Esports Psychology is a 2023 article by Condor Performance’s Darren Godwin on the mental side of electronic sports.
The Mental Side of Electronic Sports
eSports is short for electronic sports.
Not an esports fan or competitor? Fear not as this article contains psychologically oriented tips and suggestions applicable across many performance domains. You may be surprised at just how much you can learn despite a lack of familiarity with esports.
What Are Esports?
Esports stands for electronic sports. They are essentially competitions between people playing video games. The most common electronic mediums are the personal computer (PC), a game console (Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo), as well as mobile devices. There are a wide variety of communities across each of these platforms that passionately dedicate themselves to their preferred game or games. Just like in actual sports, most competitors have one video game that they focus their attention on mastering.
Most esports competitions follow traditional sporting tournament formats. A lot of the most popular tournaments have open qualifications. This is very appealing to aspiring players as it means very low barriers to entry. On top of this are some massive money prize pools. The PC game, Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA2), had a total prize pool of just over $40 million US dollars in 2021. It is one of the largest prize pools in eSports and was achieved through the fans and community funding it. For additional context, the next closest in terms of the prize pool was the 2019 Fortnite World Cup which was $30.4 million USD. Other globally competitive video games have ranged between $2-$7 million USD. With these prize pools, competitors are trying to find more ways to improve their abilities. Hence a greater interest in eSports psychology over the last few years.
Both eSports and eSports Psychology are growing at an exponential rate.
Why Are Esports So Appealing?
For starters, video games are inherently enjoyable. They are designed with elements that combine challenge and reward which create positive reinforcement and provoke emotions. Video games are intelligently designed to give players feedback for achieving success. Such as animated celebrations for completing a task and uplifting sound clips paired with each successful event. You work your way through a problem and stumble a few times but then work out your own solution which results in a feeling of triumph. This is an experience that our brains enjoy a lot and so we tend to want to sensation that again.
From a competitive point of view, the two main elements these games provide are skill and a score. One of the earliest video game tournaments was held in 1980 by video game company Atari for the game Space Invaders. This was an individual-based competition where the winner was the person with the highest score.
Since the implementation of the internet, video games have been designed to be played only with other real people in the game. Now that creates an enjoyable experience that we are able to engage in socially with our friends. Esports are designed purely with competitive elements in mind and are very rarely played on your own. Think of it like trying to play tennis with just one person. Hence the new classification of esports for competitive video game titles. It is a seemingly simple recipe, put forward a challenge between two or more people and offer a prize.
Esports Psychology
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. Esports do not require any athletic or cardiovascular demands. The physical requirements are more related to fine motor skills with competitors needing to move a device (mouse or joystick) with millimeter precision by the hand and fingertips. This is an extremely similar set of skills to what we have across musicians, snooker, golf putting, and archery to name a few. There’s a lot to be learned from the training methods that have been developed in these sports and performance areas.
Processing Speed
Most of the mental challenges in esports come from higher demands on planning and decision-making. Top competitors tend to develop their visual-spatial and information-processing skills well. This is because they are required to scan through an image on a screen that contains a lot of information which then needs to be translated quickly into a decision. These processing skills are similar to ones required for soccer players, for example, to scan the field for a pass while an opponent is running at them.
There are a lot of similarities between chess and esports with regard to decision-making. Esports can differ by having a much larger amount of data as well as the decision-making taking place at the same time as opposed to turn-taking. To try to illustrate, in DotA 2, there are 5 players on each team. Each player can choose from 123 unique characters to control in one match. These characters then have 4 skills each and can purchase up to 6 items out of a total of 208. The players then actively control their character for an average game length of 40 minutes. You don’t need to make a decision for every combination at any given moment. However, I think it paints a picture of just how much data and situational combinations there are to process.
Focus
Given the amount of processing, it makes sense that esports competitors require a lot of focus and attention. Of all the information that’s presented which is the most important to focus on and respond to? Just like for physical sports, competitors can have difficulty on either side of the scale. Some may find it hard to maintain focus and others over-focus. It can be helpful to think of focus as being like the fuel of a vehicle. Step on the accelerator more (higher focus), the more fuel (focus) that’s used.
