You've spent years developing your skills, you know your work, and you can explain exactly how you help people. You've even identified the people who could send business your way. But when it's time to actually have those conversations, you find yourself doing just about anything else. Maybe you need to update your website first, refine your introduction, or take another networking class. You have plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for why now isn't the right time, but eventually you have to admit that you've been preparing for conversations you're still not having.
I see this with business owners who are genuinely good at what they do. They aren't lacking knowledge, and they don't necessarily need another strategy. They can tell me what they should be doing and often give a pretty convincing explanation of why it would work. The interesting part is what happens when they try to do it. That's when the discomfort shows up, the hesitation begins, and suddenly a task they've understood for months becomes surprisingly difficult to complete.
Of course, I don't automatically assume there's an underlying block every time someone avoids something. I've seen people spend months trying to make a marketing strategy work when the strategy itself was the problem. I've also seen business owners who were never given a clear enough plan to execute in the first place. Neither situation calls for Brainspotting. But when the strategy makes sense, the skills are there, and the person continues to struggle with a very specific action, I want to understand what's happening at that point.
That's one of the reasons Brainspotting has become such a valuable tool in my work. It gives us a way to work with responses that don't necessarily change just because someone understands what's happening or knows what they should do differently. And when those responses have been interfering with someone's performance, the difference can be significant.
Key Points
- Having the skills to do something doesn't mean you'll always be able to use them when the situation becomes uncomfortable or important.
- Brainspotting can help address underlying responses that interfere with performance, including situations where reasoning and practice haven't resolved the difficulty.
- Before assuming an underlying block is involved, it's worth checking whether the strategy, preparation, or expectations are creating the problem.
- Performance-focused Brainspotting can be used with entrepreneurs, athletes, speakers, musicians, and other professionals.
- The goal is to be able to use your abilities more effectively in real situations, rather than simply feeling more confident about them.
When You Know You're Capable but Your Performance Says Otherwise
One of the more frustrating experiences is knowing you're good at something and then struggling to do it when you actually need to. You can spend weeks preparing a presentation, know the material inside and out, and deliver it beautifully in practice. Then you get in front of the audience and suddenly you're struggling to remember what comes next. It's the same presentation, the same information, and the same person delivering it. The circumstances changed, and apparently your ability to perform decided to take the afternoon off.
You see the same thing in business. Someone can explain their services beautifully during a casual conversation, but when the person they're talking to expresses interest in becoming a client, the conversation changes. Now they're questioning their price, explaining far more than necessary, or offering a discount nobody requested. They walk away wondering why they handled it so differently when they already knew what they wanted to say.
The usual advice is to practice more, prepare better, or work on your confidence. I'm not opposed to any of those things when they're actually needed. If you haven't prepared for the presentation or you don't know how to explain your offer, then preparation is a reasonable place to start. But I've worked with people who have practiced extensively and still experience the same reaction every time they enter a particular situation. At some point, telling them to practice the same thing another 47 times isn't offering anything particularly useful.
What interests me is the difference between situations where someone can perform comfortably and situations where they suddenly struggle. If you can explain your pricing to one person without hesitation but become uncomfortable when you're speaking with someone whose opinion carries more weight, I'd want to explore that difference. The skill is clearly there. Something about the situation is affecting how you're able to use it.
How Brainspotting Helps With Performance Blocks
Brainspotting was developed by psychologist Dr. David Grand in 2003. Although many people associate it with trauma-related work, Brainspotting has also been used with athletes, performers, creative professionals, and people experiencing difficulties that interfere with their performance. It uses focused attention and eye position to help people process emotional and physical responses associated with a particular issue.
When I work with someone using Brainspotting, we start with something specific. It might be the discomfort they experience when talking about money, the reaction that shows up before a presentation, or the fear they feel when approaching an important professional opportunity. Rather than spending the entire session discussing why they shouldn't feel that way, we pay attention to what happens when they focus on the situation.
People notice different things. Someone might experience tightness in their chest, tension in their stomach, an emotional response, or an uncomfortable sensation they can't quite explain. Sometimes thoughts or memories come up. Other times, there isn't much of a story attached to what they're experiencing. We use the Brainspotting process to work with whatever is present, without requiring them to figure out exactly where every reaction came from.
I especially appreciate that someone doesn't have to come into a session knowing the reason they're struggling. I've worked with people who could explain their behavior in incredible detail. They knew what triggered it, where they thought it came from, and what they were supposed to do differently. Lovely. They still couldn't get themselves to do it. At some point, explaining the problem for the 47th time isn't getting us anywhere.
Brainspotting gives us another way to approach it. We're working with the response the person actually experiences instead of relying entirely on their ability to reason through it. Someone can know perfectly well that speaking to a room full of people isn't dangerous and still have their heart racing when they step in front of an audience. They aren't necessarily going to change that reaction by reminding themselves, once again, that everything is fine.
