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[Music] Have you ever watched your kid freeze up on a skill that they are completely capable of doing? Then this is for you.
Learn how to overcome mental blocks and fear in gymnastics and similar sports with a proven mental training method this summer.
Key Takeaways
- Mental blocks are not about lack of talent or effort but about the athlete’s mental relationship with the skill.
- Awareness of physical and emotional cues can prevent fear from escalating into a freeze.
- Confidence must be personalized based on what works for the individual athlete.
- Trust and emotional safety in the coaching environment are critical to overcoming fear.
- Starting mental training in the summer can prevent panic and setbacks during the competitive season.
What the video covers
- The video addresses how to help athletes overcome fear and mental blocks in sports like gymnastics.
- Mental blocks occur when an athlete can physically perform a skill but freezes due to mental interruption.
- Fear of upgrades and increasing difficulty in sports can cause these mental blocks.
- The Perform Happy method is introduced as a mental training framework to overcome fear and build confidence.
- Phase one focuses on awareness to identify early signs before a freeze-up happens.
- Phase two involves confidence building by understanding what works and what doesn’t for the athlete.
- Phase three emphasizes building trust in the athlete’s environment, including coaches and parents.
- The importance of emotional safety and supportive coaching environments is highlighted.
- The method encourages collaboration between athlete, coach, and parent to create a positive mindset.
- Ongoing introspection and repetition are necessary to maintain progress and prevent setbacks.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Overcoming Fear
- 01:03Why Start Mental Training in Summer
- 01:52What is a Mental Block?
- 02:48Common Misunderstandings About Fear
- 03:42Fear in High-Risk Sports
- 04:29Overview of Perform Happy Method
- 05:25Phase One: Building Awareness
- 06:21Phase Two: Confidence Building
- 07:12Importance of Introspection and Repetition
- 08:09Phase Three: Building Trust and Emotional Safety
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'm going to talk, uh, real quick about how to overcome fear for good and do it this summer because, I mean, this is the perfect time. Now, a lot of people sort of exhale this time of year. It's spring.
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Season's over unless you're an elite. Um, but most, you know, compulsory or optional gymnasts are, they're coasting right now.
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And what happens is every year in, you know, September for the compulsories and November, December for the optionals, people freak out and go, "Oh no, she's not confident. Help." Or they wait all the way till January or February when
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they freeze up in the middle of a meet. So don't do that. And what I really wish for each of these families that comes to us in the fall and in the winter is that they would start in the summer. So, I'm
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going to give you a complete overview of my Perform Happy mental block breakthrough method so that you can have an idea of exactly what to be doing this summer to get those skills in order and to get the confidence in place. And it's
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more than confidence. That's where a lot of people kind of stop in the mental training space. They try to get you confident, but there's a reason why you constantly have setbacks if you're only focusing on confidence. I'm going to
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give you the secret ingredient. So stick around so that I can give you the entire formula so that you're not just leaving off, um, and ending up with setbacks. So first I want to talk about what a mental
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block is. A mental block is when you have a skill, you can physically do the skill, you've done it multiple times, you do it really, really well. You have proper technique and then something mentally interrupts your flow and you
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start freezing up on this skill. Now, when you're learning a new skill, that's different because you are supposed to be nervous. You're supposed to be hesitating or wanting to kind of hold back as you go through the progressions
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on a new scary skill. Your brain's job is to tell you to slow down if something feels a little bit unpredictable or not automated. The difference is with a mental block, it's already been automated, but something has interrupted
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your mental blueprint, and your brain all of a sudden, like, doesn't know how to do it anymore. So, what this feels like is like, oh, I'm not scared, but I just can't go. I hear that from athletes
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often. They say, I'm not scared, but it won't work. And so, coaches and parents are saying, just go for it. What's the problem? You're great at this. Come on.
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Why are you being lazy? Why aren't you trying? They get really, really confused because this is something that should be automatic. They have done so many drills and so many reps. So, this also applies to the fear of upgrades though. So,
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that's the really good news is that even though that's a different sensation, it's similar and you can work through it in the same way. So, just know if you haven't had a mental block yet, you will. I mean, that's part of the sport
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that you build your confidence up and then you uplevel. You build your confidence up, you uplevel. You're constantly adding pressure. You're constantly adding difficulty. You're adding danger. So, as you increase levels through the sport of gymnastics or, um, elite cheer or figure skating or
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any of these, you know, scary sports that require you to put your body at some level of risk, your brain is going to come in at some point and freeze you up. So, if you go through this method,
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you also will prevent that from happening. Okay? And something that's really important right off the bat for any parent or coach to know is that this problem—I'm going to say problem, it's more like an opportunity from my
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perspective—but it isn't about talent or effort and the solution is more than confidence. This is, it's an issue of the relationship that the athlete has with themself. So let's dive into the method. So this is a framework that
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we're going to be going through in Perform Happy, which is my membership mental training program where athletes come together from all over the world.
