Performance Under Pressure

The bottom line is that most people do not chase their potential or, if they do, they only get some of the way. We have all experienced that daunting sense of being overwhelmed when the world closes in on us. Even top performers falter and are undone in moments when the pressure gets to them. And one in five of us has serious procrastination issues! The world is full of untapped human potential.

If you restrict yourself to performing only in comfortable situations, your life will miss the fulfilment available to those who don’t restrict themselves. But if you embrace them, those challenging, high-pressure moments can be especially powerful and rewarding.

Pressure – your friend or your foe? By the end of this book, I hope you’ll look at that question in a different light.

Performance under pressure is a fact of life. But because it holds the key to unlocking your potential, pressure is priceless.

PART 1

Part 1, Red and Blue – Understanding Pressure

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour.

Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist (1905–1997)

CHAPTER 1

Chapter 1, The Nature of Pressure

Pressure is confronting. It can smack us in the face. The sharp edge of reality has a way of cutting our fantasies to shreds.

Pressure is universal. No matter what our level of performance, we all fall victim to it in the same ways.

Pressure is real. What happens inside our heads and bodies – anxiety, tension, frustration, exasperation, foggy thinking, tunnel vision – is not imagined. And when it comes to the effects of pressure, there is no immunity.

Pressure is a mystery. The simple rules of the external world of cause and effect don’t hold. The mental world is a non-linear, invisible, cryptic one, where our unconscious often lurks in the background with sinister intent. With success within their grasp – and therefore also the prospect of failure – some people suddenly collapse under pressure, and we don’t really understand why. Because the mental world seems hard to comprehend, many people don’t make an effort to do so. The very thing that is the most variable, and has the greatest impact, is the least pursued.

Pressure is captivating. Tight sporting contests, precarious business decisions and tense armed stand-offs seem very different situations, but they draw us in for the same reasons. We don’t know how they will turn out, and the outcome matters. Predictability is boring and, especially when the stakes are high, unpredictability is thrilling.

Pressure is perilous. The knife-edge, risk–reward seesaw explains why many people do everything they can to avoid or escape from stressful situations.

But a minority of people do the opposite. They walk towards these moments of truth, seeking the things they also fear.

Pressure can be an incredibly sobering, painful or even crushing experience, from which we may struggle to recover, or a stirring, heartening one, which resets our life trajectory upwards.

Welcome to the world of pressure.

Two Kinds of Threat

At the heart of pressure is fear. But not all fear is equal.

Imagine someone is walking in the country, in a relatively reflective state, when a wild dog bursts into their path, locks eyes with them, snarls and runs directly at them.

How do they react? Their eyes fixate on the dog, their body becomes tense and their thinking shuts down, all in a split second. They are in a state of fear.

Now imagine a golfer leading his first big championship by one shot. (Please note that all examples in this book, unless otherwise stated, are fictional and any resemblance to real situations is purely coincidental.) At the final hole he is confronted with a difficult water hazard that has claimed his tee shot in the last two rounds.

How does he react? His eyes fixate on the water, his body becomes tense and his thinking shuts down, all in a split second. He is in a state of fear.

These two reactions look identical at face value. They are both internal fear reactions to external situations. But they’re different in one key respect: the wild dog is a genuine external threat, while the golf hole is not. The golf shot holds the potential for judgment, but no direct physical threat (unless the golfer falls in the water).

The wild dog triggers a split-second reaction, directly provoked by an external stimulus: sharp teeth. But we can’t say the same thing about the golf shot. The golfer’s state of fear is triggered by what the external situation stirs up inside him. The threat is not an animal with teeth, but feelings that bite.

The tournament or crowd don’t directly cause the fear. It’s the change in situation that creates the threat: getting close to the end, on the cusp of winning. Which also means possibly losing, with instant audible and visible judgment from the crowd. This possible judgment stirs up deep-seated feelings from long-forgotten past performances, leading to anxiety and tension.

So, there are two kinds of threat: one that is triggered by real external danger, and one that is prompted by an internal emotional conflict.

Faced with the first kind of threat – the wild dog – just about everyone would have a similar reaction. But in the case of internal emotional threats, there’s a lot of variation in how people react. Some people become fearful and some don’t, with all grades in between.

What determines who becomes fearful and who doesn’t? And when does this become a problem for performance?

