Below is an extract from an incredible book we are converting into an online interactive course. The book is called What Business Can Learn from Sports Psychology. Take a look...
What Happens to the Mind Under Pressure?
Let’s begin our exploration into what happens to the mind and body when under pressure by conducting a quick thought experiment.
Task 1
Imagine that you are poised at the start of a tightrope walk, standing on a platform looking down at the rope pulled securely between your platform and another platform ten feet away. The tightrope is suspended one foot off the ground. Your task is to walk along the tightrope to get to the finish platform. Visualize yourself in this situation. Close your eyes if it helps. How does your body feel? What thoughts do you have? What are your chances of success? What are the consequences of failure? How important is success in this task?
Task 2
Now, once again imagine that you are poised at the start of a tightrope walk, standing on a platform looking down at the rope pulled securely between your platform and a platform ten feet away. But this time, the tightrope is suspended ten feet off the ground. Your task is to walk along the tightrope to get to the finish platform. Again, really try to see yourself in this situation, eyes closed if that helps. How does your body feel? What thoughts do you have? What are your chances of success? What are the consequences of failure? How important is success in this task?
Your answers to the questions for the two tasks probably differ markedly. If you were actually to perform the tasks, your reactions to each situation would be like comparing apples to oranges. Perhaps for task 1 your thoughts reflected the desire to get across the rope to the other side as efficiently as possible. Maybe there were some doubts about your ability to do this, but largely you felt that it was a challenge you could meet.
In contrast, perhaps your thoughts for task 2 reflected a need to simply ‘get across’ the rope as failure would mean significant injury. And maybe you focused on that fear of falling and the pain you may experience if you fail, so much so, that you harboured wishes to avoid the task altogether. This is important and interesting for two main reasons.
First, the tasks are exactly the same with regard to the physical demands placed on you. You only have to walk ten feet in both tasks, across the same rope. The only difference is that task 1 is performed one foot off the ground, and task 2 - ten feet off the ground.
Second, in task 2, you need to feel composed, confident, and focused on success, because failure may result in serious injury. Ironically this is precisely when composure eludes us, confidence escapes us, and our focus fixes on potential failure. The added physical danger of task 2 alters our perception of the task so drastically, that we can fail to realize that the task has the same physical requirements. Instead, the importance of performing well and avoiding the negative consequences of failure (serious injury) becomes our main focus.
In short, it is not the requirements of the task itself that create pressure; it is our perceptions of those requirements that create the pressure. Further, if we asked you to perform the two tasks but this time, in front of an audience, or offered a lucrative prize for success, again the tasks would be the same, but greater perceptions of pressure would be induced.
People often talk about “pressure situations” and “being put under pressure”. But in performance settings like sport and business, pressure is an internal phenomenon. That is, pressure comes from within, not without.
>> It is not the task that creates pressure, it’s our perceptions. <<
