Many athletes agree that they have felt butterflies in their stomach or a sudden rush of adrenaline before a big match. This feeling can translate into legendary performances or monumental failures. According to Sharon D. Hoar (2007), to fully understand the effect of anxiety on performance, it is necessary to understand the discrimination between two unique sets of sources: trait and state anxiety, and cognitive and somatic anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety are numerous and unique to each athlete. Hoar suggests that athletes might report cognitive symptoms (e.g. inability to concentrate), somatic symptoms (e.g. sweaty hands), or both. The author discusses a variety of sources of anxiety and argues that it can have both positive and negative effects on performance. Anxiety has a significant effect on athletes and garners numerous research studies related to performance. Anxiety, like motivation, arises from a combination of personal, situational, mental, and physical factors. First, Hoar (2007) describes trait anxiety as a consistent part of a person's disposition, while state anxiety changes depending on the situation. Secondly, the author assumes that cognitive anxiety can affect mental processes that result in a reduced ability to concentrate, conversely somatic anxiety affects athletes physiologically, often causing symptoms such as sweaty palms and rapid heartbeat. Hoar (2007) argues that athletes often perceive anxiety differently based on situational factors. These factors include: type of sport, team role, and importance of the event. For example, an athlete may experience more anxiety before an event if their role on the team is substantial (e.g., captain) or if a game is at a crucial point in the season. Personally, I dedicate myself to... half of the article ......to discover the possible reasons for optimal performance at these levels of competitive state anxiety. Additionally, I would conduct a comparative analysis between each athlete's optimal level of anxiety and statistics from the previous season, with the goal of providing insight into what level of anxiety results in better performance. Anxiety is undoubtedly a problem that affects almost all athletes. This research will provide insight into why athletes perform better at various levels of anxiety and is also intended to provide valuable insight into which of these levels results in the best performance. Knowledge from this study will undoubtedly help in the advancement of anxiety research and will also provide valuable information to athletes about the effects of anxiety, more specifically that anxiety does not always have to result in poor performance..