When You Notice an Athlete Treating Minor Situations as Major Events
Some athletes love pressure and some athletes loath it. Correspondingly, some athletes perform better under pressure and some athletes underperform under pressure.
Either way, pressure is not mandatory. Instead, it’s an optional mental construct of how one judges their environment and how others judge that environment. The fact is, whether or not pressure helps or hurts an athlete is just as important as how often the athlete chooses to judge their environment as having pressure.
In other words, choosing to see minor situations as major events is just as harmful for athletes who thrive under pressure as it is for athletes who struggle under pressure. Sustainable high performance requires a mindset oriented around enjoying the process and learning, not pressure.
The late great coach Dean Smith sums up why perfectly in his classic quote:
If you treat every situation as a life-or-death matter, you’ll die a lot of times
Simply stated, the first step to help an athlete perform better under pressure is to teach them to not view every competition as having a life-or-death outcome. Teach them it’s okay to enjoy the process, take risks, and trying new things, even if it leads to a short-term setback. Setbacks are setups for comebacks.
Yes, there are major events that require specific mental skills for dealing with pressure. However, these events are few and far between. Moreover, the only mental skill for dealing with daily pressure is to stop putting pressure on yourself every day.