I don't think Brainspotting needs to be presented as some mysterious process to appreciate what it can do. There are still questions researchers are investigating about exactly how it works, and the evidence for performance applications is developing. But I've seen meaningful changes in my own work, particularly when people have struggled with the same issue despite understanding it and making repeated attempts to address it.
One of my favorite examples involves a health coach who was struggling with something that should have been a fairly straightforward part of growing her business.
Claudia Couldn't Even Tell Her Own Doctor What She Did
Claudia was a health coach who wanted to build referral relationships with physicians. She understood that doctors were already working with patients who could potentially benefit from health coaching, and she wanted to develop those professional relationships so physicians would know who she was and what services she offered. She had the knowledge, the experience, and a reasonable business strategy. What she didn't have was the ability to get herself to actually have those conversations.
Claudia was terrified of networking with doctors. And we're not talking about walking into a room full of strangers and giving a presentation. She couldn't even bring herself to tell her own physician what she did for a living, despite already having a relationship with him and wanting him to become a potential referral source.
Think about how frustrating that would be. You're trying to grow a business, you've identified a reasonable way to do it, and one of the people who could potentially help you is someone you already know. You're sitting right there in his office, and you still can't bring yourself to mention your business. Meanwhile, you're probably going home wondering why you can't get more referrals.
From a business coaching perspective, Claudia didn't need me to explain the value of referral relationships. She understood the strategy perfectly well, and she already had professional contacts she could reach out to. We could have spent weeks working on networking scripts, developing a referral plan, and practicing introductions, but none of those things would necessarily have addressed what was happening when she actually tried to approach a physician.
During our first Brainspotting session, we worked on the fear she experienced around networking with doctors. After that session, Claudia went to her annual doctor's appointment and told her physician about her business. Then she contacted two other doctors she already knew and began reaching out to a list of 25 people from her previous career. Within a few weeks, her schedule was full.
What I love about Claudia's experience is how clearly the change showed up in what she did. She hadn't suddenly learned a new business strategy. She already knew those physicians, she already understood the value of referrals, and she already had contacts from her previous career. But before Brainspotting, she wasn't having the conversations. Afterward, she started having them, and those conversations created opportunities for her business.
I'm not suggesting that everyone who uses Brainspotting will fill their schedule in a few weeks, or that every performance block can be resolved in one session. Claudia's experience was her own. But it shows why I don't dismiss the possibility of an underlying block when someone has the necessary skills and continues to struggle with a specific situation. Sometimes removing what's interfering with the action allows the person to finally use what they've had available all along.
Brainspotting Isn't Just for Athletes and Performers
When people hear about performance enhancement, they often think about professional athletes, musicians, or public speakers. Those are certainly areas where Brainspotting has been used. An athlete might perform well during training but struggle when the pressure of competition increases. A musician could play a piece beautifully during rehearsal and experience a completely different response when performing in front of an audience. Someone who speaks comfortably with colleagues might struggle when they're presenting to an unfamiliar group.
Business owners encounter their own versions of performance pressure all the time. Every time you're making a sales presentation, talking about your fees, negotiating a contract, introducing yourself to a potential client, or presenting your ideas to an audience, you're putting your abilities to work in a situation where the outcome isn't entirely within your control.
I've seen people who are excellent at their work become uncomfortable the minute they're expected to sell it. They can discuss the technical details of what they do for hours, but ask them to explain why someone should hire them and suddenly they're stumbling over their words. Others have no trouble developing ideas privately but struggle when those ideas are about to become public. They can spend weeks improving something that was perfectly reasonable to begin with because finishing it means someone else will finally get to see it.
Of course, those behaviors don't automatically mean someone needs Brainspotting. If you're struggling to explain your offer because you haven't figured out what you're selling, we have a business problem to address. If you keep avoiding networking events because they're full of people who aren't remotely appropriate clients or referral partners, I might recommend finding a better way to network. I have no interest in helping someone become more comfortable with a strategy that's wasting their time.
But if the strategy is reasonable, the person has the necessary skills, and the same response continues to interfere with their performance, I'm interested in exploring what's happening underneath that reaction. Brainspotting can be especially useful when the person recognizes that their response doesn't fit the situation but hasn't been able to change it through preparation, practice, or reasoning alone.
When the strategy needs work
The plan is unclear, the approach is unsuitable, or the person hasn't developed the necessary skills. We correct those issues before assuming there's an underlying block.
When a block may be involved
The skills and workable plan are present, but a persistent response keeps interfering at a specific point. That's when deeper investigation may be useful.
How I Decide Whether Brainspotting Is the Right Tool
In my work as an Execution Block Specialist, I help coaches, consultants, and service-based entrepreneurs figure out why the strategies they're trying to follow aren't turning into consistent action and results. Some people come to me convinced they have a mindset problem, when what they actually have is a strategy that doesn't make sense for their business. Others have perfectly reasonable strategies but haven't defined the steps clearly enough to carry them out. And then there are people like Claudia, who know what they need to do, have the skills to do it, and still encounter a very specific interruption when they try.
