Five Mindset Traps

A client logged into a coaching session recently with a look on his face that told the whole story before he said a word.

He shook his head and said — it was bad. Just bad.

He was talking about a three-day competition weekend. And I could see the defeat written all over him.

So I asked him to walk me through it. Day by day. Run by run.

And as he did, something shifted. There was actually a lot of good. Real progress. Solid moments. Growth and successes he hadn't been acknowledging. As it turned out, it was really only the last run of the entire weekend — one missed shot on Sunday afternoon — that had colored his experience of three full days of competing.

One miss. Three days of good work. And in his mind, the whole weekend was bad.

That is a mindset trap. And it is one of five we're unpacking this week.

A mindset trap is a pattern of thinking that feels justified, feels true, and sometimes even feels like a high standard — but underneath is quietly stealing your power, your focus, and your performance. Here are the five most common ones I see in competitors.

VICTIM MENTALITY

Victim mentality is the belief — conscious or not — that life is happening to you rather than for you. In competition it sounds like this always happens to me, I never get the good draws, nothing ever works out no matter how hard I try.

The antidote is not pretending hard things don't happen. It's the distinction Viktor Frankl described from inside a Nazi concentration camp — between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom to choose. You may not be responsible for what happens to you. But you are always responsible for how you respond.

The competitor who asks what can I do with this will always outperform the one who asks why does this always happen to me.

THE COMPARISON TRAP

Theodore Roosevelt called comparison the thief of joy. In competition it looks like watching someone else warm up and suddenly feeling smaller, less prepared, less worthy of being there.

Here's what we're always doing when we compare — measuring our insides against someone else's outsides. We see their confidence and their highlight reel. We don't see their doubt, their bad days, their inner critic before a big run.

The only competitor worth measuring yourself against is who you were yesterday.

CATASTROPHIZING

Catastrophizing is the habit of fast-forwarding every situation to the absolute worst possible outcome. You have one bad run and suddenly the whole season is ruined. Your brain runs disaster movies — and your nervous system responds as though the disaster is actually happening. You have scared yourself into a bad run before you've even taken it.

When you catch the spiral, ask two questions. What is the most likely outcome here — not the worst, the most likely? And even if the worst happens, can I handle it? In almost every case, the answer to both is far less catastrophic than your brain is suggesting.

ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING

This is the trap my client fell into. One missed shot became a bad weekend. One bad run became a failed event. All-or-nothing thinking sees everything in extremes — perfect or worthless, great or terrible, success or failure — with no gray area in between.

But most of growth and most of performance lives in the gray. A run can be mostly great with one imperfect moment. A season can show real development even when the results don't fully reflect it yet.

The next time you catch yourself in an all-or-nothing evaluation, deliberately look for the middle. What went well? What showed growth? What would you tell a teammate who had the same experience? Extend yourself the same grace.

PERFECTIONISM

Perfectionism is the one I want to spend a moment on personally. Because I have wrestled with it — and still do.

When I launched the Cowgirl Up podcast, recording those first episodes was both harrowing and humbling. And I almost let perfectionism stop me before I started. The technology was unfamiliar. My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Nothing felt polished enough.

But here's what I kept coming back to — and what I want to leave with you. Perfectionism looks like high standards. Underneath it is fear. Fear of judgment, fear of not being enough, fear of what a mistake says about your worth.

Excellence and perfectionism are not the same thing. Excellence says I want to keep growing and I will do the work. Perfectionism says I must be flawless or I have failed. One moves you forward. The other holds you hostage.

Do it awkwardly but do it anyway. Perfection is the worst form of procrastination. Embrace being perfectly imperfect.

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And remember - You are the gatekeeper of your mind. Every single one of these traps requires your permission to stay. And you get to revoke that permission any time you choose.

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Ready to go deeper? Listen to the Cowgirl Up podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts — new episodes drop Monday through Friday.

Interested in building a complete mental skills toolkit with personalized coaching support? Schedule a free discovery call at https://thehub-api.mastermind.com/widget/booking/4lv6jvtWDaKLScRzga20

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurie Blickenstaff is a Certified Mental Performance Coach, competitive team roper, and founder of Mental Game 101. She hosts the Cowgirl Up daily mindset podcast and works one-on-one with competitors who are ready to close the gap between their physical preparation and their mental game. Learn more at mentalgame101.com.

Mental performance training is NOT intended as, nor is it a substitute for, mental health care.