Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

“Pressure is a privilege.” That four-word quote that titles Billie Jean King’s book encapsulates the #1 mental skill athletes need to perform better under pressure. It’s also the #1 mental skill athletes need to perform better when they are dealing with training pain, fear, fatigue, or boredom. The name of this mental skill is reframing.

Reframing is a mental skill that helps athletes change their perception of a situation. Perception is how we process our thoughts to create our reality. Although perception is not reality and instead is one’s interpretation of reality, perception does still create one’s reality.

The cliché of viewing the glass half empty or half full is the classic example of perception creating one’s reality. The reality of the person who views the glass half full is one of abundance. While the reality of the person who views the glass half empty is one of scarcity. In short, perception is one of the 5 critical elements of mindset that profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

Perceptions turn into emotions. In turn, emotions cause physiological changes. For example, fear may cause your heart rate to go up, feeling pressure may cause you to sweat, and disappointment may make you cry. Each of these physiological changes then leads to helping or hurting an athlete’s performance.

So, when an athlete changes their perception of a situation, they can change their emotions. Correspondingly, the ultimate goal of reframing is to cope with emotions that have negative impact.

5 Ways to Help Athletes Use Reframing to Cope with Pressure

Billie Jean King’s idea of reframing pressure from a negative to a positive by perceiving it as a privilege is the most popular example of reframing in sports history. King’s example of reframing pressure as something that one earns, and therefore it is something to wear like a badge of honor is something athletes can use as part of a routine or daily mantra.

An athlete who learns to reframe pressure like this will have far more helpful emotions than emotions that hurt.

However, King’s reframing example is only a start and won’t necessarily work for all athletes. Reframing is done best when it’s put in context with an athlete’s current state of thinking. An athlete can view pressure as a privilege and still be in a state of panic because they think they are in a must win situation for example. Furthermore, reframing is not something most athletes can do alone using one simple quote.

Athletes often trap themselves in thought loops and keep replaying the same thoughts over and over. Consequently, it’s important for parents and coaches to teach athletes to communicate with someone they trust when having negative thoughts.

This outside person typically provides the catalyst to break a negative thought loop and reframe it with something more neutral. If you happen to be this person an athlete trusts, I suggest you consider these five ways to reframe:

1. Goals from an outcome focus to a process focus.
2. Urgency from a short-term mindset into a long-term mindset.
3. Comparisons from an ego focus to a task focus.
4. Progress from focusing on the end state to focusing on a progression.
5. Growth from fixing weaknesses to building strengths.