Donald was paralysed by anxiety – a classic symptom of choking. When he finally started to run, he was out by yards. South Africa were out of the competition. He does not believe there is anything inevitable about choking – and that everyone can practise in a way that makes them less likely to choke. “Could I have dealt with that differently? Could I have had methods to slow myself down? I think I could.” By using a broader range of emotional language and avoiding pressurised self-talk, you too can start to replace words such as ‘should’, ‘must’ and ‘have’ with more open, alternative words such as ‘notice’, ‘awareness’ and ‘opportunity’. In moving towards this gentler language, you can adjust to the demands of a situation without allowing emotion to take over. It will help you focus more on process (the way you perform) over outcome (in terms of success or failure) and allow you to look at what you can do to live in line with your values, rather than fearing or avoiding potential failure. Britton KT, McLeod S, Koob GF, Hauger R (1992) Pregnane steroid alphaxalone attenuates anxiogenic be 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.

Remember: Understanding and managing the relationship between pressure and performance is crucial for your productivity and your health. Learn more Elite athletes are like the rest of us: they get anxious and it hampers their performance. In the last 30 seconds of tight basketball games, WNBA and NBA players are 5.8% and 3.1% respectively less likely to score from a free throw – an uncontested shot awarded to players who have been fouled – than at other moments in the game. When players take free throws in home matches, they are more likely to miss when the crowd is bigger. The pressure performance curve / stress curve showing the relationship between pressure and performance. 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.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. Dr Hearns then explains how absence of pressure can cause ‘Disengagement’ but as pressure increases an individual or team can enter an optimal phase of ‘Flow’ where performance is at its highest. However, as the pressure continues to increase a state of ‘Frazzle’ can be entered where performance then decreases.

Another important point from this study was that many monkeys did not choke when their performance was considered overall (Sosnowski et al. 2022). Instead, these individuals seem to thrive, or perform better, on high-pressure trials over the entire duration of testing, or improved their performance in sessions beyond the first few. This improvement in performance for some individuals highlighted the range of response to pressure—some individuals failed to complete the task when the stakes were high, while others were more likely to succeed. While the success of these individuals was almost certainly related to experience with performing under pressure by the final session, it is also probably related to motivation—the high-pressure trials remained highly rewarding even after the difficulty was removed, so monkeys that were able to perform well under pressure may have been particularly motivated to do so. Indeed, in some of these individuals, the data suggested an initial decrement in performance in very early sessions, before a rebound in performance on these high-pressure trials beyond baseline in later ones. This is not unlike results from human subjects—not only do some individuals have the “clutch gene”, as it is colloquially called in sports, but in general, people are less likely to choke when they have experience performing in a high-stakes context (Oudejans and Pijpers 2010). Early in his match on Sunday, Poulter struggled, going two shots down after four holes. Yet Poulter still “knew I’d win my point”, he said later. “It’s a weird feeling when you’re in the zone and all that mayhem is going on around you, and you find that you are entirely focused on the shot. All this adrenaline was flowing and I was thinking to myself: ‘There’s no way I’m losing this.’” 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. Beran MJ, Pate JL, Washburn DA, Rumbaugh DM (2004) Sequential responding and planning in chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) and rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta). J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 30:203You could try using apps such as Headspace or Calm to get more attuned at noticing, but not responding to, your unhelpful thoughts.