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stress management

How to Improve Your Performance Under Pressure

under-pressure

 

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Your Response to Pressure is a Choice

How we respond to pressure is a choice. For most people, however, their response is in line with a ‘threat response’, which unless you are about to experience actual physical harm, is not only counterproductive to our long-term well being but also to performing well under pressure.

This is because when we activate our threat response, hormones including adrenalin and cortisol are released, speeding the heart rate and slowing digestion while our blood vessels constrict to minimize blood loss and increase inflammation. People may also experience fear and anger, while our Amygdala causes us to focus on the negative.

Choose the Challenge Response

The field of pressure management is changing rapidly with exciting new findings challenging old assumptions about and solutions to pressure. An effective response to non-physical pressure is the ‘challenge response’[1]. When we decide to frame an engagement as a challenge, we are typically more able to effectively access the cognitive resources necessary to perform well under pressure. When we ‘rise to the challenge’ we typically feel energized and excited in addition to experiencing a degree of anxiety.

Research has consistently demonstrated that when choosing the challenge response, students attain higher exam grades, surgeons operate with greater concentration and athletes perform better during competition.

Putting This into Practice

Long term the objective must be to bring about a mindset shift that leads to your default response to high-pressure (non-physical) situations being the challenge response. This can be achieved through mindset interventions.

If, however, you are facing an imminent high pressure challenge e.g. a public speaking engagement, job / promotion interview or a difficult negotiation, implement the following steps:

  1. If you have advance notice of the high-pressure challenge, spend a few minutes seeing it for what it really is, focusing on the positive aspects which may include:
  • It is not a life-threatening situation.
  • It is an opportunity to advance in some way.
  • You are capable to rising to this challenge.
  • You have done something similar before and received positive feedback.
  • You have faced and overcome more difficult challenges.
  • People want you to do well.
  1. Generate feelings of excitement and enthusiasm and commit to approaching your challenge in this emotional state.
  1. Spend a few minutes visualizing yourself performing well under pressure and feeling energized and focused. Contrary to popular but disproven belief, it’s important not to focus on the outcome but on your actual performance e.g. how you deliver your presentation or deal with questions. Focusing on the outcome simply increased the pressure you feel.

It’s important when visualizing to engage all your senses, so see what you will be likely to see, hear yourself speaking and feel how you want to feel.

If you want to take your visualization to the next level then take a leaf out of the books of special forces operators and world class athletes and anticipate things not going to plan e.g. being asked a question you didn’t anticipate but handling the situation calmly. In other words, expect the best but prepare for the worst.

Remember Pressure and Stress Save Lives

It’s important to acknowledge both our threat and challenge responses as assets that can serve us well and even save our lives. Pressure and stress have got a bad rap over the past few decades and there is some basis for this.

Recent exciting research, however, has proven that the mere act of choosing to perceive and indeed recognize pressure and stress as having the potential to be a good thing rather than something to be avoided at all costs, not only mitigates long term adverse consequences but supports better performance.

[1] The model of challenge and threat was developed by Blascovich and Tomaka (1996 & see also Blascovich & Mendes, 2000& Mendes, Blascovich, Lickel, & Hunter,2002& Mendes, Blascovich, Major, & Seery, 2001 & Tomaka, Blascovich).

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to improve Performance, Focus and Pressure Management

Solving Stress the Easy and Enjoyable Way

 

While research continues to highlight the benefits of stress (for more on this read Kelly McGonigal, PhD’s excellent ‘The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It’), the position remains that some forms of stress e.g. long-term chronic stress can be destructive to our physical and emotional well-being.

The Problem With Standard Solutions to Stress

Although there are 101 strategies and techniques for addressing stress issues, people often perceive the solutions as being ineffective, drawn out and just another list of tasks to add to their already stressful to-do list and busy day.

An example of this was provided to me by a client who told me that her attempts last year to address her stress issues involved two CBT meetings a week, travelling 50 miles each trip. Her demanding role as CMO at a fast growing company meant that this ‘solution’ left her feeling exhausted and more stressed.

Feeling Good About Dealing with Stress

The implications of the above means that those working in the field of stress management must provide solutions that are easy to integrate into busy lives and result in the recipients feeling better, not worse.

The easier to implement and more enjoyable the solution the more likely it is to be adopted and result in a successful outcome. The following three ‘techniques’ that I use and recommend to friends, family and clients fall into this category.

Develop and Maintain Meaningful Friendships

Our brains rightly perceive our social networks as being essential to survival. Extended periods of loneliness and isolation consequently trigger our stress response. An extensive Harvard study concluded that a lack of strong relationships increased the risk of premature death by a staggering 50%.

Making and enjoying real and meaningful social connections (not a shallow social media interaction) reduces stress and anxiety as a result of the release of the powerful ‘feel good’ hormone, oxytocin. It’s important to note that what matters is the quality of the relationships not the quantity.

