may see it as something else, like, I'm scared, or I'm just really nervous. Or, you know, like there's so many other ways and labels that teens might, you know, say like, okay, this is how I'm feeling. It doesn't always have to be, anxiety. So that would be the first one. I think a lot of times with the overthinking and the overanalyzing, that tends to increase our anxiety and our brains love to go to. all the things that can happen. Our brains love drama, Yeah. we love dreaming up things and our brains, just the way that they're made, they will always go to the negative and they will always see like, what's gonna be wrong? and primarily they're designed that way just to protect us. Mm-hmm. So I like to go to worst case scenario, like, okay, in your brain, what is worst case scenario For this game, right? And so those worst case scenarios might be something like, we lose or I mess up. What other worst case scenarios do you hear? I'm going to get pulled. My coach is gonna be mad at me. I'm gonna let my teammates down. Yeah. Coach being mad at me is a big one that I run into, like my coach is gonna yell at me, okay? Mm-hmm. And so we take those worst case scenarios and then we work through them. All right? So let's say your coach does yell at you right then. you're gonna feel an emotion, which you might feel embarrassed or you might feel judged or you might feel rejected. And knowing and understanding that the worst case scenario out of any situation is going to be an emotion. And teaching our teens that you can handle any emotion. Yeah. Right. You might feel disappointed. And that's okay. That's part of being human. You might feel judged, you might feel rejected, and you're gonna feel that way for a little bit, but you're gonna be okay. And. it's only gonna last for maybe 10 minutes or an hour, or it's gonna fluctuate. You may feel that way for a day, but you're going to be okay. And just realizing that whatever that worst case scenario emotion is, is having the confidence and be like, okay, yeah, I can handle that. I can face that. right? Because what are the other options? What are all the good things that can happen? Right? Yeah. that really just kind of put that in perspective. The worst case scenario was always an emotion. That is true, it's always an emotion. for example, I'm a little bit weird, but like, if I call my husband and he doesn't answer the phone mm-hmm. and then I call him again and he doesn't, like, my brain automatically goes to, okay, oh my gosh, something's happened to him. all this other drama, My brain loves to spin off about that. And then like I stop my brain and I'm like, okay, if something happens to him, worst case scenario is I'm gonna feel sad and I'm gonna feel devastated and I'm gonna feel overwhelmed and I'm gonna have a lot of. things to bear on my own. Mm-hmm. but those are all emotions and I can handle that. Like I know how to handle emotions and I'm gonna be okay. So really just teaching your brain and understanding and knowing like you can handle any emotion, but also like practice handling those emotions, like mm-hmm. So good at handling rejection, be so good at being embarrassed and being judged because those are actually the ways that you get better as an athlete. Mm-hmm. that's like true confidence. You know, when you talk about the difference between like fake confidence and real confidence and kind of the fake it till you make it, and the real confidence is that just what, what you're saying is our, athlete's ability to. Handle any of those things and get through it, when confidence is rooted in that, not confidence, that's rooted in like outcomes and you know, am I playing well? Confidence is like I can handle anything that's coming my way. yeah. And I love that. That's, how I define being confident, like self-confidence really is the ability to handle any emotion. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's huge. And so it sounds like athletes can be doing some pre-work in this area, like this whole process of kind of being aware of like, where's my mind going with worst case scenarios, let's go there. I know you have a process that's similar to kind of what we teach inside our programs too. That's around, you know, thought and motion. action result? Is it kind of how yours follows too? So athletes can kinda do that ahead of time? Yeah, I mean I think a lot of work on, thoughts is important, but I also, think like redirecting your brain is really important. Like when you are in a situation where your brain wants to overthink and overanalyze about all the things that can go wrong, I mean, We're focusing on 5% of what can actually happen and, I like to say, what's the other 95% of the scenarios that can happen right? Like, we can't do something right, right? We can make the winning play or we. You know, encourage our teammates or somebody can tell us good job, or maybe our coach can be encouraging, like, we're not gonna play a perfect game. But there are so many other things that can happen besides the 5% that our brain really just wants to focus on and not let go of. And I think that's really fun. Like when you make that distinction and be like, What else is possible here? How else can I play? And then when we focus on that other 95%, like that's what's gonna drive us in the game? And that's where we're gonna become a better athlete. Because those are the thoughts and those are the feelings that are driving us to, you know, actually play how we wanna play. