How do you manage your emotions during competitions and high-pressure situations?

Question

Margaret Hoelzer · Answer

How do you manage your emotions during competitions and high pressure situations? Honestly, for me, I get very matter of fact and I compartmentalize, to be honest. So, I love pressure-filled situations first and foremost. The more pressure, the better I do. But I get very logical and I just don't allow that emotion to kind of creep in, for lack of a better word. I have various moments in my life, I call them snapshot moments, but I have various moments where I remember in great detail where it almost felt like time slowed down and I would have this realization that this is what needed to be done. And the interesting part about those moments in time for me were I never was scared, I never panicked. It was just like a realization of if I want to make it back to finals, this is what I have to do. If I'm going to win the race, this is what I have to do. So, it was always just something that it was like I recognized this is what I needed to do and I just accepted it. And in that moment, it was like, okay, period, end of story. Like, I don't have time to be scared of this. I don't have time to doubt it. I don't have time to worry about if I can do it. It was just simply this is what needs to be done and okay, I'm going to do it, plain and simple. And so, I don't know. I think for me, like I said, I would almost just turn my emotions off and then compartmentalize and just get very logical about things. Now, when the meets were over, that's when all the emotions come back and I would just like become a hermit and not want to talk to anybody and I needed a lot of alone time and I would sleep a lot. But yeah, I would just kind of shove my emotions to the side until it was over.

Ray Looze · Answer

I think managing your emotions comes with practice, you know, when you're first Under Pressure, you know, everyone's human and they can get nervous. But if you practice being in those situations and you do them enough, then you really know what to do and you're confident with whatever and when the lights are the brightest, you're just fine.

Matt Whitcomb · Answer

Okay, how do you manage your emotions during competitions and high pressure situations? As a coach, my tactic is to stay organized and to simplify the things that I need to do on a given day. So the more prepared I am, the more I can take care of my tasks before the actual race day, the less I'll have to do on race day and the more unforeseen projects I'll be able to tackle successfully. Let's see, I tend to find myself either on a busy race day in a state of flow where projects are coming at me and I feel like I'm calm and stimulated and excited to tackle them or I'm in a state of being just a little bit behind the eight ball, which is more like a state of chaos and one that you feel like you're just a little bit behind on every move. Generally I look back and those situations are caused by not being prepared or by just being overloaded by too many unforeseen projects at the same time. Sometimes you just can't help it. You get into that situation, it's too late to really go back and do your preparations. Take some deep breaths, try and smile and just pick a few of the critical things, prioritize and do those well.

Brad Hudson · Answer

So the first thing to understand is there's really three main parts to the brain, okay? There's the emotional Chimp side of the brain, okay, the primordial brain that exaggerates everything the emotional side, okay? We want to domesticate him and control him because he exaggerates everything. He thinks everything's life or death battle Then the professor brain which is a rational side. That's our smart side like yeah, we understand things We you know we want to engage this side of the brain a little more the professor brain Then we have the automatic computer side of the brain, which is just things we don't even notice we do things automatically so Emotions are huge to getting our greatest performances, okay, but there's a fine line between Controlling them domesticating them and unleashing them for our greatest performances. We can use them to help us or they can hinder us so First of all, I would keep a log of where you training compete your best Okay, what you were feeling before what you were feeling during and after okay figure out your intensity Level where that is like one to ten one to twenty whatever it is, okay You should have breathing techniques that help you. You should have music playlists that help you raise your arousal lower your arousal know where you're at your best and You know doing imagery before race a lot of times of calming ourselves a happy place a calm cool Mountain stream a lake and then training sometimes we're gonna raise that intensity Maybe we want to think of a race because the mind doesn't know the difference between real or imaginary thoughts So you can do things to raise your arousal you can do things to control your emotions domesticate your emotions you want to Normally the chimp side is things you don't want and they affect your performance negatively

Eric Hill · Answer

Just going to leave two simple pieces of advice for me to keep this quick one, control the controllables and forget everything else, you can't control everything in and around you. So you have to just control the controllables own that. Everything else, what will be will be and then the other piece is just don't take yourself too. Seriously competition is important, it can be life changing but it's not life. Or death. Don't take yourself too. Seriously, don't put undue pressure on yourself. You've done the work. Now, you just got to trust it.

Matt Bromley · Answer

Managing my emotions in competitions and high-pressure situations. As I mentioned, another question self positive. Self-talk, I think is huge when, when I, if I leave my mind to just do its own thing, I get so filled with negative thoughts with doubts with fears. So, especially in high pressure situations. I try captured the thoughts that are coming into our mind. Ask myself. Is that a lie? Is it. The truth is this a healthy thought if not I'll just try live gone by and I try for my mind with positive thoughts and I I'll have statements that I have before I go into the pressure situation, whether it's like a little scripture or whether it's a word of encouragement or it's like a little self-belief thing and I will repeat that over and over again. The thing is that our bodies even sometimes when we don't believe something when we When we say it, when we think it in our minds, our body reacts to that with confidence. So I think positive self-talk, affirming ourselves with statements is really, really helpful for high-pressure situation.

Swimming

Strength

Triathlon

Photography

Track & Field

Nutrition

Physical Therapy

Running

Pets

Cycling

Podcasting

HealthCare

Musculoskeletal

Hockey

First Responders

Integrative Medicine

Chiropractic

Cross Country Skiing

Adaptive Sports

Mental Health

Climbing

Surfing

Tennis

Military

Mind Body

Scholars

Criminal Justice

Liquor

Golf

CrossFit

Soccer

Pickleball

Hunting

Public Speaking

Venture Capital

"How do you manage your emotions during competitions and high-pressure situations?"