FEar
Fear is an emotion. This is important to note because emotions are powerful, and it is easy to let emotions control us. We so often let our emotions become fact. This being said, feeling our emotions is necessary. It is what makes us passionate, pushes us, and makes us human; however, learning to direct those emotions productively in our sport is necessary.
Fear or even the perception of 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. Others thrive on fear and see it as a challenge. Every athlete feels fear at some point in their career, but what kind of athlete grows from it, and what kind of athlete struggles with it?
Athletes that tend to be analytical, approval-driven, and anxious tend to struggle with fear. It is also more prevalent in athletes that are pushed too fast or are doing the sport for someone other than themselves. If you relate to any of these characteristics, it is even more imperative that you learn to identify your fear and use it to grow.
General common fears in gymnastics:
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
Specific triggered fears:
Fear of a specific skill that you wiped out on
Fear of breaking your ankle again
Now let’s talk about those “ghost fears” as I like to call them. These “fears” come out of nowhere. I put fears in quotations because often times this isn’t fear but anxiety that we define as fear. You can’t always pinpoint what started it. You’re not quite sure what triggers it. You just feel anxious and overwhelmed and all of a sudden you are scared of a skill. These fears are so often times caused by an outside source of anxiety such as finals, parents getting divorced, fighting with a friend, etc. The thing with this is if you let it control you and you don’t take a step back and pinpoint where this anxiety is actually coming from, it can trick you thinking you are scared of something and then that fear can become real.
No matter what the fear is or where it comes from, it shakes your confidence, holds you back, and prevents progress. It will make practice frustrating. This is why it is so important to work with someone to get to the root of the emotion. You cannot overcome it if you don’t know why you are feeling it. You need to separate emotion from reality.
