FBC – 53 – How To Overcome a mental block

How To Overcome a mental block.

Sorry for the mess yesterday and the blank podcast. This is version 2.0 of the podcast. Today we are going to discuss how you can overcome the biggest mental blocks and reach your objectives. I found this yesterday by complete “accident”.

So I'm going to tell you a story of what happened to me yesterday. It's about basketball but the actual moral of the story is not about basketball. It can be transposed to everything else. OK.

I told you that when I was younger I was a very good basketball player. I got actually selected for the trials for a professional team in Italy. One of the top teams in Europe.  When I was younger I had a lot of ups which means my vertical leap was really impressive. And so for that reason I actually never learned to shoot because I could just jump and go over defenders and dunk or avoid defenders in mid-air and stuff. So I never actually learned how to shoot.

And then as you know I got injured and I ended up in a wheelchair. And then I had to learn everything again and train at night when people were sleeping and everything. So I became a shooter afterwards because I can't jump anymore. But the problem was that I became a shooter but I became a mid-range shooter. I've been practicing now for like eight years or whatever so I’m a pretty good mid-range shooter because I have the muscle memory for mid-range.

But long range, which takes me to my three point shots, I had a mental block. For whatever reason my brain goes into panic mode and the basket seems so far away that I have to use a lot of strength and stuff. And it's been bugging me forever.

But the day before, I went shooting. At the end of my session, I shot five three pointers in a row.  But like easy. And I was like oh what's happening here? And then afterwards I missed the last five or something. And the fact that I missed the other ones was pretty normal because you know again I have this mental block, but I after hitting five in a row like pretty easily I said ”Dude it's possible you can do it”, right? So you just have to find a way to do it.

So yesterday during my session I decided not to shoot mid-range, but only to focus on my three point range.

The main problem for me was that my brain was for whatever reason thinking that it was impossible for me to hit that because it was too long and I just had to convince my brain that it wasn't the case. So my main focus was to create the muscle memory for my body to realize that it's easy. So I kept shooting. Even if it was it wasn't going in or anything, I didn't care. And after 10 minutes I realized that what had been blocking me for forever is actually very easy. I thought I knew it because I could see kids doing it and do it but my brain, my subconscious didn't know it.

So I decided to like break it down into smaller steps. Step one was remove the mental block OK and train your brain to understand that it's possible. So this is where it applies to you as well. So just forget about the basketball image right. But there's something else for you. I don't know what you're trying to achieve right now but it seems very daunting. Your brain has this mental block that tells you it’s not possible… give it up, right? And eventually you're not you're not going to do it.

So what I want you to do is the same thing I did yesterday. Break it down into milestones. Milestone one is you know trick your brain and train your brain to basically well teach it that it's possible.  So this is what I did yesterday. I was just shooting and yeah after a while I mean now it's just a regular shot. Whereas before it was a problem.

So let me give you an example all right. So your current occupation. Think about that occupation. All right. So you might have been doing that for like 10 years or whatever where five years three years. So now I want you to think back to the first day your first day at that job and think about when you walked in the door and your supervisor or your team leader told you “OK. Bob this is what you're going to do”. And you're like “wow how the hell am I going to pull that off?” right? The task that you were given in the beginning was daunting. Right.

You had never done that before. You had this block in your brain that says this looks complicated. And then what happened? The more you did it and the more you became comfortable with it. All right. And you realize now if I ask you today “you know how do you do that stuff?” you'd be like “Oh man its easy”. This is because you trained your brain to understand that it's possible. OK.

How To Overcome a mental block

So this is first step. OK. Break it down like this. Then you can tackle any obstacle at any roadblock you had using that technique and it's not actually something I read or something right. I just it just happened yesterday.

So you have something when you're playing sports and doing certain tasks, called muscle memory. OK. There are things that you do without thinking about them. You know when you shower you have your sequence for example when you're driving you have your sequence and driving is a good example as well.

Yesterday when I was shooting, my aim was not to hit the homerun and score 10 out of 10. No that was going to be the next step. I was looking at the shots that went in and I was like what did I do for that shot to go in?  So once I’d worked out the formula, the only thing I had to do was to make sure that I acquired the reflex of having all these elements combined when I shoot. And then after this, I'm going to become a very good shooter! OK. This is how you do it.

So I want you guys to do the same thing with anything that's blocking you. You have these three sequences. So first sequence is to trick your brain into understanding that it's possible. Second step is analysis. What worked and why it worked. And once you find this then it’s just repetition of what works. And this is how you get results!!

It's not you. People who are managing businesses and stuff who are really successful went through this exact sequence.