Mental barriers are obstacles that prevent young athletes from performing a particular skill. This typically triggers a fight or flight instinct and they either struggle with the perceived problem, or they completely avoid the situation.

NOTE TO PARENTS: The important thing to know and understand is that kids are not born with the ability to deal with competitive situations. 9.9 times out of 10, no one teaches kids about how our brains work and the optimal mental skills needed for sport. It’s rarely seen in the classroom, and is rarely brought up as a critical element of growth.

So where do they learn how to deal with these challenging situations and these mental barriers that are holding them back? A situation happens and kids figure out how to deal with it. Period. Unfortunately they don’t usually figure out the most effective way to deal with the situation and this follows them along their developmental path. Because of this cycle (and several other factors), most kids don’t end up having the mental capacity they need to deal with competitive situations and end up building those skills unconsciously.

What are the top reasons kids struggle?

1. Not playing in competition like they practice. Most kids do really well in practice but struggle with pressure to compete and meet other people’s expectations during competition. This doesn’t happen in practice (or anywhere else) so when confronted with it in competition kids don’t have the ability to deal with it.
2. Mistakes causing lack of confidence. Confidence is the ability to meet the task at hand. It is riddled with so many things. One mistake can cause confidence to drop. When a kid hangs onto that mistake (during one or multiple performances), a continued drop in confidence occurs until fear and anxiety set in sometimes to the point of not being able to perform well at all.
3. Anxiety creates havoc. This can include negative thoughts and doubts and butterflies, stomach ache, sweaty palms and increased heart rate. Most kids have a combination of cognitive and somatic anxiety. Wherever the nervous response to stress starts, it’s a cycle that feeds off each other. It can pop up the week before competition, several days prior, the previous day, the day of, during competition and between events. Nerves can be all consuming. If a kid is in their head thinking, they are not present and are then unable to perform.
4. Being hard on oneself. It’s so incredibly hard for kids to feel less than and not live up to their own, coach’s, and parent’s expectations. Kids quickly feel like they’ve let other people down and then beat themselves up for that. One wrong move (mistake or error) can cause a spiral of negativity, fear, and doubt. This can be a prominent part of practice, but it stems from competition. People are watching and expect that their child or athlete will do well. They expect them to win.
5. Emotional control/consistency. The ability to handle adversity in sports is incredibly important. Your kids will win some and they will lose some. Mistakes are an important part of the learning process and must happen for an athlete to continue to improve. Unfortunately, many kids can’t handle anything less than winning or dropping time every single time, and that unrealistic expectation leads to a sense of failure leading to out of control emotions which leads to lack of consistency and lack of emotional control.

Beating the demons. Beat the mental barriers.

In all of my experience, my one-on-one coaching, and decades of observation, the Beating the Demons System is the most simplistic and systematic way for kids to deal with mental barriers. Early in my career, I quickly came to realize that these barriers and our demons jump in at very specific inopportune times – prior to competing, after a mistake/error, before a critical moment in the game (before serve, at bat, or free throw), and post competition.

When a young athlete develops the necessary mental skills to beat the competition demons, they can then play like they practice; increase their confidence; decrease their own anxiety; stop being hard on themselves, and take emotional control to be more consistent.

Kids absolutely do not like to deal with things that pop up when they don’t know how to deal with it. So therein lies the challenge, they pop up and kids don’t have the proper steps and skills to deal with them. However, they can develop these skills. A mind coach isn’t about psychologically fixing a child, it’s about kids learning skills they need to effectively deal with their environment.

When kids have these tools, they get back to the business of doing what they love to do – play their sport.