Does A Poor Mental Game Have You Locked Up?
Do you or your athletes perform better if you can “get out of your own way” during competition?
You might be thinking: What does it mean to get out of your own way?
When athletes can’t get out of their own way, the mind is interfering with physical talent…
In a general sense, your mind sabotages your physical skills. A poor mental game has you locked up.
But a more specific definition is necessary when discussing getting out of your own way…
Most of the time, athletes who can’t “get out of your own way” try way too hard, force their game, think too much, or over analyze.
These athletes can’t let go and perform freely… Their performance looks:
- Tight or controlled
- Scared or tentative
- Cautions or safe
- Afraid to make mistakes
- Too mechanical
I’ve conducted a lot research with athletes on performing in the zone. These athletes say that performing freely and intuitively is one of the keys to peak performance. This is when you simply rely on their practice…
These athletes also say that they feel like observers (of their own performance) allowing their performance to just happen. As if they were performing on autopilot.
Thus, if you over think or over analyze your game, try to force it, or try to be too perfect with your performance, you are guilty of getting in your own way.
Most of the time, athletes get in their own way because of fear of failure or perfectionism.
When you get out of your own way, you allow yourself to play freely without expectations or pressure. You allow yourself to just do it and trust in your skills.
Two mental keys can help you get out of your own way:
- Understand the core issue that blocks your performance and cope better with this, such as fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, or perfectionism.
- Learn how to let go and trust what you have trained yourself to do in practice. We call this the performance mindset.
For this reason, I created “The Fearless Athlete” CD Program, which is the fourth program in the popular Confident Athlete CD series.
The Fearless Athlete program is ideal is you have some perfectionism or fear of failure and over-control and over think when you perform.
You can read more about The Fearless Athlete here: The Fearless Athlete Workbook Program
Related Sports Psychology Articles
- Mental Game Keys to Take Your Practice to Competition
- Mental Game Coach During the Pandemic
- Your Mental Game and Performance Slumps
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The Fearless Athlete
For the last two decades, I’ve been working with athletes and helping them optimize their physical ability by teaching them the secrets of top performing athletes. Now, you too can learn how to regain that child-like fearless attitude.
Mental toughness is what separates the winner from the loser in any competition. Champion athletes train hard in practice, perform without fear in competition, and trust their skills in crunch-time.
The Fearless Athlete program is ideal for any athlete that wants to overcome fear of failure and uncover inhibiting perfectionistic traits; or for any coach or parent who wants to teach athletes to perform with trust and freedom in competition.