I used to experience performance anxiety in CounterStrike and Quake II matches . The main reason for this was that our entire team was premade . I created the clan , I led the clan , I trained the players , I joined the ladderleague , and we all practiced together on a nightly basis . Every week was another match and every week we practiced our asses off . In scrimmages there wasn ' t generally performance anxiety unless we were playing very high level competition but even then it was only for bragging rights . But once match time came around , our season record was on the line and the possibility of going to the finals of that season was on the line . 1 missed shot could and would cost your entire team the match and matches were extremely important as you only got 816 depending on divisionleague to make it to the finals . This would cause butterflies , shakey hands , shortness of breath , confusion , etc . There ' s only one thing you can do about it BREATH , COUNT TO TEN , AND RELAX . When you start to see the signs that you ' re getting anxious , you have to take a mental time out and remind yourself that you know what you ' re doing . One thing that really helped my team break through some performance anxiety barriers was reminding everyone that this game CS , Quake , and even Overwatch is 90 % mental . It ' s all in your head . The people you ' re playing , no matter how good they seem . they ' re only human . They ' re just like you . They ' re another person sitting behind a monitor holding a mouse in their hand and you can do the same things to them as they can do to you . Getting outplayed affects most people the same . Getting teamed up on or focus fired or zoned frustrates them the same as it does you . Getting crushed is as demoralizing for them as it is for you and they ' re not superheroes . They are just as capable of getting dominated as you are . Suck it up and get out of your own head and focus on getting in the enemies head instead .