Mental Blocks in Sport and Performance: Why One Bad Experience Can Keep Affecting You
- Lesley Allen
- Jul 22
- 7 min read
One difficult performance can stay with you long after the event itself has ended.
Perhaps you froze during a competition, made an unexpected mistake, experienced panic, fell during a routine, lost your place in a presentation or performed far below your usual standard.
At the time, it may have felt like a single bad experience.
But later, you may notice that something has changed. You begin thinking about it before the next event. You become more aware of your body, your breathing or the possibility of making the same mistake. You may train harder, prepare more carefully or try to control every detail.
Unfortunately the more you try to prevent it happening again, the more anxious you become. This is how one bad performance can develop into a mental block.
What is a mental block?
A mental block is an automatic interruption in your ability to carry out a skill, action or performance that you would normally be able to complete.
It may feel as though your mind suddenly goes blank, your body will not respond properly or a familiar movement has become inaccessible.
In sport and dance, this might affect:
timing
coordination
breathing
rhythm
balance
decision-making
commitment to a movement
trust in your body
In other forms of performance, it may affect:
memory
speech
concentration
confidence
fine motor control
the ability to think clearly under pressure
A mental block can be particularly confusing because the skill itself may still be present.
You may perform it well in training, rehearsal or private practice, yet struggle when you return to the situation in which the original problem occurred.
Why the brain remembers the difficult moment
The brain is designed to learn quickly from emotionally significant experiences.
If something happens that feels frightening, humiliating or out of control, your mind may store more than the factual memory of the event.
It may also store a rapid emotional response.
That response can become linked to aspects of the situation, such as:
the venue
the start of the event
a particular movement
being watched
a coach or judge
physical sensations
a certain point in the routine
the thought of making a mistake
The next time you encounter something similar, the brain may react before you have consciously decided there is a problem.
You may know logically that the present situation is different, yet your body responds as though the previous experience is about to happen again.
Anticipatory anxiety
Once a difficult performance has happened, anxiety often begins before the next event.
You may start thinking:
What if it happens again?
What if I freeze?
What if I panic?
What if my body lets me down?
What if everyone notices?
What if I cannot recover?
These thoughts create anxiety before the performance has even started.
The body then responds to the prediction.
Your heart rate increases. Your breathing changes. Your muscles tighten. You become more alert to anything that might indicate another problem.
The sensations themselves can feel familiar, which may lead you to think:
It is starting again.
This creates a feedback loop.
The fear of the previous experience produces the same physical symptoms, and those symptoms seem to confirm that the feared outcome is returning.
When you begin monitoring yourself
After a difficult performance, you may become highly self-conscious.
Instead of allowing a skill to happen automatically, you begin monitoring every detail.
You may check:
whether your breathing feels right
whether your body feels tense
whether your timing is correct
whether your confidence has returned
whether you are making the same mistake
whether other people have noticed anything
This constant monitoring takes attention away from the performance itself.
A well-practised skill that once felt natural may begin to feel mechanical and uncertain.
The problem is not that you have forgotten what to do, it is that your attention has become divided between performing and checking whether you are performing safely enough.
The fear of fear itself
Sometimes the original mistake is no longer the main problem.
The greater fear becomes the possibility of anxiety returning.
You may be afraid of:
shaking
feeling sick
losing your breath
going blank
feeling detached
losing control
being unable to continue
This means the body’s normal stress response becomes something you are trying desperately to avoid.
A small increase in heart rate or muscle tension can then feel threatening.
You may interpret ordinary nervous energy as evidence that another bad experience is inevitable.
The anxiety response becomes the trigger for more anxiety.
How avoidance strengthens the block
Avoidance is understandable.
You may want to withdraw from competitions, avoid a particular movement, reduce your involvement or delay returning until you feel completely confident.
In the short term, avoidance can bring relief.
In the longer term, however, it can reinforce the belief that the situation is dangerous.
Your brain learns:
I was only safe because I avoided it.
This makes the next attempt feel even more significant.
Avoidance does not always mean withdrawing completely. It can also appear as:
over-preparing
repeatedly checking
changing a routine unnecessarily
needing constant reassurance
refusing to attempt the most feared part
only performing under very controlled conditions
These strategies can reduce anxiety temporarily while keeping the underlying fear in place.
Why trying harder can make the problem worse
When a mental block appears, people often respond by increasing effort.
They train more, think more, analyse more and try to force themselves through it.
Sometimes additional technical work is needed.
But if the skill is already well established, the main problem may not be technical.
The person may already know exactly what to do.
