Tips for suffocating under pressure in any situation

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As the new presenter of How To !, David Epstein, investigative journalist and author of Range and The sports gene, is ready to tackle listeners’ most difficult problems. As a former science writer for Sports Illustrated, David’s first case is right up his alley. Juliet is a public defender turned into her forties and one of the best tennis players in her community league, but she can’t stop choking under pressure. She worries about what people think of her and that self-awareness is stifling her competitive advantage. In the episode of How To! This week, Sian Beilock, president of Barnard College and the author of Choke, science reveals why we sometimes play our worst when it matters most. Beilock says it’s all too common for women to shy away from competition for fear of being labeled “ not nice, ” and she has the tips to help Juliet and the rest of us get through that self-awareness on and off it. field. This transcript has been compressed and edited for clarity.

David Epstein: Juliet, can you tell us why you contacted us?

Juliet: I played tennis in high school, but then I didn’t play until I was 45. When I picked it up again, I was instantly hooked. I am now strength training, training and the game I want to play is a game for athletes. But when I’m on the tennis court, I get very self-aware. I have a hard time putting aside, ‘Will I look stupid? Am I going to do something that will change people’s perceptions of me in a way that I don’t like? “

David: When you wrote you mentioned a match against someone who called you a “frenemy”. Can you tell us something about that?

Juliet: So this is a social friend who is also a real estate agent, someone who could be on the other side of a deal with me. I was just so focused on “don’t look stupid” and the more you think “don’t look stupid” you start doing things that are actually stupid. And I hit the same three or four shots badly over and over again. [This was a doubles match, and the other team] started to see how I was choking, so they hit me directly, almost provoking me. My partner ended up just saying, ‘Just don’t even try to hit it. Let me get everything. “It was a very important game. Had we won that game, my team would have been the winners of that entire season. So I have to be able to do the mental bit to get to this next level.

Sian Beilock: I think Juliet has hit the nail on the head that the mental aspect is so important here. And it sounds like she’s got a lot of physical skill, but it’s all about finding the right psychological tools to get the best performance when it matters most.

David: Sian, what personally interested you in the science of asphyxiation?

Sian: I played high-level football growing up in the Olympic Development Program, and I had the worst game of my life for the national team manager. I kind of realized in the game that he was right behind my goal. And like Juliet, I remember being so aware of everything – what cleats I was wearing, the temperature. I played terribly. I couldn’t make the kind of saves that I normally do and let in a ball through the front post right under my arm, something that I would have saved a thousand times in practice. The coach walked away and I knew that was it. I remember going home feeling so frustrated and unable to figure out for the life of me how all the hard work I put into this important aspect of my life seemed to disappear in one second.

That experience really pointed me in the direction of wanting to understand human performance, to understand why, when we want to perform so well, we don’t put our best foot forward counterintuitively. What made me realize is that you cannot leave your performance in those stressful situations to chance. There are ways to practice to prepare for those situations. It’s clear that Juliet cares a lot about what other people think of her, which is normal. And it’s an interesting situation because it’s not like playing an opponent and never seeing them again. It adds this extra complexity to what’s going on because there’s a spillover from what’s happening in court to someone’s social life. The first question I would ask you, Juliet, is, do you look at the women who win as not nice or not nice?

Juliet: Yes and no. Some of the women I first met through tennis and then got to know them socially I started to get a little intimidated by and I think it’s because I associate their on-court personality with who they are. And when I got to know them, I got to, oh, she’s a nice, normal person.

Sian: Wouldn’t I use that? You realize you can have the game on the field and be a really recognizable, nice person who probably has a lot of humility off the field. I would remember being okay with people who coexist in this way. I keep coming back to this psychological phenomenon that we often talk about as spotlighting. It is this idea that we pay much more attention to ourselves than anyone else because everyone else is paying attention to themselves. The best examples of this are when you raise your hand and say something you think is silly in a work meeting, and then later turn to your friend and ask, ‘Did you hear that comment? Oh my God, I’m so ashamed. And your friend says, “I don’t remember that.” There’s real work that I’ve done and others have done that shows that reminding ourselves of the phenomenon of spotlighting actually relieves some of the pressure.

David: What other practical tips could help Juliet?

Sian: We know that mantras can be very important. You may find yourself writing it on your hand during games because in those times when you tend to turn inward, it can help to focus on something from the outside. In psychological terms, we speak of this as an approach strategy rather than an avoidance strategy. So when you avoid things, you try to avoid a negative outcome, but when you get closer to things, it is all about winning something. It turns out that the brain works differently in those situations, and so thinks about why you want to win and why should winning can really matter. And I will say this is something that often affects women and girls. We are very concerned about what others think of us and there is the idea that being competitive and successful is at odds with being nice. It’s really something we have to fight against.

David: Juliet, you indicated that you were influenced by this mindset in your professional life, is that correct?

Juliet: Yes, I absolutely want to have a business face too. And I think having this competitiveness that I can turn on will help. Most of my life I’ve sat in the front row because of the experience that someone is going to win. And I sat back and let it be other people. I think it occurred to me as I got older, why can’t I raise my hand and put myself in the middle for it? I really think it is made up of decades of women being rewarded for their cooperation and pleasure – the one who is willing to handle things when asked, instead of reaching out and going for things affirmatively.

I was thinking about this recently. When I was a brand new public defender there were several of us who were all new to each other. It got competitive when it came time for promotions and it was a very clear gender line where all women decided to sit back. Unbeknownst to the women, all the men had gone to management alone and raised their hands for a faster promotion. They just saw it the way you do.

Sian: That’s a really interesting story, because new research is coming out – the Wall Street Journal did a survey with McKinsey & Company last year – about women in the workplace. One of the things they show is on that second step where women start to lose weight – the promotion from your original position. It sounds like, Juliet, that’s exactly what you’re describing.

Juliet: I never really thought I would be a competitor. Maybe this goes back to how I see myself. And, of course, being a public defender is a tough, competitive job. You go in and the judge may be very mean or you may be dealing with hard witnesses. I guess I never really give myself credit for being competitive in those ways. And for some reason, sport is my last frontier.

Sian: It is very important to remind yourself that you are successful in these other areas. And after hearing Juliet describe everything, I am not at all afraid that she will succeed in court.

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To hear more of Sian’s tips for Juliet, as well as the inside scoop on how Serena Williams gets her head in the game, listen to the episode by clicking on the player below or subscribing to How! wherever you get your podcasts.