Don’t Let Mental Blocks Stop You

By Christina Crachi,@ChristinaCrachi, 2019 Alumni

What is a mental block?

For those of you that haven’t experienced a mental block in sport- consider yourselves lucky.

A mental block is a frustrating and debilitating obstacle which prevents an athlete from performing a particular skill.

My experience

As a cheerleader, I’ve had my fair share of mental blocks when it comes to tumbling (the collective term for flips), and seen my teammates go through them as well.

The first mental block I experienced was a few years ago when I was practicing a skill I had mastered: The front handspring.

There was nothing special about that day; there was no added pressure to do the skill, nor was it any different to what I had previously done. Just before I was going to put my hands on the ground, I completely doubted myself and threw my body into a cartwheel. I tried again. Another cartwheel. I tried about 10 times and couldn’t bring myself to do it- I thought I had lost the skill.

I came back to class 1 week later, took a deep breath and attempted again.

Boom.

It was back.

I was happy, but also confused at the same time. So, I thought to myself: Why do we get these mental blocks on things we CAN physically do?

How mental blocks arise

There are two different types of athletes: internally focused or externally focused.

Internally focused athletes perform best when they give attention to only the skill they are about to perform, whereas externally focused athletes focus on the things around the skill, such as the floor or obstacle.

For those athletes that are externally focused, it is believed that they are more prone to experience mental blocks. This is the case as external focusers can then overthink the action they are about to perform and stop themselves in their tracks.

Other factors which can cause mental blocks are negative perceptions and the degree of an individual’s mental toughness. Negative perceptions of one’s ability can lead to avoiding the skill, whether it be conscious or sub-conscious and therefore manifest into a mental block. Mental toughness can help stop a mental block from occurring, where the more mental toughness an individual has, the more likely they are to perform under pressure, stay focused and not see failure as a lack of ability.

How to overcome a mental block

The first step to overcoming a mental block is admitting you have one. Making up excuses or avoiding the action all together won’t allow for your mental block to subside.

By acknowledging that you have a mental block, you can then analyze the possible reasons for why you have self-doubt. Is it you are scared of hurting yourself? Or is it you don’t want to bruise your ego by failing?

After figuring out what may be stopping you, try to turn it around into something positive like ‘I haven’t hurt myself yet, if I follow the correct technique there should be no reason for me to injure myself’.

Next, make whatever fear you may be experiencing positive through active decisions.

Some people may make the active decision to just go for the skill to get over their mental block. However, this is not suited to all people.

Maybe going for that front tuck on the floor straight away is a bit too much. Then instead of giving up, make an active decision to slowly work your way up to it in steps you are comfortable with.

You can do it!

I’m proud to share that I’m slowly overcoming my current mental block on a front tuck. I can do it easily onto a crash mat and on a trampoline, but I can’t bring myself to do it on the floor.

Last week I placed a thin mat onto the floor and successfully landed my front tuck onto it- peeling away at that fear of failure and negative mindset through slowly working my way up to it.

Nailing a front tuck – author’s own video

So, I want you to go for that impossible-looking leap or that 10m diving board jump that you want to tick off your bucket list!

The only thing stopping you is your mind.