Be Grateful

In order to ensure we survive, our brains are hardwired to notice and focus on the negative. This is one of the primary reasons that media coverage of the news focuses on the negative. It goes without saying that operating with a negative focus goes hand in hand with being negatively stressed.

Research has proven that regularly acknowledging and feeling grateful for the people, experiences and things in our lives that we value, reduces stress and improves our overall well-being.

There are a number of effective ways to practice gratitude including:

  • Writing in a journal several times a week, three things you are grateful for.
  • Sharing three things you’re grateful for with a loved one or close friend.
  • Letting people know that you value and appreciate them.

While the research is clear as to the benefits of a gratitude practice, there are differing conclusions as to the appropriate frequency. Experiment with which practice and frequency works best for you, making sure you are connecting with, and fully expressing your feelings of gratitude and not simply ticking three things off as though they were items on your to-do list.

Embrace Rather than Fear Stress

In The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It’, Kelly McGonigal identifies the many proven benefits of stress. Stress can improve your ability to perform and make you happier, smarter and stronger. McGonigal lays out a compelling argument based on extensive research, that choosing to embrace stress can result in you feeling more empowered.

Simply by changing our mindset and perception towards the stress we may experience, can have significant benefits for our health and happiness e.g. having a positive outlook on ageing can add an average of eight years to our lives. In short, how we choose to perceive something can transform its effect on us from negative to positive,

While there are specific mindset interventions for changing our perspective, it’s important to recognize that we change our opinions, beliefs and perspectives on a frequent basis. An obvious example occurs when we feel angry or disappointed at someone who has kept us waiting for a long time. We might initially think they are inconsiderate or inefficient. If, however, we subsequently discover they have an extremely good reason for being late, that belief is instantly dispelled. We can and must do the same when it comes to our perception of stress.

Martin Soorjoo works with individuals and teams to increase performance and resilience

To Plan for the Future You Must Live In the Present

The Downside of Do More Faster

When I first qualified as an attorney 25 years ago (a barrister at the English bar wearing a fancy wig and gown), my prime directive was something like do more faster. This seed was probably sewn when I was a young boy obsessed with the amazing abilities of the bionic Steve Austin (AKA the Six Million Dollar Man) who became ‘better, stronger, faster…’.

Fast forward ten years later as an attorney having done a lot more, faster and longer but beginning to experience the negative side effects of stress along with wondering where the years had gone, I began my quest for a better way of living. Meditation and mindfulness were just two of the practices I discovered, trained in and continue to use and share with the family, friends and clients.

The purpose of this post is not to outline numerous well-researched and proven benefits of meditation and mindfulness but to address the myth that mindfulness is at odds with living in the fast lane. If, however, you are not yet aware of the benefits  including improved cognitive ability,  stress-management, reduced blood pressure and improved emotional regulation see here ‘Why Google, Target, and General Mills Are Investing in Mindfulness’ or ‘7 Ways Meditation Can Actually Change The Brain’.

But I Need to Be Eddie Morra

The impetus for the post arose when a client was resistant to my suggestion that he explore meditation and mindfulness as one way of alleviating the extreme stress he was experiencing. His objection was based on the fact as CEO, he was primarily responsible for setting the strategy for the company and that meant he needed to keep his mind on the future and operating with speed. His misunderstanding was that being mindful meant only living in the present, always proceeding slowly.

 

 

Despite the dramatic increase in mindfulness meditation by high performance individuals ranging from CEO’s of some of the largest companies in the world to Special Forces operators, a perception remains that being a mindfulness practitioner means  leading a life similar to that advocated by ‘Master Po to ‘Grasshopper’ in Kung Fu.

 

How Being More Present Can Result in Better Strategy

Mindfulness provides you with one way of effectively dealing with the relentless challenges and distractions of the present. I have always thought of my days as similar to the experience of standing in the middle of an 8 lane freeway facing oncoming traffic (I accidentally tried this in my teens). I, like so many us, often find myself subjected to an ever increasing number of emails, texts, calls, notifications and meetings. This can greatly undermine clarity of thought and energy.

Mindfulness facilitates the ability to enjoy the best parts of the present e.g. moments with family and friends and positive experiences while being able to step back, create some white space and not simply be reactive. It also enables you to operate at a higher and more effective level when you need to move up a gear or three.

Steve Jobs, used a meditation and mindfulness practice to enhance his creative insight in planning, and legendary investor Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Capital uses meditation to gain greater clarity. He has stated that the practice is the most important ingredient in his success.

Planning and strategizing for the future places a heavy load on our pre-frontal cortex. In other words it is seriously hard work. By ensuring you are less drained and less stressed by the demands of the present and by equipping you with greater clarity of mind and creativity, mindfulness enables you to both more effectively live in the present and plan for the future.

Martin Soorjoo works with teams and individuals helping them increase their performance and resilience.