No matter how talented you are, if there are mental blocks that get in your way, you will never play up to your full potential. The way to overcome these mental blocks is by making use of athlete mental training.

This involves training the mind just as you do the body.

No athlete is unfamiliar with physical training; it’s the only way to improve the skills necessary to succeed.

However, this approach is often overlooked when it comes to the mind. Through the use of athlete mental training, you can overcome the mental blocks that are holding you back and finally perform up to your full potential.

Main Mental Blocks In Sports

Before going into what athlete mental training is and how it can be used to overcome the mental barriers faced in sports, we need to discuss what these barriers actually are.

Commonly known as mental game challenges, these involve frames of thought and feeling that keep you from performing your best.

Here are some of the most common mental game challenges athletes face:

• Low Confidence: when you doubt yourself and your skills, playing your best is almost impossible. Without a strong trust in yourself, you will never reach the potential you know you’re capable of.
• Perfectionism: while it’s natural to want to do your best, the need to be and appear perfect will only hold you back. Perfectionism is a leading barrier to success, because it doesn’t allow you to make the necessary mistakes needed to improve.
• Performance Anxiety: growing nervous before a game is one thing, but constant worries and concerns are a whole different story. Anxiety can take all the joy you experience away from the game.
• Fear of Failure: much like anxiety, fear of failure is present over a concern about what may happen. If you fear making a mistake, you will play tightly and never allow yourself to perform freely and with full confidence.
• Poor Focus: there are many distractions present during games, and if you don’t have the mental strength to control your attention, this can lead to you losing focus and your performance levels dropping.
• Negative Self-Talk: how you speak to yourself directly impacts how you feel. If you have a negative voice in your head during practices or games, this will make it difficult to bounce back from mistakes and perform with confidence.

How To Overcome Mental Blocks in Sports

The six mental game challenges listed above will not only lead to lower levels of performance, but suck the fun out of the game for you.

I’ve worked with many athletes who’ve struggled with wanting to quit their sport, simply due to one of the barriers listed above.

It’s no small matter.

But the important thing is that any of these barriers can be worked through. And that’s where athlete mental training comes into play.

Training The Mind Through Routine

To overcome these mental game challenges, a similar approach needs to be taken as you use with training the body.

For example, if you want to increase your speed, you must work on your leg power, your technique, and explosiveness. In short-you have to train.

So, if you want to improve your confidence, overcome anxiety, manage fear of failure, or anything else, you also need to train.

I believe that the best way to overcome mental barriers in sports is through the use of a daily mental training routine. Performed in the morning or at night, these tools will help overcome the challenges you currently face.

Top Mental Training Tools To Use:

• Positive Self-Talk
• Mindfulness
• Process Goals
• Mental Rehearsal‍

Mental Coaching to Break Through Mental Blocks in Sports

Dealing with mental blocks in sports is incredibly frustrating! When you train so hard in practice only to have something keep you from performing up to your potential in games is heartbreaking. Luckily, you can work through mental blocks as an athlete.

The best way to work through these mental blocks is with one-on-one mental performance coaching. With mental coaching, I will work with you to identify the exact mental blocks keeping you from performing your best during games. Then, we will work through those blocks and focus on building positive mental skills to help you turn your practice play into game-time execution.

To learn more about mental performance coaching and to see how you can get started, please fill out the form below.

Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of success in all that you do.