Understanding and Handling Performance Pressure

Performance pressure, anxiety and tension are caused by mind-set of inflated expectations, fear of failure and an unhealthy attitude toward your competition. Let's look at each of these.

Expectation: When you develop expectations with regard to outcomes and results, you will become tight, tentative and tense simply because you cannot control these. You always experience anxiety when you have no control. I coach my clients on how to create expectations about what can be controlled, thereby giving them confidence in their ability to perform in that way. For example, if you have prepared well you can expect the emergence of your best, expect to do well, expect things to come together, expect that something good will take place, expect to learn about yourself and the game you play and expect to feel happy about your performances. I encourage my clients to focus on all those "little things" that make them perform well in practice. Such expectations help you to relax and let your body and mind do what they have been trained to do.

Fear of failure: I coach my clients to embrace failure as something inevitable that comes to us as a teacher. Everyone fails, makes mistakes, has setbacks, and loses from time to time, even the best of the best. In fact one of the essential qualities of a champion is the ability to tolerate failure. An old Zen saying teaches us "the arrow that hits the bulls eye is the result of one hundred misses." I tell those I coach that although I am very successful, I have endured much failure over my lifetime. I've been rejected, discouraged and disappointed yet, with an open mind and heart, I have learned and improved from all these setbacks./>

There are numerous other obstacles that cause pressure and anxiety and prohibit you from performing your best. Rather than stay stuck do what so many others have done and let me coach you to get to the next level with what you do. Let me coach you in how to be the best you can be on a more consistent basis in sport, work, at home and in all of life. I can help you to come through in the clutch more often and experience higher levels of satisfaction. Neutralize the barriers that stand in your way of experiencing greater success in all that you do.