Meet 10 Types of ANTs: The Automatic Negative Thoughts Hiding in Your Mental Game

A few weeks ago, I sat down with my highlighter to prep for my book club. We're reading The Confidence Habit by Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, and I'd just reached the chapter on ANTs, automatic negative thoughts.

My first reaction? "Oh, I know this one." I've been teaching ANTs since the second week of my podcast.

Then I got to the list. Ten different types of ANTs, each with its own name. And as I read through them, I started recognizing a few that had been hanging around my own head that very week. Not back in my choking-under-pressure days. That week.

Here's what surprised me most, though. Seeing my thoughts sorted into categories didn't make me feel worse. It made me feel lighter. Instead of "What is wrong with me?" it was more like, "Oh. That's one of those." One of those pesky ANTs snuck in.

That shift is what I want to share with you today.

A Quick Refresher: What Are ANTs?

ANTs are the negative thoughts that pop into our heads without permission. They're the negative self-talk that runs on autopilot, and they sound an awful lot like facts.

The reason they matter so much in competition comes back to a simple cycle: our thoughts create our feelings, and our feelings drive our actions. So if the thought before your run is "I always mess this up," that thought doesn't stay in your head. It shows up in your hands, your timing, and your horse.

Think of them like ants at a picnic. One ant is no big deal. Leave them alone long enough, and they'll carry off the whole lunch.

Why Naming the Type Matters

There's research behind that lighter feeling. Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA found that simply putting feelings into words calms activity in the amygdala, the brain's alarm system. Naming it creates a little distance between us and what we're experiencing.

The same goes for our thoughts. When we can name the type of ANT, we stop treating it like the truth and start seeing it as a pattern. And patterns can be changed.

The 10 Types of Negative Thoughts (and What They Sound Like in the Arena)

First, the ANTs that zoom in on the negative:

Negative focus is when we only see what went wrong. We tip one barrel, and the two clean turns and the fast run home disappear completely.

Always and never thinking turns one moment into a forever rule. "I always choke in the short round." "I never catch on the second steer." Always and never are almost never true.

Labeling takes a mistake and turns it into an identity. Not "I missed," but "I'm a terrible roper." A missed shot is something we did, not who we are.

Next, the ANTs that live in the future:

Fortune-telling predicts the outcome before we even nod our head. "This isn't going to go well." We haven't left the box, and we've already scored the run.

Catastrophizing takes one bad outcome and runs it all the way to the worst-case scenario. One miss becomes a ruined weekend, then a wasted season, then "maybe I should just sell my horse."

The ANTs about other people:

Mind reading is guessing what everyone else is thinking, and the guesses are never kind. "They think I don't belong in this division." Unless we've asked, we don't know.

Unfair comparisons measure us against someone with a completely different starting line. A different horse, a different budget, a private arena, more years in the saddle. That's not a fair fight, and it was never meant to be our measuring stick.

The ANTs about fault and obligation:

Personalization is when we take a negative event and hand all of it to ourselves. The run didn't go well, so it must be our fault, even when a dozen other things played a part.

Blaming is the flip side. "If they wouldn’t have changed out the pen of steers, I would have been fine," "If my partner hadn’t cancelled practice..." “If he hadn’t gotten me all upset this morning.” The Confidence Habit calls blaming a fire ANT, one of the most dangerous, because it says that we have no control over anything. And there’s always something in our control, even if it’s just our attitude or our response.

Guilt-tripping is all the shoulds, musts, and ought-tos. "I should be further along by now." "I must ride better this weekend." This one is sneaky because it feels like accountability. I'll be honest, it's the one I'm wrestling with most right now.

How We Start Catching Them

If you've ever searched for how to stop negative thoughts, here's the honest answer: we don't stop them completely. That's not how brains work. What we can do is notice them faster and recover quicker.

Naming the ANT is the first step. Then we use the ACT strategy we've talked about on the podcast since Week 2:

Acknowledge the thought. "There's an ANT. That's fortune-telling."

Check it. Is this thought true? Is it helpful? Is it moving me toward the run I want?

Trade it for something that serves us. "I always choke in the short round" becomes "I've prepared for this, and I'm focused on my next move."

Scripture puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 10:5: we "take captive every thought." I love that, because it doesn't say the thoughts won't show up. It says we get to decide what to do with them.

This week's power statement is: I notice my thoughts without judging them.

Doing a Little Bit Every Day

You don't have to tackle all ten at once. Pick one, the one that showed up loudest while you were reading this. Then spend the next week just catching it. Every time it shows up, name it. That's it.

Doing a little bit every day adds up to a lot.

If you'd like to go deeper, this whole week on the Cowgirl Up podcast is dedicated to the ten types of ANTs, a few minutes a day, Monday through Friday. Listen anywhere you get your podcasts.

And if you're ready to build a mental game that holds up when the pressure's on, I'd love to talk. Book your free discovery call here: https://thehub-api.mastermind.com/widget/booking/4lv6jvtWDaKLScRzga20

---

About the Author

Laurie Blickenstaff is a Certified Mental Performance Coach, competitive team roper, and founder of Mental Game 101. She went from a competitor who struggled with confidence under pressure to winning the #7 Yeti World Series of Team Roping Finale in Las Vegas from high call, and now helps western sport competitors build the mental skills to perform when it counts. She hosts Cowgirl Up, a daily mindset podcast, and lives in Colorado.

Mental performance training is NOT intended as, nor is it a substitute for, mental health care.