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First published 2016
Copyright © Dave Alred, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-241-97510-7
Introduction
Under Pressure
1. Anxiety
Synchronizing the Butterflies
2. Language
The Ultimate Performance-Enhancing Drug
3. Managing Learning
The Ugly Truth
4. Implicit– Explicit Balance
The Tip of the Iceberg
5. Behaviour
Big-Match Mentality
6. Environment
Expecting the Unexpected
7. Sensory Shutdown
Flying Your Plane
8. Thinking Correctly Under Pressure
Jumping Off
Conclusion: The Pressure Principle
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
This book is dedicated to all those who think they can’t
At the end of a long and stressful week at work, you’ve finally completed your report. You gather up the crumpled pages of notes that have been your crutch for the last few days and screw them into a ball before leaning back in your chair and tossing them towards the waste bin on the other side of your office.
Bullseye! You congratulate yourself on a perfectly judged throw. Everyone’s a champion when no one else is looking.
Jack, a colleague, walks in, smiling mischievously. ‘A pound says you can’t make that throw again,’ he says.
‘You’re on.’ The stakes are low, your confidence is high and the shot is makeable. You take aim …
‘Woah, not so fast, hot shot,’ interrupts Jack. ‘Let’s make this a bit more interesting.’
Jack heads down the corridor to summon everyone on your floor, offering them bets on the throw, telling them it’s easy money – that you’ll never make the shot from twenty feet. Soon, your office has more people in than ever before and the jar containing the stake money is half full. It doesn’t stop there.
In his new role as bookmaker, Jack spreads the word – news travels fast in this company – and before long it’s out of control: your office is rammed, people are crowding the corridors and pressing up against the windows and bets are being laid thick and fast.
‘I’ve got a fiver on this,’ pipes up someone.
‘Put me down for ten,’ says another.
Of course, you can’t back down, so you take every bet thrown your way. Even the CEO gets in on the act, wagering a cool fifty quid that you won’t make it. The chatter is incessant, the tension palpable and the pot is swelling at just over a thousand pounds as Jack finally closes the book and, like an admonishing umpire at Wimbledon, calls for, ‘Quiet, please.’
A hush descends. All eyes turn to you. One shot for glory.
You take the paper ball – it feels alien and unfamiliar between your palms – and roll it tighter, thinking about how best to make the throw, about what happens if you don’t. A thousand pounds! Your palms feel clammy, your chest is tight, your heart pounding.
The eyes of your colleagues bore into you. This is it: your putt for victory in the Ryder Cup, the last-minute penalty to win a World Cup final. Your chance to make office history.
With dry mouth and knotted stomach, you take back your arm. How did I do it before? You try to visualize it going in the bin as you bring your arm forward and release the paper ball. It leaves your hand and the room draws breath as it arcs through the air …
We all have our own definition of pressure. For some it’s the pressure to present to a new client at work. For others it’s the stresses involved in running their own business. Many of us face the pressure to juggle long hours at work with being a good parent at home and plenty know all too well the pressure to make ends meet. It’s not just this objectively serious kind of pressure we can relate to. We can feel pressure when we’re meeting people for the first time, be they new colleagues at work or a partner’s social group, or even in moments when we might feel silly for getting worked up, such as waiting at the start of our own birthday party for people to arrive. We can put ourselves under immense pressure to achieve when we tackle things like running a marathon or performing in an event that matters to us – whether in a five-a-side football tournament, a local play or even throwing a ball of paper into a bin. Pressure can create a very personal kind of pain.
Yet although it means different things to different people, and can affect us in a variety of ways, we all recognize its effects in ourselves and others. People under pressure nearly always betray symptoms. Some are better than others at managing them or hiding them, but we recognize their imprint. And outside our own social sphere, when we watch sport and films and television programmes, we can see it there. We’re familiar with the toll it takes – be it on a player trying to pot an easy-looking black to win the World Snooker Championship or an onscreen hero trying to defuse a bomb – because we feel pressure in our own lives, albeit usually on a more modest stage and in less perilous circumstances. Sport and drama magnify the tensions we know all too well from first-hand experience.
Pressure means something different to everyone, so how might we begin to define it clearly as something we can all understand? You might think a dictionary would be a good place to start, but it’s easy to become lost in the many definitions that don’t quite tap into the core of what it is that we all feel when facing pressure. And that is where our attentions should be directed. It is the effects of pressure that concern us, that inhibit us. How is it that some of us can deliver a great performance when it matters most while others visibly wilt under the strain?
Anxiety, elevated heart rate, sweating, feeling ‘tight’ in the shoulders or neck, headaches, butterflies and nausea are just some of the physical symptoms we can experience as a result of pressure. The mental effects can be just as pronounced: our confidence, concentration, memory, emotional control, decision-making, sense of perspective, ability to remain present and in the moment can all be compromised when we’re under pressure, preventing us from doing something we might manage easily in a more relaxed environment.
Top-level sportsmen experience these effects just like the rest of us, and professional sport is littered with expressions such as ‘performance anxiety’ and ‘choking’. Of course, they have learned, using some of the methods I will describe in this book, how to manage these effects better than many – performing in front of thousands of people regularly will do that to a person. But anyone who has watched a penalty shootout will know that no one is immune to pressure – not even the very best.
