Quill / Moments / Game day motivation quotes for the tunnel and the start line
Game day motivation quotes for the tunnel and the start line
Your stomach has been tight since breakfast. The warm-up felt wrong, the other side looks bigger than they did on paper, and you're still thinking about that mistake from last time.
Athletes and coaches often describe treating nerves as energy, because trying to stop the feeling tends to add to it. They talk about a fixed routine before the start, and one short cue to bring the mind back after a bad first minute. Next play is the kind of thing they mean.
These lines are short enough to read in a changing room. They can't win anything for you, and they keep to what's yours to control.
The moments
- The morning of the race, stomach in a knot
- A warm-up where nothing feels right
- The wait in the tunnel or on the start line
- A missed shot in the first two minutes
- Your family up in the stands
What people say helps
- Treating nerves as energy
- The same routine before every start
- One short cue to reset after a mistake
- Telling themselves what to do next, in place of what went wrong
“Don't be nervous” and “just relax” ask you to switch off a feeling, and that tends to turn it up.
Quill Originals are written by Quill. Popular sayings are widely repeated lines with no name attached. Lines with a name are checked word for word against public-domain books.
Quill Originals
Save nothing for the car park.
All those wet evenings are stood right behind you.
The crowd can't touch the ball.
Whatever the score, you turned up to the hard thing.
Everyone in that room feels this. Some hide it better.
Your routine knows the way when your head doesn't.
Bounce, breathe, ready.
You're ready enough.
One word: now.
Morning of. Do what you always do, in the order you always do it.
You've been here in your head a thousand times.
Your teammate's scared too. Say something to them.
You can see the line. Go and take it.
Short memory, big heart.
Next point. Nothing else exists.
You didn't taper for a gentle jog.
Yesterday's error doesn't have a ticket.
Halfway in and it hurts. That's the race starting.
Go for the shot you've practised.
Same breakfast, same socks, same you.
Rested legs, sharp head. Time to spend what you saved.
Walk in like you've been invited, because you have.
Popular sayings
The shot you don't take can't go in.
Give it your all.
Inhale confidence, exhale doubt.
Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
Mind over matter.
Leave it all on the field.
From the books
All things are ready, if our minds be so.
Read the passage around this line
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. Enter Salisbury. SALISBURY. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed. The French are bravely in their battles set, And will with all expedience charge on us. KING HENRY. All things are ready, if our minds be so. WESTMORLAND. Perish the man whose mind is backward now! KING HENRY. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz? WESTMORLAND. God’s will! my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, could fight this royal battle! KING HENRY. Why, now thou hast unwish’d five thousand men,
The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty, whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies.
Read the passage around this line
M. The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty, whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies. But death is so far from being an evil, as it lately appeared to you, that I am inclined to suspect, not that there is no other thing which is an evil to man, but rather that there is nothing else which is a real good to him; if, at least, it is true that we become thereby …
Away, then, with good courage!
Read the passage around this line
Mocking the air with colours idly spread, And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms! Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace; Or if he do, let it at least be said They saw we had a purpose of defence. KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time. BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage! Yet, I know Our party may well meet a prouder foe. [Exeunt.] SCENE II. Near Saint Edmundsbury. The French Camp. Enter, in arms, Louis, Salisbury, Melun, Pembroke, Bigot and soldiers. LOUIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out, And keep it safe for our remembrance.
What a new face courage puts on everything!
The surest way, therefore, is to prepare one’s self beforehand for occasions.
Far off, men swell, bully and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are a feeble folk.
Fill your mind with courage, hope, and confidence.
Courage is victory, timidity is defeat.
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