Perform Under Pressure: Change the Way You Feel, Think and Act Under Pressure

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This was “nearly job done”, Klusener recalled. “I said to Al that the first thing we would like to do is hit the ball for six, shake hands and walk off, but at the same time, if we can scramble a single run somewhere, that also needs to be an option for us. ‘One good ball and the game is over.’” Baumeister RF (1984) Choking under pressure: self-consciousness and paradoxical effects of incentives on skillful performance. J Pers Soc Psychol 46:610–620 I’ll step through the various zones on the curve so you can better understand the relationship between pressure and performance as well as their implications for stress and our mental and physical health. Boreout

Stereotype threat” is the idea that when a negative image becomes associated with a group, it takes on a life of its own, and the outcome and behaviours are more likely to be repeated. In a classic study on this subject from 1999, scientists asked men and women to take an arithmetic test. Some students were told that men and women performed equally well on the test; the others were told that men performed better. When the scientists told the women that women performed just as well as men, they subsequently performed as well as the men on the test. When women were told that women tended to perform worse, they performed worse than men on the test. Being made aware of the stereotype seemed to affect whether participants would adhere to it or not. Thinking Under Pressure explains how the brain receives and processes information using short-term and long-term memory and the differences between Implicit long-term and explicit long-term memory. Dr Hearns references Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow to explain how analytical memory (slow) and automatic memory (fast) are used by a practitioner to make decisions whilst under stress. The chapter also busts the myth around multi-tasking and explains why multi-taskers are actually very rare.Mental toughness’, and the ‘tough guy, special forces, battle-ready’ approach that it exemplifies, does make a great soundbite. The concept is widely adopted by athletes, adventurers, entrepreneurs and those in the military who talk about their journey to find it. Companies pay thousands of pounds for keynote speeches to their staff explaining how to get it. The renowned American football coach Vince Lombardi summarised our cultural worship for the phrase when he said: ‘Mental toughness is Spartanism with its qualities of sacrifice and self-denial, also the qualities of dedication and fearlessness and love.’ LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers scoring a free throw earlier this year. NBA players are about 3% less likely to score in the final moments of tight contests than at other points in the game. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images In sports psychology, the concept of mental toughness combines the traits of confidence and determination with the feeling of being in control of your own destiny. It might sound appealing, but in my work I take a completely different approach. I’ve seen the harm that can be caused by over-idolising confidence, determination and control, along with self-denial, sacrifice and fearlessness. This tough mindset might look strong and unbreakable from afar, but it actually prompts performers to bury their heads in the sand when faced by an intimidating challenge. Students of mental toughness are taught to ignore their worries and they will often self-sabotage. If you’ve fallen into this trap, you might recognise it in a speech you’ve put off practising, a paper you procrastinated over or a project sitting only half done – all with valid-sounding excuses, but also creating poor performance. Given the similarities in biological and cognitive systems that are implicated in choking, there is clearly reason to believe that other species experience effects of pressure, and that there is a need for explicit focus on their responses to pressure. While pressure certainly may be implicitly involved in many comparative cognition studies (indeed, reward- and time-pressure are often present when testing other species), almost no research has isolated how that pressure influences cognitive performance and decision-making in a way that effectively isolates it from difficulty. This might be because pressure is an intensely experience-based phenomenon, and some past research in human subjects has relied heavily on self-report measures of pressure. Animals, of course, are unable to self-report internal experiences of pressure, making it challenging to consider pressure in non-human subjects. However, pressure has been correlated with physiological measures as well. Because animals show similar physiological responses to stress and similar cognitive abilities as humans, it follows that high-pressure situations may affect their cognitive systems in similar ways as they do in humans, and that biological correlates of the stress response might covary with performance in these high-pressure situations. However, to test this, we must design cognitive studies that manipulate pressure experimentally, to explore how pressure alone influences performance.

Everyone needs a minimum amount of pressure to motivate themselves. If a task is too easy, or there are no targets, deadlines or expectations to meet, then performance is usually poor. We rarely get much done unless we have a goal. Either somebody sets our goals for us or we create them ourselves. Failure to manage anxiety and cope with the demands at a crucial moment can lead to a catastrophic drop in performance, known as choking. As the pressure in a match rises, so can an athlete’s anxiety.Britton KT, McLeod S, Koob GF, Hauger R (1992) Pregnane steroid alphaxalone attenuates anxiogenic be Some athletes are gifted with psychological advantages from birth, but these are not immutable. Interventions designed to increase mental toughness can improve athletes’ performances. The more players practise, the more automated aspects of their movements become, helping athletes to manage anxiety and heighten focus. Maintaining pre-performance routines, as Sörenstam did, makes players more robust under pressure. Coaching designed to help players think independently, rather than being told what to do, helps develop implicit rather than explicit knowledge, and gives players the best chance of avoiding choking. As dusk fell over Medinah, Poulter secured a one-shot victory with a remarkable 15ft putt on the 18th hole, celebrated by a roar of delight and a scream of “Come on”. Given that employees perform best when the level of pressure is just right, it makes sense to train managers so they know how to manage pressure in the right way. You have to have a positive mind, you have to stand there and be tension-free. If you stand there and are worried about everything, it’s hard to swing. When I play my best, it’s free-flowing and relaxed, no tension – just focus and have a target, but you’re relaxed and your muscles can perform. There’s nothing worse than when you try to do something and it’s all tension and pressure and you can’t breathe properly.”

Separate yourself from your thoughts. We all have difficult thoughts, but when you learn to notice and accept but not respond, you stay more in control. The final and most fundamental step to performing well under pressure is to know why the performance matters in the first place – this is where your values come into play. Here it’s important to make a distinction between values and goals. Your goals are your long-term aims, whereas your values apply in every waking moment. For instance, you might have a goal to become the highest goal-scorer in your soccer team, but your soccer-related values might be to always try your hardest, to always strive to improve and to be a good team-mate. When you are very clear on your values, you gain two major benefits – you can spot when they could be violated (and so likely to trigger your emotionally driven threat systems), and you can also use them as a measure for how to respond when you feel under pressure, so that you stay consistent with them. The same principle applies across contexts, so for example, in the office, try switching from something like ‘I always begin my presentations poorly’ to ‘I am thinking that I begin my presentations poorly,’ and so on, to create distance from the negative thoughts. To learn many more of the ACT skills included in this Guide, I recommend the book ACTivate Your Life (2015) by the clinical psychologists and trainers Joe Oliver, Jon Hill and Eric Morris. So, you’ve been in the stretch zone too long, the pressure’s increased and you’ve had no time to recover. What happens? You enter the strain zone.

Anxiety is a reaction to pressure or stress. It tends to arise during performances that trigger the fear of losing, or fear of damage to your standing. The symptoms of anxiety are psychological – worry and fear – and physiological – including sweaty palms and an increased heart rate. Anxiety uses up attention and working memory, hindering performance. When pressure is too high, performance decreases. For a while it will exceed that of the comfort zone but soon the effects of stress take over, fatigue sets in and errors are made. Stress symptoms will begin to develop. Frustration, anxiety, poor concentration and shame about not being able to cope take over. Performance begins to plummet. Burnout