Tip: for your given title try to understand where the downtime or breaks are between moments that require high focus. Check-in with yourself and see if you have your foot down on the accelerator, you might be using up your focus when you don’t need to.
Emotions
Just like any other competitor most esports players want to win. And when we care about something along comes our emotions for the ride. Low confidence in our performance, and nervousness playing in front of a crowd for the first time. And maybe most commonly the worry of making a mistake. For esports psychology, the fundamentals are the same but the application might look different. Players will need to develop the capacity to accept those emotions while not having them impact their actions. A great place to start is to develop a reset routine. It can be as small as readjusting a piece of equipment. No matter how nervous or frustrated you might be you will always have the ability to adjust or move the equipment. You can read more about the concept of accepting emotions rather than fighting them here.
Team Unity
The average age of an esports professional in 2023 is between 20 and 26 years of age. More than half of the current titles are team-based and for a lot of competitors, this would be their first experience having to perform within a team. Unlike traditional sports, which have had the better part of the last century to organise themselves into communities and pass along their learnings, esports has yet to establish this structure.
If you are a younger competitor trying to plan your way to professionalism, or you are a parent trying to figure it out, there really aren’t any obvious clubs, teams, communities, or clinics that have an established system to guide these young competitors on what teamwork can look like. If you have any team sport experience, try to imagine what it would be like to only have your own play experience as a form of guidance.
Tip: Due to the demands of esports in terms of focus and decision making these games can make for ideal “cross-training” for competitors of traditional sports looking to target these crucial areas of mental toughness.
Esports and Health
Some of the best esports competitors in the world might be more relatable than you think. Many have enjoyed traditional sports from a young age and due to injury have repurposed their competitive drive into esports. Many of the top competitors understand the importance of taking care of their health and have wonderful physical routines at the foundation of their training. The top esports players look after their mental and physical health by lifting weights at the gym, running, and cycling. They are highly motivated individuals willing to invest their time to improve their performance.
The lack of physical exertion in esports makes it more complicated to have a clearer endpoint for practice. Taking care of your physical health plays a big role in mental performance and if you are looking to improve your mental game, this is a great place to start. Keep in mind that esports titles provide a lot of fun and when we combine that with motivated individuals it can be easy to over-practice. It’s important, therefore, from an esports psychology point of view to take these factors into consideration. From a neuroscience perspective, playing competitive video games with your friends is a very fun and rewarding experience. For a young mind, why wouldn’t you want to keep having fun?
Moderation Is Important
Moderation is important, too much of anything can be harmful. This is definitely a situation where we want to consider quality over quantity. If you are aspiring to improve your ability, start by looking at your health routines and try to understand what 1 – 2 hours of extremely high-quality practice might look like.
At Condor Performance we are really fortunate to have two psychologists who specialise in working with esports competitors and teams. Darren Godwin (author) is a Melbourne-based provisional psychologist whilst fellow Victorian Dr. Michelle Pain is hugely experienced in this domain as well. If you would like further information about working with either of these exceptional mental coaches please get in touch via our contact us page.
This blog has some of the best sport psychology quotes. It’s a smörgåsbord of quotes from coaches, athletes and psychologists.
There are millions of sports psychology quotes; we have sorted through as many as possible and only added the “best ones” to this page.
50 of The Best Sports Psychology Quotes
The right kinds of quotes punch well above their weight. For such short sentences, they can change our perspective. The challenge is picking through them all to find the best one. So we have decided to put on plastic gloves and sort through the trash (rubbish). Below are some of our favourite sports psychology quotes. As you’ll see, it’s a smörgåsbord of quotes from coaches, athletes, and psychologists. Furthermore, we have unpacked each quote a little. Essentially, providing a quick explanation about why it has been included in this ‘best sport psychology quotes’ blog. A number of these quotes are from our very own team of psychologists.
