Learnings from "Performing Under Pressure"

Hi everyone,

only recently I finished reading the book "Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most" by Hendrie Weisinger and I am writing this post to summarize and share my key takeaways from reading the book.

The first part here is going to focus more generally on pressure moments and how they affect us before a second post will sum up the tools you can use to perform better when it matters the most!

Pressure moments, stressful situations and the tools to overcome them

Pressure downgrades our behavioral skills and in pressure moments, most people perform below their capability. Pressure moments are stressful moments in which the consequences or results matter.

The attributes that allow individuals to consistently do their best when they are in pressure moments. These attributes include confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm, which we collectively refer to as COTE.

Your natural tools that determine how you handle pressure, regardless of your level of expertise, abilities, or good intentions are your thoughts, physiological responses, body movements, voice, and senses. This means for example to not become defensive when criticized. Under the pressure of being questioned or given tough feedback, it is important to be able to stay open to the information and not take the feedback or questioning personally and get defensive.

Staying calm under pressure by changing how you percieve a situation

You can trick yourself into staying calm by regulating your arousal by, for example, breathing slower, which enables you to process information more effectively and prevent yourself from becoming mentally rigid, thus preventing counterproductive, impulsive, defensive comments, products of unmanaged physical arousal.

Those who study pressure and its effects describe pressure as a situation in which you perceive that something at stake is dependent on the outcome of your performance. There is a difference between stressful situations and pressure moments: In a stressful situation, reduction is the goal. In a pressure moment, success is the goal.

Whenever you feel stressed and pressured ask yourself these questions: „Does the situation really call for the reaction I am having? Or am I wearing myself out by overreacting when I don’t need to? Can my performance in this situation actually threaten my success? “

Take the time to stay calm and make sure to feel “confident that you’ve taken the time to evaluate the situation and made the best decision you could, and then, don’t second-guess yourself.“

Choking causes your procedural memory to malfunction under pressure

One typical reaction to those pressure moments is called choking. „You choked by letting your concerns use up the space in your working memory system that was storing the information you needed.“ But you can learn to prevent these memory systems from malfunctioning in situations where your performance matters. The first step is to prevent worries or concerns generated by fear and anxiety from entering your working memory. Secondly, you need to learn how to prevent yourself from getting in your own way, from “mentally intruding” when your procedural memory is working - to leave it alone. Stay focused, and dont get distracted by worry thoughts such as "Will I be successful? Do they like me?". These thoughts would take up space and lead you to lose focus.

A practical example are pitches to venture capitalists. Variables like “calmness,” “passion,” “eye contact,” and “lack of awkwardness” were stronger predictors of success than the actual content of the pitch and show how important it is to try to control the automatic stress reactions.

Most of the time you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to do anything more than be yourself. You just have to manage the pressure and let the rest take care of itself.

Crisis or challenge? Be aware of your inner thoughts

Pressure affects the way we think. Try to rephrase whether you see a situation as a crisis or a challenge. Changing the way pressure and anxiety are viewed changes their negative impact on performance. Start by increasing your awareness of the inner dialogues you have. Fight back by “slowing down your thoughts,” like our earlier-mentioned client, and then challenge the validity of what you are telling yourself.

By asking yourself „What are they thinking of me?" this increased self-focus disrupts the automatic execution of the skills you has practiced or rehearsed before getting in a pressure situation. You procedural memory malfunctions.

How incentives affect your performance - shift from a ranking-mindset to an excellence-mindset

Incentives are also a way to create pressure: The promise of incentives increases the pressure of the situation (there is more at stake) and causes a shift of focus from the task to the consequences of succeeding or failing at the task. The cognitive horsepower and focus that are needed to solve the problem are now being used to think about the possible gain or loss of the incentive. As a result, we are not giving the problem our full attention and best effort. There are studies suggesting that it’s the presence of an incentive or reward that causes people to perform poorly.
To free yourself from the incentive traps, first reflect on your needs and wants—and the difference between them.

Try to take on an excellence-mindset over a ranking mindset. In contrast to a ranking mind-set, the excellence mind-set is characterized less by a focus on ranking and competition and more by a focus on developing yourself to your fullest capability. People who use this approach use the spirit of competition as an opportunity to get better—not as a way to prove they are necessarily better. Sometimes the focus for the team or an individual becomes beating the competition as opposed to being their best. Shifting your mind-set from beating others to simply doing your best will help you feel less pressure anxiety. By being more relaxed, you’ll be less influenced by competitive arousal and the hazards it creates, including mental rigidity and getting caught focusing on relative gains.

We are hardwired to seek “incentives” as well as hardwired to avoid risk and loss. Be conscious about this.

COTE of Armor strategies to help you face pressure moments

The COTE of Armor strategies that help shield you from the exaggerated anxiety and fear you may face in stressful situations and pressure moments. I will summarize the COTE tools in my next post.

Hope this was helpful and feel free to leave some feedback!