Sport psychology and its big sister, performance psychology, are minefields when it comes to terminology. What I mean by this is that related terms are often and easily thrown around. Some of these words are more common than others. For example, ‘mental toughness’ and ’emotional intelligence’ are used and misused more frequently than ‘team unity’ and ‘flow’.
Those of you who are familiar with Condor Performance (the psychologists) will likely know that for a long time we have tried hard to define such terms. For example, we see mental toughness as an umbrella term that pertains to the mental side of sport/performance.
Emotions are, without a doubt, a part of this. Especially given how emotionally charged high-performance sport can be.
Some Recent Examples
Let me use an example to explain how confusing the associated wording can be.
Recently, on social media, I saw a screenshot of a presentation that contained the words “controlling their emotions under pressure”. It was a bullet point next to the phrase composure, one of “six keys to being resilient” (according to the slide).
I added this comment: “It is not possible to control emotions, only influence them. It is psychologically dangerous to imply you can”. I will not go into detail about the back and forth that took place after this initial comment, other than to say this. It would be handy if there were a census on how emotions work and what we mean by emotional intelligence.
With that, I will give my professional opinion and expand on my “it is not possible to control emotions” comment. As an applied sport psychologist, it’s not really my job to prove that the below is correct or scientifically robust. Having said that, at Condor Performance, we collect a vast amount of internal data as part of our mission to improve constantly. Some academics might argue that because our data is not converted into scientific articles and then submitted for peer review, it is meaningless. I will save my counterargument to that assertion for another time/blog.
Our Guide to Emotional Intelligence
First and foremost, we want to agree on what emotions are. They are feelings. Many of these feelings are enjoyable, like joy and excitement. Many are not that fun, such as fear, nerves and frustration. Then there is the feeling of not feeling anything at all – often called apathy. Some recent studies suggest there are 27 primary emotions that most humans experience. This “feels” about right. Especially if you remove the ones that sound like emotions but are actually thoughts (like worry, for example).
In browsing the list of these 27 emotions, I have picked eight as very common for athletes, coaches and other performers:
- Anxiety
- Calmness
- Confusion
- Envy
- Excitement
- Fear
- Satisfaction
- Triumph
With these in mind, we turn our attention to the question of what your relationship (as a person) is to these and other feelings. Is it useful to find the cause of your excitement (for example) so you can replicate it at will? Are strong feelings of anxiety and fear bad? Are they to be stopped like some emotional disease? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us, or neither of these?
This Is How I Explain It To My Clients
Emotions are just part of the human experience. Internal feelings are one of seven sources of information (stimuli) available to most of us most of the time. The others are sight, sound, smell, thoughts, touch and taste. All of these groups of stimuli vary in terms of their pleasantness. For example, drinking fresh and sour milk activates different taste buds, but both are taste sensations nonetheless. You can apply the same to all seven. We experience fear and excitement very differently, but both are emotions, nothing more, nothing less.
The first and most important part of being emotionally intelligent is just becoming better at noticing and experiencing different emotions. Yes, both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones. There are many ways to approach this, but a couple of rules can help ensure it’s effective.
😬 Don’t try to change the emotion directly.
Whether it be via mindfulness, meditation or moonwalking, your task is to “increase your awareness of your feelings with decreased judgment”. I often like to do this by going through all the senses so that there is no real difference between the internal two and the external five. This is one way to go about this:
Technology – Friend or Foe?
You can certainly use one of the myriad apps (too many now to list), but remember this. Mindfulness, like exercise, shouldn’t cost you anything. You do not need a gym membership to improve your cardio fitness. You don’t need to pay for the Premium version of an app to practice mindfulness. Even our “Really Simple Mindfulness” audio recording above is only really designed as ‘training wheels’ until you get the hang of it by yourself.
So becoming better at observing your emotions is the first part of emotional intelligence. But it’s not the only part.
The second part is about realising that although you can never control your emotions, you can sometimes influence them. And that choosing to do this might assist with what you’re trying to do (achieve, etc).
For example, you might decide that you would like to feel as calm as possible before competitions (exams, performances, etc). In your attempt to influence this (NOT CONTROL), you might design a pre-competition routine that is full of tasks you find relaxing. With practice (repetition), the likelihood of you feeling calm the hour before kick-off or tee-off will increase. But real emotional intelligence comes with knowing that there will never be a guarantee (synonym for control) that you will feel calm and relaxed.
Real Emotional Intelligence is Acceptance
And not even here are you trying to change your emotions directly. If you relaxation tasks are actions (preferable) then you’re really influencing your preferred pre game actions and hoping they make you feel calm. This is very different from trying to calm yourself down.
How do we deal with this? We’ve just noticed these unexpected feelings alongside all the other sights, sounds, and thoughts of the situation. Which, if you’ve been doing this on a daily or weekly basis (see above) as part of your training, will be child’s play.
For those of you who stumbled across this article in search of an applied definition of emotional intelligence, then copy and paste this.
“Emotional intelligence is the ability observe and label your own human emotions and to know when and how to influence them”.
Gareth J. Mole, Sport Psychologist @ Condor Performance
If You Need A Hand
You can now book a 20-minute Google Meet with one of our fantastic New Enquiries Officers using this link. Pick a date and time when you’re free and use the time to explain more about how we can assist you with the mental aspects of your performance. At the same time, Tara or Lizzie will give you a quick rundown of exactly who we are and how we go about our 1-on-1 sport psychology consulting. Want to get started right away? They also know which of our Sport and Performance Psychologists have availability to take on new clients and which are currently waitlisting those interested in working with them.
I strongly agree with the principle of “Don’t change the emotion directly.” From a DBT perspective, once we identify the emotion we are experiencing, we can then recognise the behavioural urge that accompanies it. For instance, when experiencing fear, the natural urge is often to avoid, hide, or engage in protective behaviours. The DBT skill Opposite Action provides a framework that not only supports emotional acceptance but also challenges the behaviours driven by that emotion.
Continuing with fear as an example: for an athlete, the clinical and performance-oriented approach would be to encourage them to face what is eliciting the fear. More specifically, if fear arises mid-game, the athlete’s body language and behaviour may appear small, closed off, and protective. The opposite action in this context would involve adopting big, loud, and engaging behaviours – such as being vocal, demonstrating strong body language, and actively engaging in sport-specific actions that counter the instinct to withdraw.
Another fantastic article. I strongly agree with the core premise that emotions cannot be “controlled,” only “influenced”—a distinction that is central to true psycho-education and self-knowledge.
My main reflection was on the subtle valuation of emotions. While anxiety and fear are indeed “not that fun,” I often find athletes misinterpret them as “bad” or as barriers to be eliminated, rather than as functional parts of our existence.
In my practice, I focus on the function of these emotions. Anxiety isn’t just a bad feeling; it’s the energy of anticipation- whether for a competition or even for a new baby’s cry; Fear isn’t just a “problem” it’s the data that tells us to defend an attack or check our mirrors before changing lanes.
This is why your conclusion about Acceptance is so powerful. It’s the perfect antidote to the “non-stop improvement” fallacy that is so common run the status quo of high-performance environments.
It’s about accepting that emotions are data, very important data, focusing on what we can control (our actions, not the feeling), and understanding that our best effort doesn’t always guarantee the result. That is mental toughness.