In sport, as in any high-demand environment, some blockages are neither physical nor technical. They are mental, emotional, and therefore sometimes hard to identify.
An athlete may be perfectly trained, possess the necessary technical skills, and already have shown their level… and yet be unable to express it when the stakes rise. Among the mechanisms we can encounter, two are particularly interesting: fear of losing, often linked to fear of failure, and, more surprisingly, fear of winning.
Two seemingly opposite mechanisms that can nevertheless lead to the same result: preventing the athlete from fully expressing their potential when it matters.
Fear of winning: why might an athlete be afraid to succeed?
The fear of winning is a paradox.
An athlete wants to succeed. They train to win. They may spend years pursuing a goal. Yet when victory becomes truly possible, something can change.
This is not necessarily a fear felt consciously. The athlete may sincerely want to win while associating victory with certain consequences: higher expectations, a change of status, new responsibilities, others' different perceptions of them, or a disruption of their personal balance.
An internal conflict can then appear between what the athlete consciously desires and what that success represents for them. The problem is therefore not necessarily their level. It can lie in what is happening mentally and emotionally when success becomes possible.
Fear of losing and fear of winning: two mental blocks that affect performance
Fear of losing and fear of failure
This is probably the easiest to identify. It appears especially in contexts of strong pressure, loss of confidence, high expectations, after several poor performances or during a return from injury. Its consequences can be very concrete:
- loss of concentration ;
- mental and physical tension ;
- thoughts focused on failure or judgment ;
- difficulty taking initiative ;
- counterproductive behaviors.
The athlete no longer truly competes to succeed: they compete to avoid failing.
Fear of winning
More subtle, it can notably manifest as:
- a change of tactics that’s hard to explain ;
- a drop in intensity while the athlete is in a favorable position ;
- a recurring difficulty closing out ;
- unusual errors at key moments ;
- a loss of fluidity as victory approaches.
The athlete approaches their goal… then seems to gradually move away from it.
Note : of course, any mistake made near victory is not necessarily a “fear of winning.” Fatigue, the opponent, pressure or the uncertainties of competition can also explain it.
Two concrete examples
Example 1: leading… then changing tactics
A tennis player or a fencer is well ahead. Yet, as victory nears, they alter their play, shorten their gestures, take fewer initiatives or lose intensity.
The opponent comes back. Pressure rises. The athlete starts thinking more about the result than about what they need to do. The match can then turn.
Example 2: repeatedly close to winning… but not winning
An athlete strings together two national podiums without managing to win. Why?
Imagine that victory would mean a change of life for them: joining a national center, moving away from their family, changing their daily routine. Consciously they want to become champion. But winning also means accepting the consequences of that victory.
Remaining second can then, potentially and unconsciously, allow them to preserve their current balance.
What sometimes plays out without the athlete being aware
We would like to imagine that our decisions and behaviors are entirely rational and conscious. In reality, we are also influenced by past experiences, our beliefs, our emotions or certain cognitive biases that change the way we interpret a situation. Some behaviors can also stem from an adaptive unconscious: a reaction built at a given time to adapt to a situation can continue to influence behavior even when it is no longer suited to the current objective.
This does not mean, of course, that you should look for an unconscious explanation behind every poor performance. But when an athlete repeatedly reproduces the same scenario, it can be useful to understand why what they do no longer fully matches what they want to do.
What can we work on together in mental training?
This is precisely where I can help.
The hardest part is sometimes identifying for yourself what is happening. You notice you lose your composure at certain moments, that you repeat certain behaviors, or that you can’t get past a barrier without necessarily understanding why.
My work begins by helping you identify these mechanisms, understand what triggers them, and build tailored responses suited to how you function and to your situation.
Depending on your needs, we can work together on:
- the management of the pressure and of the emotions ;
- the confidence ;
- the concentration ;
- the identification of certain cognitive biases ;
- the letting go, notably regarding what you cannot control ;
- the visualization to mentally prepare specific situations ;
- the depolarization, to nuance an often very binary view of victory and defeat ;
- the understanding of certain mechanisms linked to the adaptive unconscious.
I obviously don't use these different areas of work the same way for everyone. I adapt my support to the athlete, to how they function, to their goal and to the situation they face. The aim is not to remove all your emotions or all your fears, but to help you better understand them and to learn to perform without letting them take control of your performance.
Some athletes don't lose because they're weaker… but because they're not yet ready to win.