If you would like us to add your favourite sports psychology quotes, paste them into the comments section below. Enjoy, and please share with your networks. You have our full permission to copy and paste any of these to inspire, motivate, or whatever.
Comment: This is arguably the number one sports psychology quote of all time. It is universally applicable. Of course, if you want to tweak it from a psychological flexibility standpoint, it would become “whilst being bitter, try and get better.”
“There’s no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there is always something you can improve on”
Comment: If you want to pursue something in life and explore your full potential as an athlete or performer, you must do the work. Accepting the difficulty that comes from doing hard work is essential. As one of the greatest tennis players ever highlighted here, we can all learn from Roger Federer by believing that we can constantly improve in some capacity. A concept that is known in Japanese as “kaizen”.
“Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”
Comment: This is such a great sports psychology quote. So true. The medal, the trophy, and the prize money are just symbols. The real reward is the actual hard work. To this end, I know many medal winners who don’t even bother to display them. They are in boxes collecting dust somewhere.
“It’s not who’s put up the fastest time in the world that year, or who’s put up the fastest time in the previous four years, but who can get their hand on the wall first today.”
Comment: This quote perfectly sums up many of our early conversations with athletes. We have this idea that on game day, we need to be feeling great and thinking positively and that we won’t perform well if we aren’t. The reality is that no one feels great on game day. The athletes who come out on top are those who can put together the best performance despite how nervous they feel and how unhelpful their thoughts are.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”
Comment: This could be the most famous sports psychology quote ever. Why? Because it’s one of the best from one of the best.
“Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
~ Peyton Manning
“Pressure is a privilege”
~ Virgil van Dijk
“People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.”
Comment: We have this idea that athletes are superhuman. They don’t feel nervous or fearful and never doubt their ability. This isn’t the case. The top athletes in the world feel all the same things we feel before a critical moment, but through years of experience, they have just become good at performing with all of those unhelpful thoughts and feelings present.
“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them; a desire, a dream, a vision.”
Comment: I’m not sure ‘the greatest’ meant to infer the following, but anyway. Far too many of the sporting pathways overemphasise physical and technical aspects. There is far too little mental, tactical, and personal information.
“Dreams are free. Goals have a cost. While you can daydream for free, goals don’t come without a price. Time, Effort, Sacrifice, and Sweat. How will you pay for your goals?“
Comment: This great quote gives us a possible sneak peek into why UB was one of the greatest of all time. He worked very hard in practice. He then relaxed (or tried to, at least) on race day, allowing that Time, Effort, Sacrifice, and Sweat to bubble to the surface.
“I can only control my performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day”
Comment: One of the greatest Olympians of all time emphasized the importance of focusing on one’s own performance and effort. At Condor Performance, we believe in the importance of focusing on process over outcome, a sentiment echoed by Michael Phelps.
“I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.”
Comment: Michael Phelps on understanding the mind and how we can train it to help ourselves perform better. Phelps has always given significant credit to his mental conditioning as an overall factor for his success in competitive swimming.
“I was forced to learn a lot about psychology as a player, and as a captain to get the best out of others. There’s still a lot of scepticism about it in sport and the workplace, but dealing with fluctuations of form, and pressure, and being away from home is more important than your cover drive.”
Comment: This quote is not something we had encountered before researching this blog. It comes from one of the great thinkers of English cricket. It accurately explains that technical abilities (such as hitting a cover drive) don’t mean much without the mental side.
“Preparation is everything and focus is the key. It’s easy to say you gave it your all out on the pitch. But the point is if you’d prepared you’d have had more to give and you’ve played better”.
Comment: This is such a great point from the Manchester United legend. It sounds like he’s saying there is only so much you can do on match day. Performers who take shortcuts in training hoping to “bring it” on match day will likely be found wanting.
