Mental Blocks in Cheerleading Can Ruin Your Day – Part I
While exploring the forum on the site – All About Cheerleading, I came across a question written by a cheerleader who has a “mental block” throwing her full. She wrote that she found her fulls easy to do when her team is warming up in the corners but then “blocks” when they do their whole routine. She has to do a pass through 3 other girls which is “scary” for her.
This cheerleader said that this is “taking a lot of mental energy” as it is “all I think about” and it’s frustrating for her. She gets mad at herself because she is a “perfectionist.”
Well, as a psychologist and peak performance coach, this caught my interest and I thought I would use her concern as the basis of a blog post – maybe a few!
Where to begin? I think I’ll focus on the perfectionist problem today.
Perfectionism in itself is not necessarily a problem. On a positive note, perfectionism can drive a cheerleader (or anyone) to work hard and persevere in the face of discouragement. So, perfectionism can be the fuel that motivates a cheerleader to succeed especially when it is accompanied by commitment, persistence, and attention to detail.
A healthy perfectionist can take pleasure in the effort taken to achieve success.
But sometimes, perfectionism isn’t so good for you! This is true if you are unable to feel satisfaction because you can never believe what you do is good enough or if you are striving towards unrealistic goals.
There is an important distinction between striving towards excellence versus perfection. The former is realistic and possible; the latter is rarely possible and more likely to lead to frustration and heartache and in some instances – depression.
In cheerleading, the road to perfecting a stunt or routine is riddled with bumps and potholes. Mistakes are inevitable and, as I’ve mentioned in this forum many times, the best attitude to have towards mistakes is to view them as opportunities to learn and grow.
So here is how I would advise this cheerleader: You are missing out on an opportunity to learn something about yourself that can be valuable to you. A true champion sees a mistake as information, as data that can be used to learn and to improve!
I would invite you to step back and practice saying this phrase over and over – “Isn’t it interesting that…” and fill in the blank. So, for example, you could say, “Isn’t it interesting that I can successfully throw a full alone but not with my team mates during our routine. I wonder why that is?”
If you do this, you will be creating some distance and objectivity to your situation which will help you see the situation more clearly and with less negative emotion. You become a scientist, filled with curiosity about this problem. Your goal becomes searching for a solution to the problem which is now more clearly defined which is – there is a difference in your ability to throw a full during a routine versus during a solo practice.
The next question becomes: what is the difference or what are the different variables between the 2 conditions? You are the same cheerleader in both situations, right? It isn’t that you are not physically capable of throwing a full since you are able to do so when practicing alone.
So what is it about executing this move with your squad that interferes with your ability to nail it?
To help you figure it out, here are some possibilities: you are allowing yourself to get distracted by the movements of your team mates; you have “spooked yourself” into believing that you cannot do it in these circumstances; you are more focused on your negative internal conversation than on executing the move. Do any of these ring true?
This is a beginning. Tomorrow I will pick up here and continue.
By the way – are you on Facebook? If so, please be my friend and join my Facebook group – Confident Cheerleading!
Tags: cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, coach, confidence, focus, motivation, perfectionism