The shots that used to fall aren't falling. The timing that was automatic feels off. The confidence that carried you has evaporated. Nothing has changed in your training, your technique, your preparation—but something has changed in your performance. You're in a slump.
Every athlete, regardless of level, experiences slumps. These extended performance downturns feel mysterious and frustrating, defying logical explanation. Understanding the psychology behind slumps—and applying mindfulness techniques systematically—can accelerate recovery and build resilience for future challenges.
What Slumps Actually Are
The Definition
A slump is: - Extended period of below-normal performance - Not explained by injury, illness, or changed circumstances - Persistent despite continued effort and practice - Often accompanied by declining confidence
A slump is not: - Single bad game or day (variance) - Performance drop due to injury - Normal adjustment to new competition level - Fatigue from overtraining (though related)
The Universal Experience
Who experiences slumps: Every athlete. Michael Jordan. Wayne Gretzky. Serena Williams. Your favorite player. You. No one is exempt.
Why this matters: Slumps feel isolating, as if you're the only one who can't figure it out. Knowing that elite athletes struggle too doesn't fix the problem, but it normalizes the experience.
The Typical Pattern
How slumps develop:
- Poor performance (could be random variance)
- Attention to poor performance (starts the problem)
- Increased effort and analysis (often counterproductive)
- Declining confidence (self-fulfilling)
- Changed approach (disrupts automatic execution)
- Continued poor performance (confirms fears)
- Cycle deepens
The Psychology Behind Slumps
Attention Disruption
The automatic becomes conscious: Skilled performance is largely automatic. When you're performing well, you don't think about mechanics—you just execute. Slumps often begin when conscious attention disrupts this automaticity.
The mechanism: You miss a shot. You pay attention. You start thinking about your form. Conscious thought interferes with unconscious execution. You miss again. You think more. The cycle feeds itself.
The irony: The harder you try to fix the problem through conscious analysis, the worse it often gets. Effort that helps in practice can hurt in performance.
Confidence Erosion
The downward spiral: Confidence and performance are interlinked. Poor performance erodes confidence. Low confidence produces more poor performance. The spiral accelerates.
The self-fulfilling prophecy: "I'm going to miss" becomes true not because of fate, but because doubt creates the conditions for failure. Anticipating failure produces tension, hesitation, and changed mechanics.
The memory problem: During slumps, you remember failures more vividly than successes. Each miss confirms your fears. Occasional makes are dismissed as luck. The mental accounting is rigged against you.
Effort Paradox
Trying too hard: Slumps often trigger increased effort—more practice, more analysis, more intensity. But skilled performance requires a certain lightness. Gripping too hard creates exactly the tension that undermines execution.
The tightening: Physical tension from mental pressure literally changes mechanics. Tight muscles move differently than relaxed ones. Rushed timing replaces natural rhythm. Force replaces flow.
Identity Threat
When performance defines self: For athletes who identify strongly as athletes, slumps threaten identity itself. "If I can't perform, who am I?" This existential pressure adds another layer of stress.
The stakes elevation: When each performance is an identity referendum, the stakes become unbearable. What was once play becomes survival.
Why Mindfulness Helps
Restoring Automaticity
The mechanism: Mindfulness training develops the capacity to notice thoughts without following them. During performance, this means noticing the analytical impulse without acting on it—letting execution remain automatic.
The practice: In meditation, you practice returning to present-moment focus when mind wanders to analysis. This is exactly the skill needed to return to execution when mind wanders to mechanics.
Breaking the Cycle
The interruption: Slumps are maintained by attention patterns—ruminating on failures, anticipating more. Mindfulness interrupts this pattern by returning attention to present moment rather than past failures or future fears.
The reset: Each moment of present-moment attention is a fresh start. The accumulated weight of the slump exists only in memory and anticipation. Right now, this moment, is new.
Reducing Effort
The paradox resolution: Mindfulness training includes releasing effort, relaxing grip, allowing rather than forcing. This counterbalances the natural tendency to try harder during slumps.
The lightness: The effortless concentration that characterizes flow states is closer to meditation than to grinding effort. Mindfulness trains this quality of engaged ease.
Detaching from Outcome
The freedom: Meditation practice includes observing without attachment—thoughts, sensations, emotions arise and pass without grasping or pushing away. Applied to performance, this creates freedom from outcome attachment that often releases slumps.
The mechanism: When each performance doesn't carry identity-level stakes, the pressure that sustains slumps diminishes. You can perform freely because you're not performing for survival.
Practical Techniques
Present-Moment Focus
During performance: The slump exists in past (previous failures) and future (anticipated failures). The present moment—this shot, this pitch, this play—is fresh.
Practice: When you notice attention going to slump narrative ("here we go again," "I can't make anything"), redirect to immediate present. What do you see right now? What does the ball/opponent/target look like? Engage senses rather than thoughts.
