Hypnotherapy for High Performance

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength

Marcus Aurelius

Introduction
What is High Performance?

High performance is not just about talent or intelligence—it is the ability to consistently operate at peak levels in any given context. It is the result of mental clarity, emotional mastery, physiological conditioning, and deep self-belief, allowing individuals to excel under pressure, make effective decisions, and sustain long term motivation. 

Leading expert in the field have demonstrated that high performance is not about external circumstances—it is about moving through unconscious limitations and mastering internal narratives. 

Achieving high performance requires more than discipline and hard work—it involves retraining the mind at a subconscious level, rewiring thought patterns, and optimising emotional responses to stress, challenge, and uncertainty. This is why hypnotherapy, neuroplasticity techniques, and performance psychology are essential tools for unlocking sustained success.

High performance in life is about emotional intelligence, self-discipline, and resilience. It means making powerful decisions, maintaining focus, and having the confidence to navigate challenges while maintaining a clear sense of direction and purpose. Those who master high performance:

  • Are decisive, agile, responsive, resilient  and purpose-driven.

  • Operate with clarity, strategy, creativity, curiosity and emotional discipline, excelling in leadership and problem-solving.

  • Maintain emotional resilience, responding to setbacks with growth rather than avoidance.

  • Develop mental clarity and focus, reducing procrastination and distraction.

  • Build strong self-worth, freeing themselves from fear of failure or the need for external validation.

High performers in work don’t just work hard—they work smart, mastering their state of mind, energy levels, and decision-making processes. This allows them to thrive in high-stakes environments while avoiding burnout

High performers in sport— Athletes understand that success is just as much mental as it is physical. The greatest competitors leverage unconscious mastery – such as flow state and future rehersal, ensuring they remain calm, focused, and in control even under extreme pressure. 

Signs of Underperformance & Mental Barriers

Emotional

Emotional blocks can be one of the biggest barriers to achieving high performance. Many individuals experience persistent self-doubt, anxiety, and fear of failure, which leads to hesitation and avoidance of challenges. The internal pressure to perform perfectly can create emotional volatility, where frustration, stress, or burnout take over instead of resilience. Even highly skilled individuals may struggle with an inability to trust themselves, resulting in over-analysis, negative self-talk, and a dependence on external validation. Without emotional mastery, high performance remains inconsistent, as individuals fluctuate between moments of confidence and crippling self-doubt.

Behavioural

In the workplace, underperformance often manifests as procrastination, indecisiveness, and reluctance to take on leadership roles due to fear of judgment or failure. Many people experience imposter syndrome, doubting their achievements and feeling undeserving of success. Some individuals overwork as a coping mechanism, leading to burnout rather than sustainable productivity. In sports, performance barriers appear as choking under pressure, erratic focus, and an inability to remain calm in high-stakes situations. Overthinking disrupts natural instincts, while fear-based behaviours prevent athletes from performing at their best. Whether in life, work, or sports, these behaviours create a cycle of hesitation, inconsistency, and frustration.

Relationship-Related Implications In relationships, depression often leads to people-pleasing and emotional suppression, as individuals prioritize others' needs while neglecting their own. Many withdraw from friends and loved ones due to feelings of shame, unworthiness, or fear of being a burden, leading to increased isolation. Struggles with setting boundaries can result in emotional exhaustion, as individuals may tolerate unhealthy relationships rather than risk rejection. Others may develop a deep fear of abandonment, leading to patterns of clinging to relationships for validation or, conversely, avoiding intimacy altogether to protect themselves from emotional pain.

Physical

Mental blocks do not just stay in the mind—they manifest physically, disrupting the body’s ability to perform optimally. High achievers who operate under stress often experience chronic muscle tension, particularly in the shoulders, neck, and jaw, as the body holds onto unprocessed fear and pressure. Erratic breathing patterns are common, with shallow breaths reducing oxygen flow and increasing stress. The nervous system remains in a heightened state of alertness, which can lead to increased heart rate, excessive sweating, and a feeling of unease in high-pressure situations. Over time, these physical symptoms drain energy levels, leading to fatigue and exhaustion, making even routine tasks feel overwhelming.

Long Term Health

The cost of mental and emotional stress extends beyond lost opportunities—it can significantly affect long-term health. Prolonged stress and self-doubt keep the body in a state of high cortisol production, leading to burnout, hormonal imbalances, and inflammation. Over time, this weakens the immune system, making individuals more susceptible to illness. The cognitive effects of chronic stress include brain fog, memory issues, and decreased problem-solving ability, reducing long-term performance potential. Many individuals also develop compensatory habits, such as overworking, compulsive behaviours, or excessive reliance on stimulants (caffeine, sugar, or performance enhancers) to counteract their lack of energy and focus. Left unchecked, these patterns can result in mental stagnation, dissatisfaction, and a reduced ability to handle life’s challenges with clarity and confidence.

