The next common mental block is the fear of embarrassment. This is a very difficult fear to overcome because it has some deep seeded roots. Everyone wants to be liked and accepted by others. This refers to the need for social approval. Therefore, if others disapprove of you or something you do, then you become embarrassed and feel very uncomfortable because you are not being “liked and accepted by others.”

Athletes most often encounter this fear when they are performing under pressure. This pressure may come from the athlete themselves or from others (parents, coaches, teammates). They feel this pressure because they know they are being judged. As we all know, gymnastics is a sport of judgment. Every routine is judged by others and scored. Ideally, this score reflects the quality of your performance – although I am sure you have disagreed with the scores assigned to your routine once or twice! Gymnasts often equate the score of their routine with how well it was “liked and accepted by others.” In other words, if you get a low score, you may think you failed and will be rejected by others. On the other hand, if you get a high score, you may think you are successful and will be accepted by your teammates, coaches, and parents.

As you may have guessed by now, the fear of failure is highly connected to the fear of embarrassment. If you fail, then you are afraid that others will think less of you as an athlete (or even as a person) and this may lead to feelings of embarrassment. This creates the same negative cycle that is produced by the fear of failure. Since you fear embarrassment, you must avoid failure, which also means you must also avoid mistakes. To achieve this goal of avoidance, you will hold yourself back and take the safe route that you know you can successfully complete. However, performing easier skills will lead to a lower score, which again is connected with failure and embarrassment. The fear of embarrassment becomes a negative self-fulfilling prophecy – meaning, what you think about most (avoiding a low score to avoid embarrassment) increases the chances of that actually occurring.

Overall, most fears are connected in one way or another, which is what makes them so difficult to overcome. It is perfectly understandable to want to be liked and accepted by others – this is a basic human need after all. This only becomes a problem when you enter pressure situations and you start focusing on what other people think about you and your performance rather than what you need to do to perform your best. By focusing on other people, you become distracted and lose your confidence. This begins to increase your sense of fear of embarrassment and failure, which causes you to become very nervous and lose your composure. These steps explain how you desire to be accepted by others can turn into a disaster and ruin your performance if you don’t manage it appropriately.

Please leave a comment below and let me know how you have faced your fear of embarrassment.