Trying harder can increase pressure and reinforce the idea that the situation is difficult, dangerous or must be controlled perfectly.
This can make the block feel even stronger.
The goal is not always to force the performance.
It may be to reduce the automatic threat response that is interfering with it.
The emotional impact of embarrassment
A performance does not have to be physically dangerous to create a strong mental block. Embarrassment and humiliation can have a powerful effect.
You may remember:
people watching
a coach’s reaction
criticism afterwards
feeling exposed
believing you had disappointed others
seeing the mistake replayed
comparing yourself with someone else
The event may become linked with a fear of being judged or seen as incapable.
The next performance then feels like an opportunity to prove that the previous event was not the real you.
That creates even more pressure.
Instead of simply performing, you are trying to repair your reputation, restore your identity or prevent others from thinking badly of you.
When injury or illness changes confidence
Mental blocks can also develop after injury, illness or a period away from performance.
Even when the body has recovered, the mind may remain cautious.
You may worry about:
becoming injured again
pain returning
no longer being as capable
your body failing under pressure
losing progress
being judged for not performing as before
This can lead to hesitation, tension or holding back.
The person may consciously want to commit fully while an automatic protective response prevents them from doing so.
That response is not weakness.
It is the brain trying to avoid another experience it has associated with danger.
How to begin loosening a mental block
Separate the event from your identity
A bad performance is something that happened.
It is not a definition of who you are.
Try to notice any conclusions you formed, such as:
I cannot cope under pressure.
I always freeze.
I have lost my ability.
I cannot trust my body.
Everyone now sees me differently.
These conclusions may feel true because the event was emotionally powerful, but they are not necessarily accurate.
Identify the real trigger
The trigger may not be the whole performance.
It may be:
the start
a particular movement
being watched
a physical sensation
a specific venue
the thought of disappointing someone
the memory of what happened afterwards
Identifying the trigger helps clarify what the brain has linked with danger.
Reduce over-analysis
Technical reflection can be useful, but repeated mental replay often increases anxiety.
There is a difference between learning from an event and reliving it.
A balanced review asks:
What actually happened?
What was within my control?
What did I handle well?
What needs adjustment?
What can be left in the past?
Rebuild gradually
Returning does not always have to begin with the highest-pressure situation.
It may help to rebuild trust through:
lower-pressure practice
controlled exposure
performing in front of one trusted person
rehearsing recovery after a mistake
gradually increasing difficulty
focusing on process rather than proving yourself
The aim is to create new experiences of safety and competence.
Practise recovery, not perfection
Mental blocks are often maintained by the belief that nothing must go wrong.
A more useful skill is knowing how to respond when something does.
Practise:
resetting after a mistake
returning attention to the next action
using one simple cue
continuing without self-criticism
allowing the performance to remain imperfect
Confidence grows not only from perfect performances, but from learning that you can recover.
When the response feels automatic
Sometimes you understand the problem clearly but cannot change the reaction.
You know the previous event is over. You know the present situation is different. You know you are capable, but your body still responds automatically.
This is often where practical advice alone is not enough.
The response may be happening before conscious thought has fully caught up.
The trigger activates fear, tension or hesitation almost instantly.
How BWRT® may help with a mental block
BrainWorking Recursive Therapy, known as BWRT®, works with rapid, automatic emotional responses.
It may be helpful when a previous performance has become linked with fear, embarrassment, panic or loss of control.
The work can focus on the response associated with:
a particular mistake
a fall or injury
freezing during a performance
panic symptoms
being watched or judged
a specific venue or event
fear of the same thing happening again
anxiety about physical sensations
BWRT does not require you to repeatedly relive the experience in detail.
The aim is to change the automatic response connected to the trigger so that the present situation no longer activates the same level of threat.
This can help create space for a different response, one based on the present rather than the past.
One performance does not have to define the next
A difficult performance can feel powerful because it changes what you expect to happen. The event may be over, but the prediction remains.
You begin preparing for the same fear, the same mistake or the same loss of control.
That expectation can become more disruptive than the original event.
But a mental block is not proof that your ability has disappeared.
It is often evidence that the brain has learned an unhelpful protective response.
What has been learned can be changed.
The aim is not to erase the past.
It is to stop the past from controlling the next performance.
BWRT support for mental blocks and performance anxiety
As an Accredited Level 3 BWRT® Practitioner, I work with athletes, dancers, performers, speakers and professionals whose confidence has been affected by a difficult experience.
Sessions are tailored to the individual and may focus on a specific mistake, panic response, injury, loss of confidence, fear of judgment or anticipatory anxiety.
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