To answer these questions, we’ll need to learn more about the human brain …

CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2, Two Minds – Introducing Red and Blue

Our brain is the part of our body that has the greatest influence on our performance under pressure.

Even when a challenge is mainly physical – such as training for a marathon – pressure places demands on us mentally as we solve problems, make decisions, adjust timing, fight through the discomfort, and much more. Our mental response is what makes the difference.

Our brain is easily the most complex organ in our body – in fact, it’s the most complex thing in the universe. The numbers people use in talking about the brain are so big, and at the same time so small, that they’re hard to fathom.

The human brain contains roughly 100 billion neurons (nerve cells), which generate trillions of synapses (connections) with other neurons. At the other end of the scale, the average neuron is just one-tenth of a millimetre in size. A piece of brain tissue the size of a full-stop on this page could hold 10,000 synapses, allowing cells to pass information to each other as they branch out from the brain through the spinal cord and nerves to reach, and control, every corner of our body.

Whichever way we look at it, our nervous system is impressive, even though in terms of our knowledge of its complexity it remains a vast, unknown frontier.

This complexity is necessary for neuroscience, but not for us. Fortunately, we can easily simplify how the brain functions into just two interactive systems.

But first, to appreciate why the RED–BLUE mind model makes sense in performance situations, it will help if we understand some basic facts about how the brain is structured.

We can view the structure of the brain in terms of three parts, or levels.

The first level, located at the base of the brain – at the top of the spine – is the brainstem, which is responsible for our major physiological drives and functions and our basic survival responses. It is fully developed at birth. We share this part of the brain with reptiles and other mammals.

The second level, sitting at the heart of the brain, is the limbic system, which is responsible for processing information about our emotional and physical state, and emotional information about those around us. It develops after the brainstem, going through significant change in the first year of life. A set of nuclei (nerve centres) located around the limbic system, called the basal ganglia, are closely associated with our unconscious physical habits.

The third level is the cerebral cortex – the outer layers of the brain – made up of two halves: the left and right hemispheres, joined by a thick bundle of fibres called the corpus callosum. The cerebral cortex, which controls advanced mental processes such as language and reflection, is the last part of the brain to develop, and is still maturing in our mid-20s.

THE HUMAN BRAIN

External structure

From the outside, the brain is dominated by two large cerebral hemispheres.

Although nearly all mental tasks are based on a combination of left- and right-hemisphere activity, one will dominate, because they function very differently in terms of the types of information they process.

Right-hemisphere processes are automatic, fast, and largely unconscious. The right hemisphere works in the here and now, using non-verbal information such as images, and has the capacity to see the big picture, taking an instant snapshot of the situation.

Left-hemisphere processes are deliberate, slower, and conscious. The left hemisphere works by matching current reality with past experiences, using language and calculation to construct stories, explanations and timelines.

The three parts of the brain – and the two hemispheres – function within a hierarchy, with the brainstem at the bottom, the limbic system in the middle, and the cerebral cortex at the top. The later-developing cortex has the power to hold back or refine the more primitive reactions from the sub-cortical structures (the limbic system and the brainstem), giving top-down control.

The right hemisphere, which matures before the left hemisphere, is more concerned with our immediate safety and sense of where we are in the world, while the left hemisphere is more concerned with analysis and setting goals. Likewise, the back of the brain processes raw sensory data (like visual images), while the front of the brain is more concerned with refining these images through meaning and interpretation. Altogether, our brain develops in a bottom-to-top, back-to-front and right-to-left direction.

To keep things simple, we can see both our right hemisphere and our limbic system and brainstem as dealing primarily with feeling, and our left hemisphere as dealing mainly with thinking.

The feeling system is primed for survival – including our essential physical processes and the fight–flight reaction. It runs on raw, unprocessed data: when a large dog suddenly appears in front of us, all we need to see and sense is that it’s angry and growling, not its name, species or favourite park. The defining feature of this survival system is speed. Because it’s linked to emotions such as fear, it has been described as ‘the hot system’. I call this system RED.

THE HUMAN BRAIN

Internal structure – Side view

On the inside, the human brain is organised into three main functional areas: the brainstem at the base; the limbic system in the middle; and the cerebral hemispheres at the top.

The thinking system is primed for potential. Once we’re safe from the dog, we can think about how to avoid crossing its path in future – maybe we need to buy an even bigger dog ourselves! This system allows us to solve problems, set goals, learn and adapt. Because it’s linked more to thinking and rational analysis, it has been described as ‘the cool system’. I call this system BLUE.

Red

The RED system is strongly connected to our body through powerful nerves, to maintain the overall functioning of our body and main organs within certain, comfortable limits, and to allow us either to run away or to defend ourselves when the situation demands.

There are two RED brain abilities that are particularly relevant to performance under pressure:

1 Emotional regulation

2 Fight–flight–freeze

1. Emotional regulation

The RED system runs essential physiological processes like sleep, hunger, thirst, sex drive and our heart and lung function. We don’t want to think much in most of those situations, so the RED system runs our internal world automatically and unconsciously by monitoring sensory information from our main organs. And we can’t switch it off – it never sleeps, even when we do.

Our RED brain is also constantly monitoring emotional information from our external world. It processes multiple information channels simultaneously to keep pace with cues in our social and emotional environment. The RED system regulates (controls) our emotions, and since our emotional self-control directs our behaviour at all times, the RED system sits at the forefront of how we experience the world around us.

Our RED brain specialises in processing social and emotional information in a non-linear, holistic way. To give us vital split-second reactions, it runs on broad images, impressions and feelings, delivering an unending stream of moment-to-moment, gut-based judgments about our constantly changing world.

The trade-off is that a lot of detail is lost or not processed, resulting in an approximate system that provides rapid judgments at the expense of accuracy. Information is combined to provide an overall synthesis of a situation, rather than being broken down into smaller categories.

To understand this, let’s look more closely at the role of the limbic system in regulating our emotions.

The limbic system adjusts our emotional state in two main ways: by regulating our level of arousal, and by controlling whether this feels good or bad. It’s like an extremely powerful internal thermostat, turning our energy level and emotional temperature up and down in an instant.

Nothing is more important to our day-to-day functioning than emotional regulation because it helps keep our body functioning within certain comfortable parameters, where we operate most efficiently. This maintenance of our physical and mental state within a relatively comfortable mid-range or zone is called homeostasis, an essential process for all living organisms. (We will see that understanding – and overcoming – this powerful force to stay comfortable can unlock our performance under pressure.)

2. Fight–flight–freeze

Life would be straightforward if we were able to function in comfortable conditions all the time. But we know that in our evolutionary past, we faced deadly threats and had to be constantly on our guard. Think of it in terms of a predator and its prey: the prey either has to react aggressively to deter the predator, or has to get away from the situation in a hurry. We saw this same response earlier in the person confronted by the ferocious dog.

Our RED system has evolved not just to keep us within a comfortable physiological window when conditions are safe and allow it, but also to keep us alive when we face significant threat. It does this through the fight, flight and freeze reactions, which are our stress reactions. Within a split second, our brain and body are ready either to flee from the threat, or to fight it off.

Our two amygdalae, considered the most primitive parts of the limbic system, act as our threat detectors. They’re constantly on high alert and exquisitely sensitive: they can be triggered simply by picking up on the dilation of another person’s pupils, a sign of potential hyper-vigilance or fear. They can respond unconsciously within 30 milliseconds, much faster than the 250 to 500 milliseconds it takes us to consciously focus attention with our BLUE brain. This is why we can find ourselves reacting to something without knowing why; then our conscious BLUE mind will catch up and recognise the threat that our RED system saw a quarter to half a second beforehand. In life-threatening situations, our amygdalae allow us to act first and think later.

If we can’t overcome or get away from our opponent, we feel trapped, and a more primitive reaction can kick in: freeze. This reaction has a slightly different biological pathway from the fight–flight mechanism, and it works in the opposite way: it shuts us down physically. It’s a last-ditch response to danger, when horror kicks in. In the animal world, this is where caught prey plays dead, hoping the predator will lose interest and enable it to escape. In the human world, we look blank and stare. Freeze starts out with a spike of arousal, but then transforms into a profoundly low-arousal state.

Psychologically, we disconnect from our body. If we can’t get out of there physically, we certainly don’t want to be present mentally. We go numb as endorphins are released to protect us from physical and mental pain. The technical term for this is dissociation, a mechanism that has fascinated psychologists for over 200 years.

Sometimes dissociation even involves a loss of muscle tone, leading us to fold or collapse – a bit like when a team of defeated players fall to the ground at the final whistle, when just moments before they were desperately trying to turn things around.

The autonomic nervous system

A well-organised RED limbic system will ensure that we are emotionally stable, flexible and resilient. It will allow us to fine-tune our physical and mental state when we are safe, react quickly to defend ourselves when we are under threat, and settle efficiently once the threat has gone.

It makes these adjustments using the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which, as the name suggests, functions automatically. It’s a RED system based on feeling, so we don’t have to think to turn it on.

The autonomic system has two main branches: the sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch. We now know that there are in fact two parasympathetic branches, both related to the large vagus nerves, which run from our brainstem at the base of our skull upward to our facial area, and downward to organs in our chest and abdomen. The two parasympathetic pathways are called the ventral vagal and dorsal vagal pathways. (Ventral means ‘front’ and dorsal means ‘back’, reflecting their relative positions within the nerve.)

The bottom line is that to properly understand how our fight, flight and freeze reactions work – and therefore what’s happening when we perform under pressure – we need to consider how three autonomic branches interact.

The sympathetic branch runs down the middle part of our spinal cord, to connect with our heart and lungs via spinal nerves. It responds to threat by preparing us for movement and action: the fight-or-flight response. To do this, it releases adrenaline, which increases our heart and breathing rates, and shifts blood flow away from our extremities to our limbs. Our vision fixates on the immediate threat. When our sympathetic system is stimulated, we feel agitated and tense.

The dorsal vagal pathway, found in reptiles as well as mammals, connects the brainstem with nerves in the abdomen. Like the sympathetic branch, it responds to extreme danger. But the dorsal vagal pathway is triggered when escape via fight or flight is not possible, so that we feel trapped, which leads to the freeze response. When this pathway is activated, we go into a state of mental and physical shutdown. Mentally, we stop feeling, our thoughts become fuzzy, and we feel alone. Physically, we lose energy, feel fatigued and become numb. If fight–flight is a mobility reaction, freeze is an immobility reaction.

The ventral vagal pathway, also called the social engagement system because it is activated when we feel safe enough to communicate with others, connects (along with some associated nerves) the brainstem to the neck, face, eyes and ears as well as the heart and lungs. It puts the ‘brakes’ on our sympathetic system activation to calm us and allow more flexible responses (except in an emergency, when it releases the brakes). Because it allows us to engage and explore rather than defend and retreat – and to compare it to the defensive fight–flight and freeze reactions – we can think of it as our face and find response: it allows us to face challenging situations, and find a way to overcome the challenge even when the way forward isn’t immediately obvious, which sets us mentally free.

The three pathways work in a predictable order. When we are at our best and feel safe and connected so that the social engagement system is operating, we can connect with others, think flexibly, see different options and follow through with plans, and are generally organised and on top of things. The moment we sense threat, the sympathetic branch of the ANS kicks in and prepares us to defend ourselves through flight or flight. And if neither the social engagement nor the fight–flight mechanism helps and we feel trapped, the dorsal vagal pathway activates the freeze reaction, driving us into a primitive shutdown state.

If our limbic system, working through the ANS, is both stable and flexible, we will be able to maintain a healthy physical and mental state, and also deal with stressful situations.

A poorly organised limbic system, lacking a good balance between the three pathways, leaves us prone to extended periods or abrupt spikes of over- or under-arousal. When this happens, it means our RED brain is overactive and our top-down, BLUE control is inadequate.

Putting it all together

So it seems the RED system is honed to get us out of tricky or demanding situations – quickly – and return us to a more even, balanced state. It provides a short-term fix to escape or resolve challenging moments. But what do these RED mind mechanisms, fine-tuned over millennia to keep us safe and sound, mean when it comes to performing under pressure?

What has been the biggest scare you’ve ever experienced? At that time, RED was dominant. It is primed for unthinking action and would have kicked into action immediately. But in other situations in which we face a daunting task but not immediate physical danger, our RED system can be less helpful, becoming activated by social threat and disrupting our ability to think clearly.

In some aspects, the RED system provides precisely what we need for performance. But in others, it seems to create more problems than solutions. Instead of a world of performance, it can take us into a world of interference.