Performance: the check-ins that bookend competition day

Pre-Performance and Post-Performance look like two features. They are really one intervention split across two moments: the night before a competition, and the hours after it. Together they take around seven minutes and they do more for long-term confidence than almost anything else in the app.

The self-regulation cycle

Both sheets sit inside Zimmerman’s self-regulation model of performance (Zimmerman, 2002), which describes learning and performance as a three-phase cycle:

1. Forethought — before the event: what is my goal, how prepared do I feel, what will I focus on?
2. Performance — during the event.
3. Self-reflection — after the event: what happened, what will I do differently?

Skipping the forethought phase is the single most common mistake recreational athletes make — you cannot reflect usefully on a performance you never set an intention for. Skipping the self-reflection phase is the second most common — the loop never closes, and goal-setting stops producing learning.

Pre-Performance is the forethought phase. Post-Performance is the self-reflection phase. Together they make the cycle work.

Pre-Performance: the night before

One process goal — and only one

The first prompt asks for a single process goal for tomorrow. Specific, controllable, behavioural. “Maintain a strong body position on every tackle” — not “win the match.”

Why process goals? Because outcome goals (win, score X, finish top 3) point your attention at things you cannot directly control, which raises anxiety and erodes performance (Zimmerman, 2002). Process goals do the opposite: they point at actions you can execute, which lowers threat and concentrates attention.

And why only one? Because attention is finite. An athlete who walks into a match with three goals executes none of them well. One clear intention, carried into competition, is far more useful than a list.

Positive readiness: constructing confidence, not pretending it

The second prompt asks for one thing that makes you feel ready. This is not forced positivity. It is a deliberate act of self-efficacy construction (Bandura, 1997).

Self-efficacy — your belief in your ability to perform — is built from four sources. The two most powerful are mastery experiences (things you have actually done) and physiological states (how your body feels). By naming specific evidence — “my legs feel fresh after a good taper,” “I have rehearsed the game plan three times this week” — you are pulling directly from those sources.

Even in a rough week there is usually something real to anchor to. Find it. Write it down.

The readiness rating

Finally, a 1–5 rating of how ready you feel. Not a judgement and not a target.

Research on pre-competition affect (Hanton et al., 2004) shows that how athletes interpret their pre-event state predicts performance more than the state itself. Nervous energy, racing heart, restless sleep — all of this can be a sign of readiness rather than a problem. A rating of 3 or 4 is normal and healthy. Very few athletes feel a genuine 5 before every competition.

The rating matters because it gives you data. Over time, you will notice that your best performances are often not your highest-rated ones. That insight alone changes how you handle pre-event nerves.

Post-Performance: closing the loop

Start with process, not outcome

The first prompt asks you to review the process goal you set before competition. Did you execute it — fully, partially, or not at all?

Notice what the question is not asking. It is not asking whether you won. It is not asking whether you played “well” in some vague overall sense. The core principle behind this — developed across decades of work on achievement motivation (Duda, 2001) — is that athletes who evaluate themselves on controllable behaviours rather than outcomes maintain motivation and confidence even through losses.

The execution rating that follows uses a 1–5 scale. A 3 is a realistic, honest score for most competitions. Consistent 3s that gradually become 4s is genuine improvement. Do not chase 5s — chase consistency.

Why “what went well” comes before “what would I change”

This order is deliberate. It is also the hardest rule to follow after a loss.

Positive self-reflection directly builds self-efficacy through mastery experiences — the single strongest source of confidence (Bandura, 1997). Athletes who habitually identify what went well after every competition, including bad ones, develop a more robust sense of self-belief than athletes who only focus on mistakes.

Doing it first, before the “what would I change” prompt, also puts you in a more open, constructive mindset for the learning that follows. If you start with the errors, you rarely make it back to the positives.

Specifics matter. “I stayed composed after going a set down” is a useful entry. “I played alright” is not.

What you would do differently: forward-facing, not self-critical

The final prompt asks for one or two things you would do differently — framed as forward intentions, not as criticism of past self.

“I would start my pre-point routine earlier” is a forward intention you can act on next week. “I was too slow” is a judgement that changes nothing. Research on attributional retraining (Perry et al., 2014) has shown that how athletes explain setbacks directly affects future motivation and performance. Stable, global, self-blaming explanations (“I choke under pressure”) drive the wrong trajectory. Specific, changeable, behavioural explanations (“I let my pre-point routine slip in set three”) drive learning.

Keep it to one or two changes. A list of ten is a guarantee that none of them happen.

When to do each

Neart only surfaces Pre-Performance when your Plan has a competition scheduled for today or tomorrow. Complete it the evening before, then close the app and go to sleep.

Post-Performance is best done within a few hours of the event — close enough that detail is fresh, far enough that the emotional spike has dropped. You do not have to do it in the car park. Tomorrow morning is fine. A week later is not.

Seven minutes, split across two moments. The loop closes.

References

• Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 64–70.
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W. H. Freeman.
• Hanton, S., Mellalieu, S. D., & Hall, R. (2004). Self-confidence and anxiety interpretation: A qualitative investigation. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 5(4), 477–495.
• Duda, J. L. (2001). Achievement goal research in sport: Pushing the boundaries and clarifying some misunderstandings. In G. C. Roberts (Ed.), Advances in Motivation in Sport and Exercise (pp. 129–182). Human Kinetics.
• Perry, R. P., Chipperfield, J. G., Hladkyj, S., Pekrun, R., & Hamm, J. M. (2014). Attribution-based treatment interventions in some achievement settings. In S. Karabenick & T. Urdan (Eds.), Motivational Interventions (Vol. 18, pp. 1–35). Emerald.