Comment: This quote was initially linked with Samuel Goldwyn but was later popularised by Gary Player. What he/they are saying is 100% accurate. If luck is the random stuff in sports we have no influence over; then we can reduce its role in terms of results by ensuring high-quality effort. You can read more on the psychology of luck in sports here.
“I got more bruises, grass-burns and cuts in practice than in match play.”
Comment: This quote is from legendary South African cricketer Jonty Rhodes. Despite retiring more than 15 years ago, he is still considered one of the best fielders ever to play the game.
“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
Comment: Click here to read a full article on the concept of natural talent.
Some Sport Psychology Quotes By The G.O.A.T:
These seven quotes by legendary sports psychologist Jonah Oliver are all taken from his Podcast Interview with John O’Sullivan. Listen to the full interview here: Episode 272 of Way of Champions.
“Our brain craves reducing uncertainty. Uncertainty is the hardest human emotion.”
Comment: I love this. Nerves are so misunderstood. They are just your body preparing you for something important.
“It’s not about positive thinking it’s about taking positive action, no matter what you feel. There are no gold medals for the best positive self talk at the Olympics. Sport is a behaviour.”
Comment: This is one of the top three sports psychology quotes of all time, in my view.
“One of the biggest errors we have made in elite sport is we use the word confident when we actually mean competent. I can’t sing. I am not competent at singing. Put six beers in me in a karaoke bar and now I’m confident … but I am still terrible at singing.”
Comment: In your attempt to perform better under pressure, do you spend most of your time just trying to reduce the actual pressure? If so, you may want to rethink your strategy.
“It’s not about motivation, it’s about connecting to what matters.”
Comment: In other words, stop trying to boost your motivation. Instead, consider your values and connect to what matters to you.
The Michael Jordan Section:
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Comment: This is arguably one of the best sports psychology quotes ever. It helps us understand that performances at all levels and types are full of errors. Knowing that processes (effort) and outcomes (results, such as winning) are separate is vital here. Knowing we have much more influence over the former as performers also helps.
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Comment: Again, Jordan shows us that it was his mindset that made him so special. Being able to distinguish between effort (“trying”) and results (“failure”) is so very important. One way to do this is to forget about being able to control anything. Instead, consider the amount of influence you have. The more influence, the more mental value you might put on those areas.
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
Comment: This quote is all about creativity. For example, did you stop during the coronavirus, which was full of obstacles? Or did you find another way to do the tasks you value?
More Quotes From MJ …
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.”
Comment: Actions and desires are not as linked as you might think. As sports psychologists and performance psychologists, we don’t do as much work on thoughts and emotions as you might imagine. Why? At the end of the day, especially in sports, it all comes back to actions. Would you rather kick the ball in the right way while thinking negatively or kick it incorrectly while thinking positively?
“The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.”
Comment: As knowledge of sports psychology and sports science explodes, we are at significant risk of getting away from the fundamentals. In other words, it is becoming harder and harder for athletes to stick to the basics. Great coaches can have it both ways. Their sports psychology knowledge can grow without letting this overcomplicate their coaching. Do you know what your fundamentals are?
Sport Psychology Quotes By Coaches
“It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.”
Comment: John Wooden is considered by many as the first real mental coach in sports. He was either the first or one of the first to take the mental side of performance seriously. In this sports psychology quote, he highlights the importance of never-ending learning.
“Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.”
Comment: Phil is most known for how we managed the tricky team dynamics of the Chicago Bulls team from the 1990s. We highly suggest you watch The Last Dance documentary if you are yet to do so.
“Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable”
Comment: This quote is more or less about the concept of flow. Flow is trying to find the sweet spot between too easy and too hard. As coaches or psychologists, we’re trying to help those we work with not only find this middle ground. But we also want them to have the skills to thrive once they find them.
Comment: I’m not sure whether Gary considers himself a coach, but this feels like the most appropriate section for his two quotes—the above and the below. I came across these two quotes while doing one of his online hot yoga sessions, and I instantly loved them.
Sports Psychology Quotes By Other Famous People
“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.”