My Aligned Execution Method combines Strategy Alignment and Rapid Block Resolution, because those different problems don't respond to the same solutions. I want to know whether the strategy makes sense, whether the person knows exactly what to do, and whether the approach fits their actual business and circumstances. Then we look at what happens when they attempt the work. If changing the strategy or making the action more manageable resolves the problem, great. We've found something useful, and there was no reason to make it more complicated.
But when those practical issues have been addressed and someone keeps encountering the same difficulty, there's a reason to investigate whether an Underlying Block is involved. That might be a persistent fear, an uncomfortable response to being evaluated, or something else that's affecting how the person performs in a particular situation. Brainspotting is one of the tools I use within Rapid Block Resolution when it's appropriate for the issue we're working on.
The distinction is fairly easy to see when we go back to Claudia. If she hadn't known which physicians to contact, we could have helped her identify potential referral partners. If she hadn't known how to introduce her services, we could have worked on that conversation. But she already knew physicians she wanted to approach and understood what she wanted to accomplish. She was so uncomfortable having those conversations that she couldn't even tell her own doctor about her business. We had something much more specific to work with.
I don't expect everyone to know whether they're dealing with an execution block before we begin. An execution block describes a recurring interruption in follow-through, but the cause can vary. The point of evaluating the situation is to figure out where the breakdown is occurring so we can address the actual problem instead of automatically prescribing another strategy or assuming everything requires deeper work.
What Changes After Brainspotting?
One of the questions I pay attention to after a Brainspotting session is what happens when the person encounters the situation again. They might notice that thinking about it feels different, that they aren't experiencing the same physical discomfort, or that the activity no longer seems nearly as intimidating. Those changes can be encouraging, particularly when someone has struggled with the same response for a long time.
But when we're working on performance, I'm also interested in what happens when they actually do the thing they've been avoiding. If we worked on a reaction that showed up before sales conversations, I want to know how the next conversation goes. If someone struggled to present their ideas publicly, I'm interested in what happens the next time they have an opportunity to speak. Maybe the situation feels easier, maybe they're able to respond differently, or maybe we discover another part of the problem that needs attention.
I don't expect people to become completely fearless. Most of us have some discomfort around situations where the outcome is important or someone else gets to make a decision about us. You can be nervous about presenting to an audience and still deliver an excellent presentation. You can wonder whether someone will accept your price and still communicate it clearly. There's no requirement that you feel wonderfully confident every minute of the day before you're allowed to be successful.
What concerns me is when that reaction becomes so strong that someone repeatedly struggles to use abilities they've already demonstrated. They may know the material, understand the opportunity, and have prepared adequately, but the same response keeps interfering when it's time to perform. If Brainspotting helps change that response, they may find themselves able to approach those situations differently.
Claudia didn't grow her business by simply feeling more comfortable with the idea of networking. She actually started reaching out to physicians and other professional contacts. Her actions changed, which gave her opportunities she hadn't been creating before. That's the kind of practical difference I'm interested in seeing when performance has been affected by an underlying block.
Could Brainspotting Help You Perform at Your Best?
If you're struggling with something you know you're capable of doing, I'd encourage you to look closely at where the difficulty actually begins. Take a specific situation that's been giving you trouble and look at what happens before, during, and after you attempt it. Consider whether the strategy makes sense, whether you've developed the necessary skills, and whether you've given yourself a reasonable way to carry out the action.
If you discover that your expectations are unrealistic or your plan doesn't fit the way you work, start there. You might find that changing the approach makes the work considerably easier. I've seen people spend an enormous amount of energy trying to overcome resistance to strategies they never needed to use in the first place. There's no prize for forcing yourself through the most uncomfortable version of a task when a better option is available.
On the other hand, if you've addressed those issues and still experience the same response whenever a particular situation comes up, Brainspotting may be worth exploring. It allows us to work with the reaction itself, including situations where understanding the problem hasn't been enough to change it. I've seen clients make meaningful changes through this work, and Claudia's experience remains one of my favorite examples because she was able to take action on opportunities that had been available to her all along.
Of course, Brainspotting doesn't replace skill development, preparation, or sound business decisions. If your strategy isn't effective, becoming more comfortable executing it won't magically produce clients. And if you're learning something new, you may need practice and experience before you perform it well. I want to address whichever part is actually creating the difficulty, rather than assume there's one explanation for every performance problem.
But when someone has already developed the necessary skills and an underlying response is interfering with their ability to use them, Brainspotting can be a powerful option. Instead of continuing to collect advice about how to be more confident or spending another six months preparing for something you've been ready to do, we can explore what's happening when you try.
That's the part of performance work I find so rewarding. Watching someone finally have a conversation, accept an opportunity, or use an ability they've been struggling to access is far more interesting to me than hearing them explain, yet again, why they should be able to do it.
If you'd like to learn more about how I use Brainspotting and what a session involves, you can visit my Brainspotting information page.
