Fear.
Fear is a crazy thing in sports and it manifests itself very differently in everyone. Some athletes shut down, some cry, and some just quit. Every athlete feels fear at some point in their career but I am not going to lie and say that every athlete struggles with fears. I have trained with and coached athletes that rarely struggled with it. And then, on the flip side, I have seen it destroy athletes.
Common fears in sports:
Fear of losing
Fear of letting down your coaches, parents, teammates, etc
Fear of letting yourself down
Fear of getting hurt
Fear of not being good
Example of this is always worrying that your dad wont be happy if you don't score a goal or your mom will be mad if you don’t make a certain team.
There are more specific fears, often times triggered by something:
Fear of a specific skill
Fear of breaking your ankle again
An example fo this would be you wiped out on beam on your series and now you cant get yourself to connect it.
And then there are those fears that come out of nowhere. Those are the ones that are really tricky. You cant really pinpoint what started it. You’re not quite sure what triggers it. You just feel anxious and overwhelmed. These fears are often times caused by an outside source of anxiety that is brought into the sport by accident.
An example of this would be your parents are getting divorced and all of the sudden you just cant hit the ball.
No matter what the fear is or where it comes from it shakes your confidence, holds you back, and prevents progress. It can make practice miserable and you can hate, yes hate your sport that you thought you loved.
Now this is barely scratching the surface of fears and how to deal with them but my goal is to just let you know that fears are normal, you can control, them and yes, even sometimes they go away.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I struggled hard with fears around 8th and 9th grade (a very common age that girls struggle with fears because, puberty.) Now I am a very analytical person and very much overthink things and as a coach I do see fears manifest themselves more often in athletes that have those traits. I honestly could not tell you what exactly started my fears but once they started it was like a really slippery hill that I just kept falling down. I was afraid of mostly everything on beam at the time so it maybe started there. Then I was afraid of my bar dismount, then I was afraid of back twisting on floor, and then I was afraid to do my vault. That was the bomb. Vault was my thing. I went home crying almost every night from practice for months. I remember my mom saying if you are so miserable just quit. She meant this is in the most loving and supportive way. She didn’t care if I did gymnastics, she just wanted me to be happy. She drove my ass there every night of the week for me, because I loved it. Most of the fears we could work around. Make changes, do different skilsl but the vault, I only had one so instead of doing a tusk I had to a front handspring. For those of you that don’t do gymnastics let’s just say that is like hitting a single instead of a home run. Not the worst but far from what you are capable of, and again, vault was my thing. I hit home runs on vault. To this day I don’t know what triggered it but I do know that I never took the time to figure it out. I just went in every day hoping it would be gone. I did think about quitting lots of times but for some reason I didn’t. I knew in my gut that that I wasn’t done with gymnastics, I still had a lot more to give and I trusted that. I am a big believer in trusting your gut feelings.
Now I did get over it. It was the State meet and I think I was literally exhausted with being afraid. I just did it. I had bouts with fear on it again. But never anything like the first time. Once I went to college I developed a confidence in my skills and in myself and and that was everything. I wish that confidence was something I would have developed earlier which is why I am so passionate about encouraging self belief in the athletes I coach.
The last thing I really want to hit on is never quit when things are tough. I always wanted my athletes to come to me when they were having doubts about the sport. Usually another team mate would come to me knowing I would find a way to talk to the athlete. I didn’t approach them mad or asking why they wanted to quit. I didn’t pressure them into telling me what I wanted to hear. I asked them questions and listened. It didn’t take long for them to tell me what was going on and so many times it was because of fear. All athletes have doubts at one time or another but it is so important to figure out what is causing them. You have to give it some time and make sure you are quitting for the right reasons, not just because you are frustrated. Some of the right reasons being that you have lost the love and passion for your sport, your body cant do do the sport anymore, or a variation of the two. And when either of these things happen you know.
Again, this topic is so complicated so this is just scratching the surface. Just remember, fear needs to be talked about, fear is normal, and fear affects everyone. Don’t let fear control you and your performance. If you have a fear, even if you don’t think it’s affecting your performance (it is) be honest with yourself. Get to the nitty gritty and find what works for you. Like a lot of things it is about figuring out the “why.” You are strong and you are in control. Never forget that.