What are Barriers To High Performance? 

High performance is often blocked by unconscious beliefs, past experiences, and nervous system dysregulation. Leaders in performance psychology, hypnotherapy NLP, and neuroplasticity have identified key reasons why individuals struggle to realise their potential. 

1. Conditioning & Early Beliefs

  • Many individuals were raised in environments where confidence, self-trust, or risk-taking were discouraged.

  • Early criticism or failure creates lasting subconscious associations between challenge and fear.

2. Fear & The Nervous System

  • High-stakes situations trigger fear responses in the brain, leading to freeze or avoidance behaviours.

  • Past failures create negative neural pathways, reinforcing self-doubt and hesitation.

3. The Inner Critic & Self-Sabotage

  • Underperformance is often caused by overthinking and self-judgement, rather than lack of skill.

  • Negative self-talk creates internal resistance, making it difficult to take action.

4. Lack of Mental Training & Unconscious Mind Mastery

  • Most people focus on external training (skill-building) but neglect internal understanding (state management, belief systems, unconscious processing and reprogramming. 

  • Without unconscious alignment, individuals remain stuck in patterns of stress, hesitation, and inconsistent performance.

Benefits
Why Does Hypnotherapy Help With High Performance?

Both coaching and hypnotherapy can help individuals unlock their full potential, but they operate at different levels of the mind.

Coaching works at the conscious level, helping individuals set goals, develop strategies, and build habits to enhance performance. It is solution-focused and action-oriented, offering guidance and accountability to help individuals stay on track. Coaching is particularly effective for those who need structured plans, motivation, and leadership development.

Hypnotherapy works at the unconscious level, addressing deep-rooted beliefs, fears, and emotional barriers that block high performance. Many people struggle not because they lack skills or knowledge but because past experiences, self-doubt, or mental blocks prevent them from stepping into their full potential. Hypnotherapy helps reprogram limiting beliefs, regulate the nervous system, and move through unconsious resistance, allowing individuals to perform effortlessly at their best.

For true high performance, both approaches can be complementary—coaching provides structure and strategy, while hypnotherapy removes the internal barriers that hold individuals back.

  • Rewires limiting beliefs and subconscious blocks, eliminating mental resistance.

  • Enhances focus and flow state, helping individuals perform at their best with ease.

  • Retrains the nervous system, reducing fear responses and emotional volatility

  • Optimises confidence and self-trust, ensuring consistency in performance.

  • Strengthens neuroplasticity, creating new success-oriented thought patterns.

Recommended Reading

  • Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – Simon Sinek

  • Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – James Clear

  • The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science – Norman Doidge

  • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  • The Inner Game of Tennis – W. Timothy Gallwey

 

 Approach
How does Integrated Hypnotherapy work? 

 

Blocked by past?

Release

Stuck & looping in present?

Restore

Afraid of future?

Renew

The Process

Free Consultation

An opportunity for you to  share your challenge and desired outcome. I address your questions and explain how hypnotherapy can support you.

BESPOKE PACKAGAES

I recommend a package tailored your requirements   whilst remaining responsive to what may naturally arise throughout the process. 

HypNOTHERAPY

Appointments are one hour starting weekly, followed by longer intervals to observe progress pinpoint areas requiring further attention.

TAILORED SUPPORT 

I provide email support between appointments and a personalised hypnotherapy recording at the end to reinforce progress.

Client Testimonials

  • “It’s like therapy on speed. It has changed the way I view absolutely everything in my life.”

    —R

    Feeling Worthless

  • "Lucy managed to untangle the disoriented pangs of emotions within me. She set out to make sense of my madness and very fluidly, enabled me to start breaking down the barriers in my mind that had accumulated through years of unconscious conditioning.”

    —M

    Anxiety

  • "It feels like a deep cleanse - like dirt washing off in the shower.An un-numbing, a softening."

    —F

    Complex Trauma

  • “You made me realise some things that have blocked me for my entire existence.”

    —Caterina Occhio

    Founder of SeeMe, Sustainability Advisor, Board Member WFTO organisation

  • “A unique mix of professionalism and gentleness. Lucy helped me overcome a major trauma in finding a friend who had hung himself. She somehow helped me confront the experience and distance me from it going into the future. I am so grateful.”

    —M

    Trauma

  • “A beautiful way. Immediate results without a shred of judgement.”

    —A

    Unable to Express Creativity

  • "The whole subconsciousness exploration has done for more for me than talk therapy ever could."

    —T

    Depression

  • “It was so beautiful to journey through my subconscious. The work has brought me back home to me.”

    —Jeanne De Kroon

    Founder of Zazi Vintage

  • “Lucy’'s listening skills, flexibility and presence means that each session has felt tailored to exactly what I needed at the time. She has supported me in rebuilding my sense of self."