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's so true. If our mind can create these like very negative scenarios, it also can create very positive scenarios. So, you know, absolutely. It's just, not the natural way of the brain and so it's a lot harder. Yeah. I love that. So it takes a lot of a, awareness kind of ahead of time. Now in those moments, do you recommend any strategies where, I'm about to go out and play and I am so nervous and I, you know, my thoughts are going all over the place. Do you have any like, Strategies for in those moments that you found are effective? Yeah, so I think in those moments, like when you're about to go play, and it's gonna be different for everybody, but I think it's really important to break down for you what really matters. Hmm. and rely on those core things and core beliefs that you know, which, a lot of the girls that I work with is like, my worth is not dependent on this game. Mm-hmm. right? Like, I am still an amazing, valuable person no matter how this game turns out. Mm-hmm. like, I am still awesome. Whether or not my coach yells at me, right. Mm-hmm. And then another one that I think is really helpful for teens is that, I'm still loved. At the end of the day, my parents still love me. and like, who's still gonna love you? No matter how this game turns out, right? Are you still gonna love yourself no matter how this game turns out? And really just kind of focus on those core beliefs, and if you believe those things, you know that no matter what happens, You're still taken care of. Mm-hmm. right? Like any athlete, It's so hard to not tie our worth to the way that we play and our being as an athlete. And I think that's just really important to remember. At the end of the day, your value stays the same no matter how you play. Right. Absolutely. Oh yeah. Those are such great reminders too. it's very easy to connect that worthiness to performance For sure. Yeah. And I mean, on that note, you hit on this a little bit, but what role do parents play in this? How can we help? And also where do you see parents potentially adding some unhelpful anxiety to their athletes? Yeah. So, I am one of these parents, my daughter plays soccer and she has a lot of anxiety about soccer and I love watching her play soccer. It's so fun for me. And so I think one of the most important things for parents to remember is that the way that your teen plays is not about you, we like to rely on our kids to make us feel good. Mm-hmm. And when our teen plays good, that means we can feel good. And when our teen plays bad, we tend to not feel so great or so happy with our teen. Mm-hmm. but really trying to disconnect. our importance as a parent, our feelings as a parent from the way that our teen plays. Mm-hmm. that's such a good reminder, yeah. It's really, it's not about us. The way that our teen plays is not about us. They are not there to make us happy. Like it's our own jobs to be happy. It's not our team's responsibility. Yeah. Okay. That's great. And so if a, if a parent is listening and they do have an athlete who just struggles a lot with anxiety, what would you recommend would be kind of first steps in helping, you know, maybe even from the parent perspective, what a parent can be doing and then, you know, where they should help provide resources for the athlete herself? yeah. So, um, one thing that I noticed that we do as parents is when our teen is feeling. we try to step in and fix it, which mm-hmm. really reiterates to the team that what they're feeling is wrong and I shouldn't be feeling this way. Mm-hmm. when it's normal to feel anxious, it's normal to feel nervous and all those feelings are okay. Emotions don't need to be fixed, right? We don't need to come in and rescue and save our kids from the discomfort. We really need to teach them how to work through the discomfort. And one thing that makes anxiety really worse is when we are having anxiety and. We get this idea that, oh my gosh, what I'm feeling is wrong. Something's wrong with me. I shouldn't be feeling this way. And so I would say as a parent, There's nothing wrong with feeling anxious. those are normal emotions, but to help your teen work through the emotions instead of trying to fix it or trying to distract, the teen from it. there's a lot of things that we do as parents to try to distract our teens from the way that they're feeling, or we try to help them avoid things or we end up accommodating their anxiety, which tends to make it worse. And so I would just say, Anxiety is a normal emotion, the more that we're like afraid of it and the more we're like, oh my gosh, we need to fix this, the more powerful it becomes. Right. Oh wow. Okay. That's also a really great reminder. and for, athletes themselves, as you're going over strategies, you know, you talked a lot about like thoughts and kind of managing where our thoughts are going and being aware of