performance barriers and are spinning your wheels, it's a good bet
that you are limited by a wall of worry - your own fears.
What is fear? Fear comes in many forms - fear of failure, fear of
success, fear of embarrassment, and so on. Many of my students hit
a wall of worry caused by these fears and many others.
More than any other fear, fear of failure limits athletes from
performing their best and can cause athletes to give up their dreams
in sports.
Do you feel like you are constantly banging you head against an
imaginary wall because you work harder and harder to perform your
best, but only become more frustrated with a lack of improvement
or results?
For many athletes, it is far easier to work harder and harder than
to address their internal demons that hold them back.
Most athletes will make a change in strategy or technique to improve
performance way before they attempt to look inside at self-
sabotaging beliefs.
It does not matter how hard you work at your sport unless you work
effectively and work on the right areas. And all the hard work you
do to race towards your athletic goals can backfire when you hit
a brick wall of worry caused by fear of failure.
The bottom line... Most athletes have lofty goals, love to train
hard, and want to be successful.
BUT they are too engrossed with their regular practice routines
to stop and address the biggest roadblock on the path of success
- fear of failure and beliefs that limit your physical potential.
Several mental game challenges are stuck to fear of failure like
flypaper, such as low self-confidence, worry about making mistakes,
fear of rejection or embarrassment, and the list goes on.
One of the biggest downsides of fear of failure is having an intense
avoidance mindset. Athletes with an avoidance mindset strive to avoid
pain instead of striving for success. These athletes' minds are
conditioned to avoid making mistakes and emotional pain at all costs.
The first place to start in order to stop fear of failure is to
identify what type of fear causes you to bang your head against
the imaginary wall of worry. Keep in mind that most of these fears
are born out of an intense desire to succeed or to avoid negative
social scrutiny.
Most athletes with fear of failure are afraid to fail or lose because
they work so hard to achieve their goals and succeed. This intense
desire to succeed causes athletes to worry about not getting what
they badly want.
An athlete becomes so worried about not achieving (or gaining social
recognition) that he or she thinks too much about avoiding failure.
The next step or change you must make to breakthrough the wall of
worry is to focus your mind on striving for success instead of
avoiding failure. When you focus your mind on obtaining success,
you will come closer to obtaining it.
One more tip for today...Make sure that all the mental pictures or
movies in your mind help you strive for success rather than cause
you to avoid failure.
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