    —N

    Self Hatred

 FAQs

  • Deep, therapeutic transformation
    Hypnotherapy is therapy conducted in a hypnotic state, a natural and heightened form of relaxed, focused attention. This state allows the mind to bypass the critical, analytical filter of the conscious brain, accessing deeper emotional and sensory experiences stored in the unconscious. In this state, cognitive flexibility is enhanced, making it possible to explore, reframe, and resolve issues without judgment or resistance. Hypnotherapy creates a safe environment to unlock patterns and beliefs that may have been formed as protective responses to past experiences.

  • A natural state of focused awareness
    Hypnosis is a state of relaxed yet focused absorption, where the mind becomes more receptive to changes it might normally resist. It occurs naturally in everyday life, such as when you’re absorbed in a book, daydreaming, or lost in thought. Hypnosis works by shifting the brain from its usual conscious, analytical processing into a state of focused receptivity.

    “Hypnosis is roused, attentive, focal concentration with a relative restriction of conscious awareness. It’s like looking through a telephoto lens—you see in great detail but are less aware of your surroundings.”
    – Dr. David Spiegel, MD

  • A wide range of challenges and goals 

    Hypnotherapy can address mental, emotional, and physical challenges, as well as enhance performance. Common issues include:

    Addiction, abuse, anger, anxiety, burnout, creative blocks, lack of confidence, depression, fear, grief, heartbreak, insomnia, low self-esteem, OCD, pain, performance enhancement, phobias, PTSD, self-sabotage, self-doubt, shame, stress, and trauma.

  • Proven to be more effective than talk therapy
    “    Trauma is not what happens to us, but what happens inside us as a result of what happened to us.” – Gabor Maté

    Trauma imprints itself on the mind and body, fragmenting memories and disrupting emotional regulation. These unprocessed imprints often manifest as hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, insomnia, anger, despair, shame, and a profound sense of loss or lack of control.

    Hypnotherapy bypasses the analytical mind to engage the unconscious, where these fragmented memories are stored. In a relaxed, focused state, clients can safely process their trauma, so that the system can recognise that  danger has passed and regain a sense of control and agency.

    As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explains, “Hypnosis can induce a state of relative calm from which patients can observe their traumatic experiences without being overwhelmed by them.” This approach enables deep emotional healing and the release of long-held pain.

  • Relaxed and absorbed
    You may wonder, “What if I don’t go deep enough?” or worry, “What if I get stuck?” Hypnosis doesn’t require a deep trance for change—your unconscious mind is engaged even in lighter states, where transformation naturally occurs. Some people go so deep they lose track of time, while others remain lightly aware. You cannot get stuck in hypnosis—you are always in control. 

    As Dr. David Spiegel explains, “Hypnosis is roused, attentive, focal concentration with a relative restriction of conscious awareness. It’s like looking through a telephoto lens—you see in great detail but are less aware of your surroundings.” This focused state enables effective change at any depth.

  • Brainwave shifts and heightened receptivity
    During hypnosis, brainwaves shift from Beta frequency (normal waking consciousness) to Alpha or Theta states, resembling deep relaxation or a daydream. Three key changes occur:

    1. Reduced Salience Network activity: Decreases distractions and intensifies focus.

    2. Increased connectivity between the Executive Control and Salience Networks: Enhances attention and mind-body regulation.

    3. Increased connectivity to the Default Mode Network: Enables freedom to explore new perspectives and self-perceptions.

  • Equal results, wherever you are
    Hypnotherapy works by engaging the unconscious mind, which is not dependent on physical proximity. Once connected to the unconscious, the environment becomes peripheral, making online sessions as effective as in-person ones.  Hypnosis can be induced through conversation alone, and results rely on the mind’s receptivity, not the setting.

  • A natural process
    When conducted by a trained and certified professional, hypnotherapy is safe and natural. You remain fully in control throughout the process and cannot get "stuck" in hypnosis.

  • The evolution of hypnotherapy
    Hypnotherapy has ancient roots but has evolved into a modern therapeutic practice supported by neuroscience and clinical research. Advances in neuroplasticity validate its role in creating lasting neural changes without medication.

    While psychedelics and plant medicines are gaining attention for their ability to induce altered states of consciousness hypnotherapy presents a compelling, drug-free, and more cost-effective alternative for achieving similar transformative mind states.

    “Hypnosis is a psychological technique used in medicine and psychology as a tool to help bring about positive changes to both the mind and the body” University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Deep beneath the surface
    Jung’s iceberg analogy likens the conscious mind to the small, visible tip of an iceberg above the water—representing our analytical, rational awareness and the aspects of ourselves we control. Below the surface lies the vast, submerged unconscious mind, which holds memories, experiences, dreams, and belief systems. This hidden realm influences approximately 95% of our mental processes, often without our direct awareness. It communicates through metaphor, symbolism, imagination, and emotion. Hypnotherapy works at this deeper level, addressing unconscious patterns to create lasting, automatic change.