Pressure gets the better of everyone at some point. Which of us can honestly say we haven’t underperformed in an exam, interview, social engagement or at work because of nerves? Pressure on us when we do these things, whether for professional, social or simply survival reasons, inhibits and challenges our ability to make decisions. So for the purposes of this book, let’s take a clear, simple definition of pressure, in the knowledge that it isn’t pressure itself that’s the problem – it’s the impact it has on us:
PRESSURE The interference with the ability to concentrate on a process, consciously or subconsciously, causing deterioration in technique and decreasing the level of performance.
So in your efforts to throw the ball into the bin in your office, the pressure arises from (a) the thought of losing a lot of money (you had over £1,000 resting on the outcome); (b) having to perform in front of a large audience, many of whom you don’t know; and (c) having to deliver in front of your CEO – effectively, the pressure of being able to deliver under pressure.
The fact that you succeeded when you thought no one was looking is of little help when faced with such a crowd of people. You’ve had no real practice in these conditions, no conscious process or learned technique that will give you the best chance of success. You have to get it right first time.
If I had to give a high-concept appraisal of my coaching philosophy, it would be: ‘To rekindle youthful learning and create a “no limits” mindset.’
No matter who you are – the world’s number-one golfer, a nurse in an overburdened A&E department, rugby’s best goal kicker or one employee among thousands in a big company – you can always improve. At the margins of your performance, you can still get better – and you can learn to enjoy and embrace the challenge of improving and celebrate your progress.
Elite-level sport distils perfectly and most purely the ideas and preconceptions we hold about pressure. Where else would a player have to take a penalty in a full stadium, with millions watching on television, to win a tournament that comes around only every four years and which might be the player and team’s sole chance ever to win it?
In sport the margins are so fine and yet the outcomes are so black and white: winners and losers. Only in sport do we collectively and publicly witness the effects of pressure at its most extreme. They can be the best in the world but still miss a simple kick from twelve yards, a three-foot putt or an easy pot, or double fault at a crucial juncture. For all the extreme pressure that paramedics, soldiers, firemen, police officers and the like are under – where decisions can literally be a matter of life and death, unlike Bill Shankly’s famous quote about football – their often heroic, dangerous and breathtaking activities aren’t in a public arena. No audience will judge how well they respond to pressure. Similarly, those in less dangerous but very stressful professions such as investment bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers don’t regularly perform their duties under the gaze of TV cameras – even if some of us might appreciate knowing exactly what is going on behind their doors.
It is in sport, then, where the application and consequences of pressure are crystal clear, that the phenomenon can most easily be studied and understood. Sport is our public portal into the physical and psychological torment pressure can wreak – and into our heroes who are best able to manage and harness its effects for both personal glory and the glory of their teams.
In a career in sport of over twenty years I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and learn from many great coaches and players. I have worked with, among others, rugby internationals Jonny Wilkinson and Johnny Sexton, star golfers Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington, and several elite teams, including the England rugby squad, the British and Irish Lions, the British Judo Association and, from Australian Rules football, West Coast Eagles. I’ve also worked with players who aren’t household names but are just as committed to embracing the challenge to improve at their own level, in their own way and at their own margins. Helping them develop has been equally satisfying. And it is in sport – specifically, golf – where I have worked on my own improvement, rediscovering my empathy with the angst and pressures involved in learning and mastering any new skill.
Sport, however, is just the jumping-off point. Previously I was a secondary school teacher, working for several years in three large inner-city comprehensive schools in Bristol. On reflection, I am convinced that this teaching experience created the strongest possible foundation to develop my coaching skills. I am hugely grateful to those colleagues who, in this often undervalued profession, supported and encouraged my early development.
I have felt the pressures that a life outside sport can produce. I have learned from both sides, with my work in sport informing my life outside it and vice versa. My search for improvement motivated me to complete a PhD at Loughborough University while also working full-time, which was a great experience but left me with more questions than answers. I’m now asking much better questions.
The Pressure Principle has evolved over the many years I have been teaching, researching and coaching. It is a result of the methodology I have learned, adapted and created in my career in sports such as golf, rugby, cricket, football, judo, polo, Aussie Rules and many more, and of the wealth of experience life has a tendency to throw our way. I’ve seen first-hand the consequences that extremes of pressure can produce and I’ve worked hard with people from all walks of life to help them cope.
The Pressure Principle is no quick-fix, sticking-plaster solution; it is a multifaceted philosophy, but its lessons are simple to apply. You’ll see benefits in the short term, certainly, and, if you commit to it fully, the long-term gains can be huge. You will see improvements. You will be better able to deal with pressure and perform at your best.
The Pressure Principle comprises eight intermingled strands, each of which is the subject of a separate chapter:
These eight strands are all interrelated, so there isn’t a neat cut-off between each of them; instead, they feed into one another: seven intertwining strands woven around the common thread of language.
This book examines not only the importance of practice per se, but also how different types of practice can prepare us for the pressured environment. It explains both how a skill is learned in the first place and the most effective ways to execute it when the tension mounts. Techniques are offered to build confidence and develop a productive mindset to tackle the mental interference that might inhibit us at crucial moments in our lives. The power of the body, as well as the mind, to help us cope with stress will be explained, too. Going beyond sport, we will look at what we can learn from the Royal Marines, dolphin trainers, fighter pilots, skateboarders, car salesmen and the world of advertising.
My hope is that anyone wanting to improve their performance in a pressured environment will be helped by this book. My message is that you are capable of achieving so much more, whoever you are. I don’t have all the answers – I too subscribe to the no-limits mindset and am always learning and keen to improve – but I am about to share the results of my experience as a teacher, a learner and a coach to some of the best in the world in the most pressured environments imaginable.