Sports are a competitive environment, and competition makes sports so important to many people. For athletes, the pressure of performing well can be both good and bad. On the one hand, it can lead to poor performance or anxiety or depression. But on the other hand, it can lead to relief from the pressure and an improved mood after a positive performance. It’s difficult for athletes to manage all this pressure to achieve their best results. So what can you do to use pressure to fuel your performance?
What is pressure?
Pressure gets right up in your face; it’s not polite in its introduction, and it can quickly turn your performance on its head and undo months and years of work in seconds. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an Olympian or racing at Nat Schools; all athletes feel it.
For many, it’s left as a bit of an unknown and somewhat of a mystery. Some of the best-prepared athletes falter and collapse when the pressure hits. As the mental world feels so hard to navigate, so many athletes and teams don’t spend the time looking at it. It is undoubtedly the most significant variable which has the greatest impact.
How do you know how you respond under pressure?
It’s good to grasp the reality of the situation; most athletes look at these things mildly in the run-up to their significant competitions. That’s a bit like doing weights the week of the race, hoping it’ll make you stronger; you’ll have missed quite a lot of the season building what should already be there.
A simple way to understand how you respond under pressure is to step back.
Ask yourself the following questions.
- Where have I performed under pressure and had a poor reaction?
- Where have I performed under pressure and executed well?
This will give you a broad oversight of the range you operate in. With all this stuff, it’s important not to look at it as good or bad, right or wrong. Nobody performs perfectly all of the time, and the first thing is just noticing and without judgement.
Pressure can be good if you know how to use it.
Like anything, you have to condition the skill you wish to strengthen. Most of the time, performance under pressure is left to the athlete to figure out, or they think they already know. This is a dangerous terrain for any athlete or team to operate in, and undoubtedly they will be found out at some stage, maybe at their pinnacle event.
You have to put yourself in challenging positions or push your boundaries to condition this. Not every day of the week, but at least weekly, press the line further into the unknown to see how you respond.
A straightforward way to identify and condition what you’re building is to follow a simple three-step process:
Mentally take a step back,
Level up
Then step in.
Stepping back helps create distance in the scenario; notice how you feel about the situation (e.g. angry, stressed, passive). This is not to judge, only to observe.
Once you’ve noticed how you’re feeling about the situation, it gives you the ability to level up. To navigate the challenge, you have to operate at a higher (simpler) level.
Step back into action again, forcing yourself to come back to the point and be present on the task.
Following this three-step process can identify that you are currently stuck, impeding your performance. This is a small yet very effective tool for navigating and conditioning yourself to operate under pressure and will yield greater returns throughout the season.
Pressure can be a good thing, and you can prepare for it. Don’t leave it to the week of the competition or see how you feel on the day. Build it daily and weekly, pushing the boundaries and noticing. Over time the foundations you’ll later come to rely on will serve you well when the pressure does hit.
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