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They are all these smart, sensitive, talented kids who have big dreams and love their sport and they know that when they get their mind on board, they're going to be completely unstoppable. So these are the phases that we go through
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in Perform Happy though. All right, phase one, this is foundational. Okay. Again, most people think you just have to build your confidence. Well, underneath confidence is awareness. This is how you stop the fear cycle from happening. Now, think of a
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mental block like a domino effect. A lot of the time, athletes think, "Oh, it just randomly happened one day and I have no idea what brought it on. I just all of a sudden couldn't go." Okay, so if you're out there and you're like,
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"Yes, that's exactly what my kid said. I don't know. I don't know what I'm afraid of. I just can't go." That feeling of this is random and I can't control it and I don't know what's wrong is extremely
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common. But usually you think about the domino effect, that freeze-up is like domino number seven. There are many, many things that are happening before that happens. And my, my kids, my athletes, they know, they know what that first
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domino is so that then they can catch it right away or they can catch it on the second or they can catch it on the third. So the moment that they start feeling off before they ever freeze up, they
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start to be aware. They pay attention to what are the sensations happening in my body? What's going on here? Instead of going, "Oh no, I lost my skill. This is bad." You know, letting the negativity jump in, which is actually like domino
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number three. Then the negativity takes over and you tense up and you're doubting yourself and you're trying again and you're overthinking and overanalyzing and then you try it and it feels even worse and then finally you try it and you freeze. So when you
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increase awareness about your body, then you go into the second phase, which is confidence building. Then you can start to figure out based on your awareness, what was it that worked the days I was confident and what didn't
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work the days I wasn't confident. And if you get really clear on those things and you are constantly finding clues, this is why one-on-one coaching is so helpful because what we do is we help you find clues about that random bad day or that
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random good day. Now, I have kids I've worked with for three years who are incredibly introspective and they are really positive and they are so good at putting these phases into play, but I'll still meet with them and they're like,
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"Gosh, I had this bad day. I have no idea why." And I talk with them for 15 seconds and they're like, "Well, I was sick. My foot hurt and I had a huge test and I didn't get enough sleep." And I'm
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like, "Okay, so does it make sense you had a not-so-good day?" So, I'm, I'm training these people and it takes repetition to continue figuring out what are the clues about what's working and what's not working so that you can apply
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what works and stop doing what doesn't. Then once you figure that out, so you've got your awareness in place, you have your, you have your personal individual formula for building confidence based on what works for you, then we get to the
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most important phase, which is what most athletes and coaches leave out. And this is the trust phase. Now, anybody who's got a, who's struggling with fear, who's in a coaching environment where there is not trust, like you have a coach who's not warm and
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fuzzy or someone who isn't going to let you get a spot, they're just going to stand there and expect you to go. Um, if you've got, uh, you know, bullying either from the coach or teammates or at school
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where there is a lack of emotional safety, if you have a parent who cares too much, now I know there's no such thing as caring too much as a parent. I have a 9-year-old gymnast and
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parent who is very emotionally involved, then it can feel like you you're not safe to be honest when you have a bad day. So all of those little things can can break down trust in the environment, which I know is crazy to think that a
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coach who just really cares and really believes in you or a mom who's so bought in on your sport and will do anything to support you that those could be impacting trust. But it's true. Which is why everyone we work with, we train the
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parents because when you have your marching orders, it's incredible how the weight of your emotions lift off your child's shoulders and all of a sudden they can just do their sport for them.
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Okay. So, first we have to set up the the whole environment, the parent and the coach. We got to get everybody on the same page. You know, we have scripts for coaches um for parents talking to coaches. We have trainings for coaches
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on exactly how to coach through this so that everyone's on the same page. Now, even if your coach isn't on the same page, that's okay. We know how to get you through that, too. And once that's in place, then we are free to thrive.
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Because what we're going to do is take little leaps of faith, calculated leaps of faith where you're not chucking it and you're not forcing it, but what you're doing is you are truly tuning in to what feels good to you. Not good
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uncomfortable. This is they we have a formula for finding the exact right amount of discomfort to navigate so that you're not going to be hitting your head against a brick wall and you're not going to be staying stuck. You know,
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it's just like if you're doing conditioning and you stop every time it gets hard, you're not going to progress.
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But if you do a bunch of conditioning that's too hard for you, you're going to build bad habits and it's not actually going to give you the results that you want. So, we find the sweet spot. We teach you how to communicate with
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yourself, with your brain, with your coach, with your parents. And then you have this awareness, this confidence, and this ability to tune in and know when something feels off immediately so that you can get on track as quickly as
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possible. And trust yourself to know when you're not you're not right. Because that is what makes a champion.
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Not the person who can always chuck it. It's the person who can go, I feel off today, coach. Can we connect? And then they can come up with a collaborative solution. And this is such a game changer. Not only will this give you
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confidence in your skills, this will give you the ability to do life, to be a confident human. When something doesn't feel right, you speak up. That is what I want for my girls. So that So those are the three phases. are actually
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introducing a fourth phase which I am so pumped about because we have so many kids who have gone through this and have gotten amazing results that we're opening up our fourth phase. So if anyone is a current member or a past
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member, we're opening up a peak performance phase. So once you have the foundation that you have climbed out of the hole of your mental block, then we climb the mountain of your absolute best performance. So we've got we have
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coaches on our team. One of them is former captain of a D1 gymnastics team.
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She specializes in peak performance under pressure. So, she's going to really be heading up that group and it is going to be awesome. So, if you are ready to get your confidence back, to stop the fear cycle, to prevent the
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mental blocks from happening, and to prepare your mind for the future upgrades, summer is the time. But you can get in starting now, and you can actually start one-on-one sessions right away. So, we have a a limited number of
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one-on- ones. Um, but we also have our standard membership that doesn't have one-on- ones if that's a more affordable option for your family. But get in and check out performappy.com. So, DM me, reach out, find me on Instagram at
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complete_performance if you have any questions or you want to find out if this is right for you. And I'm so glad that you are on this amazing journey and you have this opportunity to grow as a human. You won't regret it. I'll see you
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around soon. Bye, guys.
Topics:mental blocksovercome feargymnastics mental trainingPerform Happy methodconfidence buildingathlete mindsetsports psychologyfear of upgradescoach parent athlete relationshipemotional safety in sports
