How to Perform Under Pressure in Sport

Everyone has to deal with pressure but for professional athletes, how you perform under pressure can make or break of your career.


Some people get sweaty palms, shortness of breath, over-thinking, palpitations etc. We all know what it’s like when a potentially career defining moment presents itself.


The key is how you deal with that pressure. Did you know that you can harness the feeling of pressure to actually improve your performance?


Here are my top 4 tips to help you perform under pressure: 

1. Practice makes perfect

If you know a situation could become high-pressure, then you can prepare a strategy to face it in a high-performance, highly effective way.

Some people imagine all the ways a situation can go wrong and all the ways they can fail then they amplify their worst feelings until it consumes their focus and, often, becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

It’s been said that ‘we get what we focus on’ and that's very true.

If you focus on how things can go wrong then it’s likely that they will. So let’s use that power of focus to create success.

Take time leading up to the situation to mentally rehearse it.

1. Sit back, relax and imagine you have a large television screen in your mind

2.Imagine watching yourself going through the situation doing all the right things, having everything work out perfectly and being completely comfortable and in control

3. Imagine floating into the television screen and inside of yourself so you can see through your own eyes and go reherse the scenario again. Feeling how it feels when you’re doing everything perfectly.

If you rehearse this enough you will be giving your brain the instruction to act that way in the real-life scenario.


2. It's all in how you see it

One thing that can make a large difference to how we think about and react under pressure is how we choose to label it.

You can either choose to see the situation as ‘make or break’ or as a ‘chance to shine.’

You can think ‘this is massively stressful’ or you can think ‘this is massively exciting.’

A problem and a challenge are often the same thing, but one brings out the best in us and the other leaves us pulling out our hair.

Notice the labels you are using and make sure that you choose language that inspires and motivates you.

3. Be present and feel the emotions

Often high pressure situations bring difficult emotions.

The problem is not so much that we feel these emotions but that we get distracted by them or let them dictate our actions.

One of the best ways to deal with difficult emotions is to simply feel them without reacting or giving them meaning.

When we operate from a place of high performance we are focused on the present moment and simply dealing with situations as they arise.

Practise noticing emotions without labelling them or putting them into a mental story.

Notice how ‘fear’ moves through your body: ‘my heart is beating fast, my breaths are becoming shorter’ etc.

Just allow the emotion to be the emotion without needing to change it and you will take away it's power.


4. Don’t be afraid to lose (be afraid to not give 100%)

​The most important thing in sport is your intention.

We can’t always control whether we win or we lose but we can control how much effort we give.

The biggest problem people have when they need to perform under pressure is that their poor coping strategies leave them vulnerable to distraction, to negativity and to taking ineffective action.

Don’t worry about winning or losing. Simply ask yourself ‘am I giving 100%?’ If you’re not then use the strategies I've taught to focus on what's in front of you and on giving your all to the game.

I'd love to hear your questions, comments and feedback. How do you cope with high pressure situations?


Click Here to Leave a Comment Below

Leave a Comment: