Championship Mindset Series: Maintaining Composure Under Pressure
You’re down by 1, the score is 7-8. The match has been a high-paced back-and-forth grinder. You’re on your feet with 15 seconds on the clock. You need to get this takedown to win the match. The whole crowd is yelling, the sound is deafening. You can’t hear your coach and your body feels like jelly. The energy from the crowd is making your heart rate skyrocket. The whistle blows, you lose all sense of thought and begin to act on instinct to just go-go-go. After 5 failed shot attempts, the clock runs out and it’s over. Your opponent gets his hand raised and you go back to your corner exhausted and defeated.
If you’ve ever been in a situation like this, and most of us have at least once, you know exactly how it feels. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don’t. But what’s the important lesson here? How do we give ourselves a better chance at winning in a high-pressure situation like this? By maintaining composure, our ability to CHOOSE under pressure and fatigue.
Maintaining Composure and Choice
Our ability to choose on how we act is and always will be our greatest asset as human beings. But in a high-pressure situation or when our body is completely exhausted, we allow the pressure and fatigue to disconnect our ability to choose and we act on urge alone. When you’re in a situation like this, maintaining composure and choice can mean looking for and creating an opening you’ve drilled in practice a thousand times over instead of shooting wild shots that have little chance at success.
To accomplish this, the first step is to be aware of the situation you’re in. This awareness tells you that the potential for losing choice is high and that you need to keep it to succeed and win. Take a deep breathe, feel your center of gravity and make yourself present. Now you’re ready. Use your training and go win the match.
Maintaining composure and choice isn’t just for competition; it’s something that can be used anytime you feel the weight of a situation. By making yourself become present and refusing to act on urge, you will help yourself stay on track with what you want to achieve and the goals you have set for yourself.