like, Our, internal worthiness regardless of how we perform. But, what are your thoughts on like breath work and utilizing, breathing to help kind of regulate the nervous system? Is there anything to that? I mean, breathing, it does help to like reset. just kind of your body. I'm an anxious person and it doesn't matter how much I breathe, I'm still gonna feel anxious. Mm-hmm. So I've tried a lot of breathing, exercises, they've just never worked for me. Yeah. And so I am not like a big, okay, let's work on your breathing. just because. I have such a hard time with it anyways, but I know for some people it does really work like When you do take deep breaths, it sends the message to your brain that's like in fight or flight mode. Hey, nothing's wrong here. Like, it's okay. And for a lot of people it does work. So I mean, my thing is, is. there's so many tools and there's so many things out there to help with anxiety and to make you a better athlete, that you really do need to find what works best for you and what practices help your body and help your mind. There's so much available that it's kind of one of those things that's like, oh yeah, let me, see if this helps. Or it's kinda like food before. A competition event like mm-hmm. different foods are gonna help different people play better. Some might hurt people's stomachs or you know, dehydrate them or whatever. So you kind of have to pick and choose and find like, okay, this is helpful for me. Yeah. Okay. That's a great point. we all have like, Different thoughts about what causes us anxiety. And every day I'm learning something new where I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that that was a thought that was causing anxiety for a teen or mm-hmm. It's just our, our minds are all so different. Yeah. Oh, so, so important. So, so important that also a athletes are figuring this out for themselves too, and seeing what's working and, trying things. So if they're just kind of left out there, you know, fend for themselves. I don't feel like that's the best. So we as parents also need to give them the opportunities to develop these skills and Yeah. And, the parents' role is really, really important. I would say. Like in just helping the teen understand that these feelings are normal and just being like, Hey, you know, at the end of the day, I'm still gonna be right here and I'm still gonna love you. Mm-hmm. And there's nothing that you can do that's gonna disappoint me. Like, I love you. Yeah, that's so good. And it's so important we think that maybe our kids think that, like they should know that they, you know, I don't need to tell them they, know that they should know that, but sometimes they're not. Because when they are telling you and telling me kind of the thoughts that are causing anxiousness in them, it is around that like disappointment and letting people down. And so, yeah. I don't think you can overemphasize that. Yeah. and some of us are just, to put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Maybe it's not coming from our parents, but it's coming from internal pressure, and that's where I'm saying what are your core values? Like if you mess up, you need to know that you are still gonna love yourself and have a good relationship with yourself. Because sometimes the pressure doesn't even come from parents or a coach. It just comes from us because some of us are wired that way. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. A good. Cool. Well, Sammy, this has been really, enlightening and helpful to me, and hopefully for the other moms and parents that are listening, they're picking up some awesome nuggets on how to help their athlete who might struggle with anxiety. Can you let us know where we can find you to learn more about your work? Yeah, so I am on Instagram at the Teen Life Coach. You can also listen to my podcast, the Teen Life Coach Podcast. That's all on all platforms, and my website is Knowing Up. That's K N O W I N G U p.com if you're interested in any of the programs that I have, Cool. Yeah, we'll link that. Is your podcast. for teens or for parents? It's for teens. a lot of parents still listen to it just cuz it helps them understand what's going on inside their teens brains I would say there is quite a few parent listeners. parents also just like to listen to it with their teens. Oh. So there, there's a good mix. if anything, if you're a parent, like go and listen to it so that you can help to understand. Is going on inside your teen's brain. And I think that's always helpful to be like, oh, okay, this is why this is happening. Okay. This is how I can better accommodate that or help with that. Yeah. Okay. That's great. And it's really cool that that's a resource for teens too. but yeah, a great thing also for moms potentially to like play in the car. All right, well thank you again Sammy, and I really appreciate you coming on. and your time and expertise in this area is, just really, really great. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here and to be able to share and you guys are doing amazing work. Thank you for helping those athletes cuz they need it. It's hard, it's hard sometimes, It's, yeah. All right. Thanks again, Sammy.