Most of us in cheerleading are familiar with Debbie Love’s “Breaking Free” method of resolving an athletes mental blocks. I think this is a great resource and really helps get people past their mental block. She goes into a lot of detail explaining why and how kids develop the block. I think everyone who wants to know more needs to read it.
My goal is two-fold. One, cure the mental block and two, eliminate mental blocks from forming. Most people I speak to talk about them as an annoyance with which they can’t be bothered with. They haven’t put the time in to consider why it happened. Debbie goes into detail with many “why’s” but if you go to the root you will notice two major causes.
The two most common causes are:
- Lack of Progression
- Stress: (School work, prior injury, parent, coach, growth spurt and many others)
Really, if you look carefully at it, a lack of progression causes stress too. So, ultimately “stress” is the only cause for mental blocks.
So this is an easy one, eliminate stress and the mental block goes away right?
Wrong.
Eliminating stress is unrealistic. Understanding types of stress is key. When we think of stress we think of something bad and negative. What we are picturing is “DI-stress.” DI-stress is referring to the harmful things which make us weaker, less confident, and less able. These include:
- Destructive Criticism. (Negative and cutting words including self-talk)
- Poor Time Management. (Not getting school work done)
- Parents who don’t let the coaches coach. (Want a job? Fill out an application!)
- Lack of Progression/ Moving to fast. (Always a short-term gain with long-term consequences)
- Poor Diet. (If you are an athlete treat your body right and give it what it needs!)
What we as Coaches, Parents and Mentors need to do is teach our athletes about good stress. “Eu-“ is a Greek prefix for “healthy,” we would know it from the word Euphoria. The good stress I am talking about is “EU-stress.” Coaches, parents and role models who push us to exceed our limits and take carefully calculated risks which grow our comfort zone are examples of eustress. It’s the stress we need for healthy growth as an athlete and it will spill over into other areas of life.
How to Eliminate the Block:
This is a method that I have used successfully. It’s clearly not the only way because I too have utilized Debbie’s method.
Coach:
- Trust is key! If it’s not already established you have to build or rebuild trust with the athlete.
- Have unconditional patience.
- Get creative.
- Make if fun!
- Create Eustress, teach the athlete the difference between types of criticism. People who avoid criticism or don’t understand the difference between constructive and destructive criticism will fail.
Parent:
- Love em’ where they are. Remember, they are not defined by their ability to do or not do a skill.
- Don’t try coaching them.
- Love em’ more.
Athlete: (You must develop two beliefs.)
- I can change right now! (No matter how crazy this might sound write it down and repeat it over and over until you believe it.)
- I accept responsibility for my change. The change will happen inside and only I can make the choice!
Some things I focus on while coaching an athlete with a “mental block”
- I always reassure them that this is on there time and no one gives them a deadline on when they will choose “get the skill back.” 9 times out 10 lack of body awareness is what holds the student back.
- I will focus on teaching the athlete how to fine tune their senses and teach them body awareness. I also find two or three things the athlete like working which are fun and mix a “blocked” skill in the middle of a lot fun skills.
- Also, I will break a skill into its basic component and drill the small parts of the skill and teach them how all the basics relate to what their goal is. Once that’s “boring” for the athlete I will put everything back together and because they now know how to feel the correct way they are filled with confidence.
“If I have the belief that I can do it I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have had it at the beginning.” ~Gandhi
simplexcellence 