It's Okay to Be Unsettled: Helping Athletes Who Try Too Hard

Learn what to say when your most dedicated athletes care so much they tense up, and how to help them stay loose and trust their training under pressure.

By Scott K. Wilder · For Coaches

What to Say When Your Best Athlete Tries So Hard They Can't Relax

Scott | Game Ready Mindset

Key Takeaways:

Athletes who care the most tighten up the fastest — dedication becomes pressure, resilience becomes rigidity

Being with unsettledness means staying physically loose while the environment is chaotic — not being shaky, but trusting your body

The shift: Give permission, redirect to what they can control, then step back and let the body work

I have a pitcher on my team who tries so hard he can't relax.

Incredible dedication. Incredible resilience. He wants it so bad. And that's the problem.

When he's struggling, I can see it from the dugout. His body's tight. He doesn't swing through it — he pushes. He looks like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Head down. Jaw clenched. Everything forced.

He's not just pitching. He's fighting himself.

The Paradox: Your Best Athletes Break the Fastest

Here's what most coaches don't talk about: the athletes who care the most are the ones who tighten up the fastest.

You know this athlete. Maybe you coach them. Maybe you manage them at work. Maybe you parent them.

They work harder than everyone else. They show up early. They stay late. They ask good questions. They care deeply.

But when they hit a rough patch — when performance dips, when results don't come — they don't just get frustrated. They collapse into it. The trying becomes forcing. The dedication becomes pressure. The resilience becomes rigidity.

And the harder they try to fix it, the worse it gets.

Sports psychologists call this "explicit monitoring" — when performance pressure raises self-consciousness about movement execution, it disrupts the automaticity of well-learned skills. Your athlete who's trying so hard to fix their mechanics is actually interfering with what their body already knows how to do.

Your job isn't to make them care less. It's to give them permission to stay loose while they care.

What "Being with Unsettledness" Actually Means

I'm asking them to stay physically loose while the environment is chaotic. To trust their body even when their mind is uncertain. To stop fighting the situation and start working with it.

Not to be okay with being shaky. That's not what this is.

You don't need to know when the slump ends. You just need to show up loose for this pitch. Your body already knows how to pitch. When your mind gets tight, your body follows. Loose mind, loose body. Tight mind, tight body.

That's what I mean by being with unsettledness.

The Conversation I Need to Have

I haven't had this conversation with my pitcher yet. But I know what I need to say.

I need to name what I see first. Not the mechanics. The effort.

"I see you working. I see you trying. And I know you care. That's not the problem."

"The problem is you're trying so hard to fix this that you're making it harder to perform. Your body's tight. Your mind's racing. You're forcing it."

"It's okay to be unsettled right now. You don't need to have it all figured out."

Then I need to redirect him. This is where I think most coaches go wrong.

Telling an athlete to "stop thinking" or "don't be nervous" backfires. Research on ironic processes shows that trying NOT to think about something makes it more prevalent in your mind. It's like telling someone not to think about a white bear — now that's all they can think about.

So instead of telling him what NOT to do, I need to give him something external to focus on. Sports psychologist Gabriele Wulf's research has consistently shown that an external focus of attention — focusing on the movement effect rather than body parts — produces superior performance. The difference between "watch your arm motion" (internal) and "watch the catcher's glove" (external).

Here's what I'm going to say:

"When you feel your jaw clench, that's your cue to find your breath."

"Before you step on the mound: one deep breath. Loosen your grip. Roll your shoulders back."

"Focus on the catcher's glove. Not your arm. Not your release point. The glove. Your body knows the strike zone better than your brain does right now."

And then I step back. One pitch at a time. That's it.

What I'm Watching For

I can tell when he's forcing it versus when he's working with it.

When he's forcing it, his head goes down after a mistake. His grip tightens on the ball. His shoulders tense up, his jaw clenches. Everything speeds up — he's rushing to get to the answer faster, like if he just tries harder it'll click.

But when he's working with it, I see something different. He takes one visible breath before the next pitch. His hands stay loose. His shoulders come back instead of collapsing forward. The pace is deliberate, not rushed.

That's what I'm looking for. Not perfection. Just looseness.

The Shift

I think this conversation will help. I don't know if it'll make him pitch better immediately. That's not how this works.

But I know what happens when you give someone permission to be unsettled: they stop fighting themselves. They stop collapsing under the weight of their own expectations. They stay loose enough to let their body do what it already knows how to do.

The shift doesn't come from trying harder. It comes from letting go of the need to have it all figured out right now.

My job is to help him get there. To give him the conversation. To show him the physical cues. To step back and let him work through it.

The goal isn't to find the answer. The goal is to stay loose enough to let his training take over.

Further Reading:

Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure?

Wulf, G. (2013). Attentional focus and motor learning: A review of 15 years. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology.

Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review.

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