Sian Beilock

Holding on to thoughts and worries under stress leads to an inability to perform the tasks you are faced with, and learning how to control your mind so that you are able to hone your attention to what matters (and only what matters) is a real key to success under pressure.

If you can manage to interpret your body’s response to the situation as positive, as a call to action, you are likely to thrive. But if you interpret your body’s response as a sign that you are in a bad place with no way out, the worries and ruminations that result may send you into a ‘choke.’

Practicing under the types of pressures you will face on the big testing day is one of the best ways to combat choking.

Highly self-conscious people are more prone to choke under pressure.

Even practice under mild levels of stress can prevent you from choking when high levels of stress come around.

So, is it better to be higher in cognitive horsepower or not? The answer is, yes ... and no. The key is to have the brainpower at your disposal, but to be able to ‘turn it off’ in situations where it may prove disadvantageous.

Having a golfer count backwards by threes, or even having a golfer sing a song to himself uses up working-memory that might otherwise fuel overthinking and a flubbed performance.

When worries flood the brain, whatever these worries may be, they deplete working-memory resources that would otherwise be available and your performance can suffer.

When athletes think about themselves screwing up, they are more likely to do so.

Regardless of whether I was studying the complex decision-making processes involved in flying an airplane or how different parts of the brain work together to do math, my question about human performance was always the same: Why do we sometimes fail to perform at our best when it counts the most?