Athletes Who Win Know How to Manage Their Anger

Very often, when you hear athletes talking about their successes, you will hear them boasting about being aggressive. Yet, when you ask the average person what it means to be aggressive, they say that hurting someone is part of the goal.

High achievers know that the opposite of being aggressive is being passive. And, because success will not just magically drop in their lap, they can’t be passive—they have to go after it. To be successful, they need to be aggressive. However, this requires goal-directed aggression, also known as instrumental aggression. This stands in opposition to hostile aggression, where the goal is specifically to harm someone, or reactive aggression, where, in response to a provocation, a threat, an insult, or a cheap shot, the person responds by trying to hurt the provocateur.

Deliberately hurting opponents, even when one thinks it may be justified, will lead to penalties and thus harm the team. Simply put, if they want to improve performance, athletes need to maximize instrumental aggression and minimize hostile and reactive aggression, both of which are connected to high levels of anger.

Therefore, it follows that athletes must be able to manage their anger levels if they want to be successful. So, don’t be angry, right? Wrong! Athletes and coaches know something that the rest of society often wants to deny: anger helps performance.

Anger can make you faster and stronger, increase your stamina, and decrease your perception of pain. Anger can keep you motivated when people doubt you or when you feel like you don’t have anything left in the tank. Few things are more motivating than someone saying, “You can’t.” The competitor’s response will often be, “Oh yeah? F*ck you, watch me!”

Adjust the flame

What could be more appetizing than a good steak? The key to cooking a good steak is high heat. What happens, though, if you have the flames up too high and for too long? You don’t get a great meal. You get a piece of leather that resembles a baseball glove on your plate.

Anger is like that fire. If you can harness it correctly, you can achieve great things. If you don’t learn to adjust the flame, you’ll burn yourself and everyone else around you up. Anger can either enhance or hinder your performance.

Anger is also an emotion that empowers you and can increase your confidence. That can then help you trust your ability to dominate. There are few things more intoxicating than standing over your opponent or glancing at the scoreboard and knowing, “I owned them!” If you show me someone who doesn’t play with anger, I’ll show you someone who is leaving money on the table.

However, these are dangerous waters. Anger at very high levels interferes with fine motor coordination, decision-making, problem-solving, and even the athlete’s vision—their ability to scan the environment and make decisions based on their perceptions. You want athletes to be able to reach the “red line” without exceeding it.

That’s the problem. Most coaches are unofficial sport psychologists. If you need an athlete motivated, the coach better be able to get them there. They are great at pushing buttons and igniting the fire in their players’ bellies. Sometimes, they’ll get their players up to a good, frothy rage. This is especially useful in football, and particularly on defense.

When the defensive lineman, eager to blow up the quarterback, jumps offside, the coach yells at him and puts his butt on the bench. The offensive lineman who wants to overcome missing a block on the last play is ready to use their anger to destroy the linebacker in the way of a chunk play. But if the flame of anger is too high, they forget the snap count and get a false start for being too amped up. The coach loses their mind.

Athletes are often taught how to turn the dial up on their anger, but too often they’re not taught how to adjust the flame within their belly. Anger management in sport isn’t about teaching athletes to go into a yoga pose between plays. It isn’t about calling a timeout to engage in deep meditation while at the free-throw line. It’s about having de-escalation skills well practiced so that when they’re getting too hot, they can turn the dial on the flame down a bit, keeping the intensity where it’s helpful but not where their brains can’t assist their bodies.

Anger Essential Reads

Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold: How To Manage Your Emotions

Finding Inspiration in Hard Times

Football is a game of field position and turnovers. The team that loses field position due to stupid penalties or turns the ball over because of poor concentration is often doing so because they don’t know how to harness their emotions to improve their performance. And teams that value this emotional intelligence set a culture that builds each player up with synergistic intensity while minimizing the mental mistakes that lead to underachievement.

If you want to maximize returns, learn to adjust the flame!