How do you break the psychological barrier?

Hi

Its possible that you're not fully aware of your fears. Or it may be that you don't specifically fear getting hurt but are playing with fear nonetheless. In certain psychological states you are more less likely to be able to take risks - even sensible ones - and this may be true for you.

It's hard to provide any kind of meaningful advice on a forum, as there's no dialogue upon which to base a diagnosis, but I would suggest using anything that you can to cultivate a mindset based on playing in the moment and having fun. You can use music, imagery, all sorts but the easiest way is when you can really go into games to enjoy playing - and mean it. Forget outcomes and develop some 'process goals' such as committing to slide tackles, perhaps putting a number or percentage on this.

Cheers

Rob Robson, iStadia.com | Exercise and Sports Networking | Sports Jobs

There is a need to create habits when faced with psychological barriers. So as to alleviate, to a certain degree, decision making. For instance slide tackling, dream up an exercise, such as 20m sprints that finish with a slide tackle. Repeat! The more often the sooner the habit is created, therefore overwriting any subliminal fear you may have had previously. With headers, dream up something.
When producing solid habits that work you must have 100% focus. If you are becoming tired, rest or stop.
The harder you train, the harder you play!

I agree with robrobson on the point of having fun and with shwaborn on the point of creating habits.

We all have two states we act in - either we are predicting and thinking, or we are lost in what we're doing - in state, or in the zone. In order to remove fears you just have to get lost in what you're doing. Just be confident and let it go.

What I used to do faced with fear problems was to simply find fun things, but not just fun things, things that would truly fulfill my to my deepest core and make me unstoppable, because that will spread on to the future. I would recommend going out with your best friends or doing a comfort zone test such as going out and talking to strangers. Once you get that excitement, that fun that says you're unstoppable, it spreads to everything in life.

Every performance barrier just exists because you create it. People who have no choice, who live in terrible conditions, facing hunger and death never have these problems. Because they just have one choice: Either they do what they need to, or they're dead. All these minor problems we have such as "not feeling totally confident" or "just missing this little thing" are secondary things we allow ourselves to worry about when we have our needs met, when our stomach is full and we have a home to live in.

So, I would suggest cultivating getting in state/in the zone, and facing it as a life-or-death situation so you bring yourself to break that fear and act on it. Breaking fear and becoming excellent is truly easy, it's not a matter of skill but just of practice. Just practice breaking fear, even if you're mediocre, and you'll become excellent.

Hope that helped :)

Vasco Patricio