Are you an athlete caught in the exhausting cycle of never feeling "good enough"? Do you find yourself paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, replaying errors long after the game ends, or pushing so hard that the joy has been drained from your sport? You're not alone. Perfectionism affects athletes at every level—from recreational players to NCAA competitors to professionals—and it's one of the most common barriers to both peak performance and genuine enjoyment of sport.
Located in the Colorado Springs area, I specialize in helping athletes break free from the prison of perfectionism using proven, evidence-based approaches that honor both your competitive drive and your mental wellbeing.
Perfectionism in athletes goes far beyond simply wanting to excel. Research using specialized measures reveals that athletic perfectionism involves three distinct patterns that can significantly impact both performance and mental health:
1. Self-Oriented Perfectionism: Setting impossibly high standards for yourself and engaging in harsh self-criticism when you fall short. This often manifests as never celebrating victories because "I could have done better."
2. Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: The belief that others (coaches, parents, teammates) expect perfection from you. This creates constant anxiety about disappointing others and can lead to performance paralysis.
3. Other-Oriented Perfectionism: Expecting perfection from teammates, coaches, or competitive situations. This often results in frustration, anger, and difficulty working effectively within team dynamics.
Unlike perfectionism in other areas of life, athletic perfectionism carries unique challenges. Sports involve public performance, immediate feedback, win-lose outcomes, and often team dynamics. Athletes also face the paradox of needing to strive for excellence while remaining psychologically flexible enough to adapt, learn from mistakes, and maintain the flow states that lead to peak performance.
One of the most transformative concepts I share with athletes is understanding the fundamental difference between excellence-striving and perfectionism. Excellence striving comes from a place of love and fullness—it's what we're meant to do. It's rooted in your deepest, most authentic self and the reasons you were originally drawn to express yourself through sport.
Perfectionism, on the other hand, is fear-based. It's driven by anxiety about not being enough, fear of failure, or terror of disappointing others. While both can lead to hard work, only love-based excellence is sustainable and truly fulfilling.
I specialize in using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a cutting-edge approach that's particularly effective for athletes struggling with perfectionism. Rather than trying to eliminate perfectionist thoughts (which often backfires), ACT teaches you to change your relationship with these thoughts while committing to actions aligned with your deepest values.
Imagine you're holding a rope with perfectionism on the other end. Between you and perfectionism is a deep ravine filled with your biggest fears—"I'm not enough," "I'm a failure," "I can't handle this." You've been fighting hard, pulling on that rope, but getting nowhere. The harder you fight perfectionism, the more engaged you become with it.
What happens when you simply drop the rope? You discover you have other options. You can walk around the ravine, focus on what truly matters to you, and pursue your sport from a place of values and love rather than fear and avoidance.
Mindfulness and Present-Moment Awareness: Learning to notice perfectionist thoughts without judgment. For example, teaching a swimmer to use mindful breathing before a race, noticing the "must be perfect" narrative, then gently refocusing on the sensation of water on their skin.
Cognitive Defusion: Reducing the power of perfectionist thoughts by learning to see them as just "mental chatter." A tennis player might learn to say, "My mind is having the 'must not mess up' story again," rather than being consumed by the thought.
Acceptance of Internal Experiences: Teaching athletes to welcome unwanted thoughts and feelings rather than suppress them. A diver learning to say, "I'm feeling anxious AND I can still perform well."
Values Clarification: Moving focus from "must be perfect" to "what truly matters." We explore questions like, "Do you value growth, learning, and teamwork, or just flawless results?" This helps athletes set goals based on values rather than outcomes.
Committed Action: Supporting athletes in taking value-driven steps even when perfectionist thoughts are present. A gymnast choosing to keep trying challenging routines—not just what she can do perfectly—because growth matters to her.
Understanding that fears live not just in our mind but in our body and nervous system, I integrate "bottom-up" therapies including EMDR, neurofeedback, and biofeedback. These approaches help your body and nervous system send signals that you're safe, creating space for the psychological flexibility that peak performance requires.
Many athletes are surprised to discover how much their perfectionist patterns are held in their nervous system. By addressing these patterns at the somatic level, we can create lasting change that goes beyond just thinking differently.
Perfectionism doesn't exist in a vacuum. I often work with the entire support system around an athlete, particularly for younger competitors. Parents and coaches, despite their best intentions, can inadvertently reinforce perfectionist patterns.
Common Ways Parents and Coaches Unintentionally Fuel Perfectionism
I work with families to create environments that support love-based excellence while reducing fear-based pressure.
I provide individual and team counseling for athletes across all sports and competitive levels:
Treatment typically begins with a comprehensive intake assessment, often using specialized measures like the Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale-2 to understand your specific perfectionist patterns. From there, we integrate ACT approaches with any necessary body-based therapies to help loosen your relationship with old neural networks that keep you stuck.
The goal isn't to eliminate your drive for excellence—it's to help you pursue your athletic goals from a place of psychological flexibility, self-compassion, and authentic values rather than fear and rigid control.
You don't have to choose between excellence and enjoyment. You can pursue your athletic goals with both fierce commitment and genuine self-compassion.
Located in the Colorado Springs area, I'm here to help you drop the rope with perfectionism and discover what becomes possible when you compete from love rather than fear.
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