When The Mind Gets In The Way

The other night, my husband casually mentioned that professional athletes often work with sports psychologists. I remember stopping him and asking if that was really a thing. He said yes, especially when athletes suddenly can’t throw a ball or swing a bat even though they’ve done it effortlessly their entire lives.

They still have the skill.

They still have the muscle memory.

But under pressure something changes.

There’s even a name for it: the yips. It’s not physical. Their body has not forgotten how to perform. The issue is mental. And in sports this explanation is widely accepted. When performance breaks down no one assumes the athlete is weak or incapable. No one questions whether they still have it. It’s understood that the mind can interfere with the body when the pressure builds.

What struck me was not just that it exists.

It was how normal this explanation felt.

And how rarely we give ourselves that same leeway in other areas of life.

Because this does not just happen in sports.

It happens in business when capable people suddenly hesitate in rooms they used to walk into confidently.

It happens in leadership when decisions that once felt intuitive start to feel paralyzing.

It happens in relationships when conversations feel heavier than they should.

It happens creatively when words do not come or motivation disappears the moment pressure enters the room.

I see this pattern constantly.

And this week I lived it again myself.

This week I recorded my first podcast.

If you know me you know that I stutter. Which on paper feels like a strange path for someone who wants to speak publicly, record audio, and put their voice out into the world. For a long time, I believed my stutter would be the thing that limited me, the invisible line I would always have to work around.

Years ago, when I first started public speaking, I bought an earpiece that slightly delays your speech. The delay slows you down and helps regulate pacing. It was a tool and for a long time, it gave me a sense of control. If I used it, I felt safer. More prepared. Less exposed.

Before I understood this mind-body connection, I thought the solution was always more control. More preparation. More managing myself. If I could just stay one step ahead of my nerves, I’d be fine. What I did not realize was that constantly monitoring myself was part of the problem. The more I tried to prevent mistakes the less room there was to actually speak.

Recently, I started wondering if I still needed the earpiece. Not because I wanted to prove anything but because I was curious. I gave a few talks without it. I was nervous, but I did well. Better than I expected. I felt present. Less in my head. More connected to the moment.

When I went to record the podcast, I fully intended to use the earpiece again.

And then I did not.

Not because I made some brave decision. I simply forgot to put it in.

So, I recorded without it.

Did I stumble? Of course.

Did I redo parts? Absolutely.

But … something else also happened.

Once I settled into the recording, once I stopped listening to myself so closely and anticipating every mistake, my speech eased. Not perfectly but noticeably. The stuttering I had braced for did not take over. When I got into the flow of the conversation, my body relaxed.

And my speech followed.

That was the moment it clicked.

For years I had framed my stutter as the problem. Something to manage. Something to fix. Something that would always hold me back. What I was really dealing with was not just speech, it was anticipation: pressure, fear of getting stuck, the nervous system bracing before anything happened.

When my nervous system was activated, my body tightened.

When my body tightened, my speech followed.

When I felt safe enough to settle, my body cooperated.

Nothing about my ability changed.

My state did.

That is the mind-body connection.

Once you see it you start seeing it everywhere.

Stress does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it shows up in the small ways: rereading the same email five times before hitting send, replaying conversations in your head, holding your breath without realizing it, or feeling strangely exhausted by things that never used to drain you.

This is how capable people slowly lose access to themselves.

Not because they do not know what to do.

Not because they lack talent or intelligence.

But because pressure has quietly settled into the body and no one has helped them recognize it for what it is.

I see this in business all the time.

I see it when someone delays a decision they have already thought about ten times, when they avoid a conversation that they know they need to have. When they keep refining a plan instead of executing it. From the outside it can look like indecision or procrastination. But internally it’s often something else entirely.

It’s the body hesitating under pressure even while the mind is clear.

Effort increases. Self-monitoring increases. And paradoxically, performance drops. People start wondering what’s wrong with them. They assume they need to change jobs, change paths, or push themselves harder.

But often that is not the answer.

This is why the character Wendy on “Billions” has always stayed with me. For anyone unfamiliar with the show, Wendy is a performance psychologist who works with extremely successful people. These are individuals who already know how to win. They do not need motivation or coaching.

What they need is help managing their fear, ego, expectations, and internal pressure so they don’t implode under the weight of their own success.

She understands something we tend to ignore. At a certain level performance has very little to do with knowledge and everything to do with whether the nervous system feels steady enough to function.

We live in a culture that glorifies pushing through discomfort. We admire grit and resilience. We tell people to be more confident, to stop overthinking and just do the thing.

But the body does not respond to pressure by performing better.

It responds by protecting itself.

You cannot outthink that.

You cannot shame it away.

And you cannot force flow.

Sometimes, the most honest thing to recognize is that nothing is actually wrong with you. Under pressure the mind can interrupt the body and once you understand that, the way forward shifts. We accept this reality in sports, which is why sports psychologists exist. It may be time we stop pretending the rest of life operates by different rules.

For a long time, I believed my stutter would handicap me. That it would always be the thing I had to overcome. What changed was not fixing my speech. It was learning how to calm my mind so my body could respond differently. When I learned to regulate my nerves, my speech followed.

I see the same dynamic in business every day: capable, intelligent people stall not because they lack ability, but because stress has hijacked their system. They hesitate, delay, and doubt themselves in ways that do not reflect who they actually are.

Sometimes the work is not fixing yourself or trying harder. It’s about creating enough internal steadiness that you’re no longer fighting yourself. When the pressure eases, the mind and body stop competing and the capabilities you already have become accessible again.

That is not weakness.

That is understanding how performance in sports, business, and life actually works. n

Tamara Gestetner is a certified mediator, psychotherapist, and life and career coach based in Cedarhurst. She helps individuals and couples navigate relationships, career transitions, and life’s uncertainties with clarity and confidence. Through mediation and coaching, she guides clients in resolving conflicts, making tough decisions, and creating meaningful change. Tamara is now taking questions and would love to hear what’s on your mind—whether it’s about life, career, relationships, or anything in between. She can be reached at 646-239-5686 or via email at [email protected]. Please visit TamaraGestetner.com.