Cue word: Single word to trigger present focus: "Now." "Here." "This." Use it to interrupt slump thinking.
Release and Reset
The technique: After each play, whether successful or not, deliberately release and reset. Don't carry forward. Each moment is new.
Physical component: Physical action can support mental release. Exhale, shake hands, adjust equipment—whatever works as reset ritual.
Practice: In training, practice the release after every repetition. Good or bad, same release. Build the habit that carries into competition.
Routine Anchor
The principle: Consistent pre-performance routine provides stability when internal state is chaotic. The routine becomes anchor to effective performance patterns.
During slumps: Recommit to routine with increased attention. Don't skip or rush. Let the routine do its job of preparing body and mind.
Why it works: Routine bypasses conscious analysis by triggering trained sequences. The body knows what to do if you let the routine lead.
Body-Based Regulation
The approach: Slumps create physical tension. Address the physical to affect the mental.
Techniques: - Deliberate breath before performance (extended exhale) - Progressive muscle relaxation before competition - Body scans to notice and release tension - Shake out, move freely, break tension patterns
Why physical: Sometimes the mind won't quiet through mental techniques. The body provides alternative entry point. Physical relaxation produces mental calm.
Radical Acceptance
The approach: Instead of fighting the slump, accept it. "I'm in a slump. This is what's happening right now." Resistance adds suffering to difficulty.
The paradox: Accepting the slump often accelerates its end. Fighting creates tension that sustains it. Acceptance creates relaxation that allows natural ability to return.
Practice: "I am in a slump. This is hard. It won't last forever. Right now, I compete anyway." Acceptance doesn't mean approval—it means acknowledging reality rather than fighting it.
Perspective Expansion
The technique: Zoom out from immediate situation. This slump, however painful, is one period in a longer athletic life. This moment is part of a larger journey.
Practice: "Five years from now, how will I remember this period? What will I have learned?" Not to minimize current difficulty, but to contextualize it.
The effect: Expanded perspective reduces the intensity of present struggle. Stakes that seemed existential become manageable.
Practical Recovery Plan
Immediate Response
When slump begins: 1. Acknowledge what's happening without catastrophizing 2. Maintain normal routines and training 3. Resist urge to over-analyze or dramatically change approach 4. Increase mental training time slightly 5. Seek support if helpful
During the Slump
Daily practice: - Extended meditation (add 5-10 minutes to normal practice) - Visualization of successful performance from past - Process focus over outcome focus in training - Deliberate rest and recovery
Competition approach: - Tighten pre-performance routines - Focus only on process and effort - Release each play immediately - Accept whatever results come
Avoid: - Radical technical changes - Excessive video review of failures - Isolation from team/support - Negative self-talk spirals - Abandoning what's worked before
Recovery Signs
Watch for: - Moments of flow, even brief - Reduced tension in performance - Return of enjoyment - Stable performance (even if not peak) - Decreased rumination about slump
When they appear: Don't immediately pressure yourself to "capitalize" on good moments. Continue patient approach. Let recovery consolidate.
After the Slump
Reflection: - What triggered or sustained the slump? - What helped recovery? - What patterns should you watch for? - How can you build resilience for future slumps?
Integration: The slump is now part of your experience. What wisdom came from it? How are you stronger for having navigated it?
Prevention and Resilience
Building Slump Resistance
Regular mental training: Athletes with established meditation practice have shorter, less severe slumps. The skills are already built when difficulty arrives.
Identity diversification: Athletes whose identity extends beyond performance recover faster. When sport isn't everything, slumps don't threaten everything.
Process orientation: Athletes who focus on process rather than outcome are less vulnerable to confidence spirals. Process continues regardless of results.
Perspective maintenance: Regular reflection on longer-term patterns prevents over-weighting immediate results. This game is one data point, not final verdict.
Early Warning Signs
Watch for: - Increasing attention to mechanics during performance - Negative self-talk patterns emerging - Tension creeping into execution - Pressing or forcing rather than flowing - Mood changes around performance
When noticed: Intervene early. Increase mental training. Recommit to fundamentals. Address before full slump develops.
Key Takeaways
- Slumps are universal—every athlete experiences them; you're not uniquely broken
- Attention disruption is central—conscious thought interfering with automatic execution sustains slumps
- Trying harder often makes it worse—the effort paradox traps athletes in deeper slumps
- Present-moment focus helps—the slump exists in past and future, not this moment
- Accept rather than fight—resistance adds suffering; acceptance creates space for recovery
- Physical regulation matters—address tension in body to affect state of mind
- Slumps end—with appropriate response, natural ability returns
Return is a meditation timer for athletes navigating every phase—including the difficult periods when performance mysteriously drops. Build the mental skills that accelerate slump recovery and prevent future spirals. Download Return on the App Store.