Elevate With Ally
Meet Ally Koh
My name is Ally Koh, and I am a freshman at Marlborough School. Throughout my life, I have always dealt with high levels of anxiety. Whether it was insomnia keeping me up at night, unnecessary overthinking, or excessive worrying, anxiety has followed me and impacted my life in both positive and negative ways. At first, I only viewed anxiety as bad and unhealthy, unique to my life, however, I soon learned that it is a universal emotion. I was able to learn how to better manage my anxiety levels, acknowledge my worries, and realize that this emotion does not have to be viewed solely in a negative light. ​
In elementary school, I excelled in many extracurricular activities from dancing ballet for 10 years to playing piano from the age of 6. Tennis was another sport that I picked up at the age of 8. I played recreationally, for two years, attending clinics and lessons. However, at 10 years old, I began to develop a love for the game and the freeing feeling of the ball soaring off of my racket. I started to sign up for matches over weekends and even joined my middle school’s tennis team in 6th grade.
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However, after a couple more years of competing, and as I continued to immerse myself more in the game of tennis, my expectations for myself grew higher. During matches, I noticed how my nerves began to impact my performance. In moments where I would normally hit a strong winner, I felt my muscles tighten up and change the trajectory of my racket, messing up my shot. After talking with different coaches and my parents, I learned that this was performance anxiety, which is common in all sports, especially extremely mental sports like tennis. By playing in more tournaments and more stressful situations, I began to practice different methods or mindsets that helped me to lessen my performance anxiety. Developing various habits and comfortability with pressure during matches took a lot of practice, and I continue to deal with performance anxiety often.
Mission Statement
Performance anxiety is a challenge that all athletes, from a recreational to a professional level, deal with. As a tennis player who sets high expectations for myself, performance anxiety is the biggest challenge I deal with during tournaments or matches. I often find myself disappointed for playing poorly under pressure and wonder why my skills, which I am usually confident in, are deteriorating during these moments. Through my experiences watching fellow competitors at tournaments or even pros on tour, I have seen many players who fall apart and others who thrive under pressure. I began to wonder how this could be possible and what distinguished high-performing athletes from low-performing.
Through contacting professional athletes, speaking with neurologists and psychologists, and immersing myself in research, I hope to educate myself on the neurological and psychological aspects of performance anxiety and discover the most effective methods for athletes to deal with it.
With this research, I aspire to create a platform for athletes who may not have access to expensive resources, such as private coaching, to learn about performance anxiety and specific methods to overcome it, so they can compete at their highest level.
"In the pursuit of extraordinary performance, its easy to succumb to anxiety and pressure, because so much is out of your control. When you learn to live a life that is fully engaged, however, then you can perform your best and love the challenge."
- Jim Murphy
"Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create."
- Roy T. Bennett