Comment: Perfectionism is a common mental block in sports. A simple reframe can remove some of its motivational qualities without its ugly side. Instead of striving to be perfect, aim to just be better, and do this through the right quantity of high-quality preparation.
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
Comment: You might now sense a theme from some of these great quotes. Doing and thinking are not the same. Focus more on doing and less on thinking. Would you rather be the best thinker or the doer in your sport or performance area?
Some Less Famous Ones …
“Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.”
Comment: Have you ever heard ‘fake it til you make it’? Maybe a better version for sports psychology consulting is ‘fake it til you feel it’. This is so powerful. Waiting until you feel a certain way before you act that way is very limiting. If you don’t know how, hire an acting coach and ask them to help you. Or get in touch with us, and we can include this as part of a larger mental training plan.
“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”
Comment: It’s hard to be sure about this one. Does it mean that challenges in life are invaluable mental training? What is undoubtedly clear is the proposition that there is a choice about how we respond to adversity.
“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”
Comment: This is a similar message. Thoughts and feelings are not fused with behaviours. You can still do remarkable things regardless of how you thought and felt at the time.
“The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.”
Comment: In other words, separate feelings from actions. Accept the feelings but commit the actions. Then, remember you did this so you can repeat the process later. For a lot more on confidence, read this blog post by Harley de Vos.
Still More Quotes …
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Comment: This is a great quote. In sports, worrying about what others (teammates, coaches) think of you is common. Yet, it happens much less than we realise. Furthermore, this has been confirmed via some lab experiments.
Sport Psychology Quotes By Psychologists
“Multitasking is seriously overrated. Try to do one task at a time and learn to do it with more purpose. “
Comment: I could write a whole book on this subject. Maybe I will one day! By multitasking, I am not referring to doing more than one thing at a time. After all, breathing is doing. It’s about trying to complete more than one non-automatic task at a time. For example, eating your lunch and typing an email. In my view, these kinds of tasks are always best of being done separately. There are many reasons, but the main one is that this kind of multitasking compromises the quality of both tasks.
“They don’t hand out winner’s medals to those who were feeling the best on the day, nor to those who were thinking clearly and positively. The medals only go to those who did the best.”
Comment: This sounds similar to one of Jonah Oliver’s quotes above, so I will give him credit for it. But I like my version, too.
“We have this thing in our mind of I gotta feel perfect, calm and confident and THEN I’ll perform well. Mate, if that’s the case you’re going to perform well a very, very small portion of the time.”
Comment: This quote is taken from the first few seconds of Peter Clarke’s interview on the podcast Under The Lid with Scolls, Buck, and Burkey. Once again, it points out that we don’t need to feel a certain way to execute our motor skills under pressure. In fact, waiting to feel that way will limit the number of chances you give yourself.
“Listen to everyone because even an idiot will have a good idea once or twice in their life. Then evaluate and pick out what works for you and commit to it.”
Comment: Our own James Kneller reminds us about the importance of listening. In sports, we often talk about the importance of experience. Well, that experience is comprised if you repeatedly listen to the same people all the time.
Sport Psychology Quotes By Unknowns or Those Who Wish To Remain Anonymous
“You are NOT your thoughts.”
Unknown
Comment: This quote might not even qualify as a quote. Maybe it’s just a fact. And indeed, in the work we do as sport and performance psychologists, it’s a fact worth remembering. These five words are so powerful that they are the ideal final sentiment of this extensive list of quotes on sports psychology.
“Ambition beyond ability is almost as bad as having no ambition at all.”
Former TV Sports Broadcaster
“Leave while they still want you”.
Former TV Sports Broadcaster
“Champions have their triumphs before millions and their failures, the later is the real test of character.“
Former TV Sports Broadcaster
Comment: One of Australia’s best-known and loved television sports broadcasters kindly submitted these three quotes. Understandably, he has requested that we do not use his name.
If you know of a quote that does appear above but feels it should, please add it to the comments section below, and we’ll add it next time we update this page.
