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How to Perform Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most by Hendrie Weisinger
Nobody performs better under pressure. Regardless of the task, pressure ruthlessly diminishes our judgment, decision-making, attention, dexterity, and performance in every professional and personal arena. In Performing Under Pressure, Drs. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry introduce us to the concept of pressure management, offering empirically tested short term and long term solutions to help us overcome the debilitating effects of pressure.
Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.
Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do.
Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.
Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one "rises to the occasion" under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse, and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.
Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do.
Whether you’re a corporate manager, a basketball player, or a student preparing for the SAT, Performing Under Pressure will help you to do your best when it matters most.
Paperback
First published February 24, 2015
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About the author
Hendrie Weisinger
31 books16 followersHendrie Weisinger, received his Ph.D. from The University of Kansas and is a psychologist trained in clinical, counseling, and organizational psychology. He also is School psychologist. He is a leading authority on the application of emotional intelligence and anger management and the originator of the highly regarded techniques of criticism training and a pioneer in the emerging field of "pressure management." He consults and has conducted numerous workshops to Fortune 500 Companies, government agencies, mental health and educational systems and speaks to dozens of professional organizations such as YPO. Weisinger has taught in numerous executive education programs at UCLA, Wharton, NYU, Cornell, Univeristy of Washington, Penn State, to name just a few.
Weisinger's work has been featured multiple times in The Sunday Business Section Of The New York Times. His article for The Wall Street Journal, "So You're Afraid To Criticize Your Boss," was selected as one of the Journal's 60 best management articles and is reprinted in Dow Jones on Managment. His article for TV Guide, Tutored by Televison, illustrates to parents how to use TV to develop their child's emotional intelligence.
He is the author of The New York Times Bestseller Nobody's Perfect, The Power of Positive Criticism, Dr. Weisinger's Anger Workout Book, Emotional Intelligence at Work. He's appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Oprah, and written for newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal and TV Guide. His latest book is the New York Times Best Seller, Performing under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most, published by Random House/Crown Business, 2015. He is currently working on his next book, "Helping Your Kids Handle Pressure: Giving Your Sons & Daughters Life's Ultimate Edge. Weisiner's Performing Under Pressure E Course will soon be avialable.
Weisinger's work has been featured multiple times in The Sunday Business Section Of The New York Times. His article for The Wall Street Journal, "So You're Afraid To Criticize Your Boss," was selected as one of the Journal's 60 best management articles and is reprinted in Dow Jones on Managment. His article for TV Guide, Tutored by Televison, illustrates to parents how to use TV to develop their child's emotional intelligence.
He is the author of The New York Times Bestseller Nobody's Perfect, The Power of Positive Criticism, Dr. Weisinger's Anger Workout Book, Emotional Intelligence at Work. He's appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Oprah, and written for newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal and TV Guide. His latest book is the New York Times Best Seller, Performing under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most, published by Random House/Crown Business, 2015. He is currently working on his next book, "Helping Your Kids Handle Pressure: Giving Your Sons & Daughters Life's Ultimate Edge. Weisiner's Performing Under Pressure E Course will soon be avialable.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
June 16, 2019
🐅Thriving under pressure seems to be an acquired skill.
🌹 Takeouts 🌹:
➳Singularity distortion
➳Magnification
➳Pressure regulation
➳Cognitive appraisal & distortions
➳The Anatomy of Choking
➳Working and Procedural Memory Paradox
➳Pressure vs Stress
➳A Biological Predisposition for Intensity
Q:
When you are on the witness stand in a courtroom, everything you say is recorded, interpreted, challenged, and judged against the letter of the law. A distorted fact, a failure to remember, the truth told unconvincingly, a stutter or two can all influence a verdict that brings irrevocable, life-changing effects to you and to others. (с)
Q:
“Do you feel you work better under pressure?” “Are you more concerned with failing in a pressure moment or more focused on succeeding in one?” (с)
Q:
The bottom line—pressure is the enemy of success: It undermines performance and helps us fail. When under pressure, air traffic controllers, pilots, and oil rig chiefs make errors in judgment. NBA players, World Cup soccer players, and champion golfers frequently miss their usual shot under pressure. ER doctors and nurses can make inappropriate decisions and incorrect diagnoses. Actors forget their lines, politicians forget their talking points or otherwise stumble and fumble. Corporate executives, managers, and sales professionals make poor decisions, and parents have less patience with their children. Pressure is more than a nemesis; it is a villain in our lives. (с)
Q:
Pressure is often camouflaged. The influence of pressure on derailing your performance is often disguised. We have found that many conventional tools, such as incentives or praising results, used to motivate ourselves and others, and improve organizational effectiveness, are actually pressure traps; these disrupt performance, stimulate cheating, encourage absenteeism, and, most noticeably, intensify our daily feelings of pressure. (c)
Q:
... helping people manage pressure in their lives is an untapped strategy for unleashing their creative and intellectual potential. This strategy allows them to consistently perform up to the level of their capabilities, rather than having their capabilities dismantled or compromised by pressure. (c)
Q:
Accordingly, we provide the nuts and bolts for building the attributes that allow individuals to consistently do their best when they are in pressure moments. These attributes include confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm, which we collectively refer to as COTE. Metaphorically, these attributes offer users a COTE of Armor. Instilling them in yourself offers a long-term strategy for consistently defeating pressure and doing your best when it counts the most. (c)
Q:
We believe that when you walk into pressure situations, you will see them more as challenges than as crises, and you will walk away feeling confident that you performed in a way closer to what you are capable of, not less. (c)
Q:
He listed what his friends said epitomized the Stuyvesant experience: “copying homework in the hallway while walking to class”; “sneaking in and out of school during free periods”; and “widespread Facebook cheating.” Only a few months earlier, Stuyvesant had been the scene of one of the most notorious acts of cheating to take place at a high school; it involved more than one hundred “excellent” students in a ring of deception. (c)
Q:
Most of us share the perception that there are folks out there who are particularly gifted at exhibiting grace under pressure, people who always rise to the occasion, who hit the money shot. These are the people we think have nerves of steel and are oblivious to pressure. (c)
Q:
To win this award once is a big deal. To win it more than once confers almost legendary status. David Grabiner won this award three times, in 1986, 1987, and 1988, as an undergraduate student at Princeton. He went on to earn his PhD at Harvard. (c)
Q:
I was very surprised to learn that, while our participants were giving evidence of less creative thinking on time-pressured days, they reported feeling more creative on those days. (c)
Q:
Take the pressure of starting a new job. We tend to think, I have to show I am worthy. I have to prove myself. In sports, this leads to the athlete “pressing,” or trying too hard. In psychology, this is called a reinvestment strategy—the individual attempts to cope with the situation by increasing his or her effort, which numerous studies show has little effect and, in fact, intensifies anxiety and stress, which can lead you to do worse. (c)
Q:
in most pressure situations in life, you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to deliver the task or behavior required of you in the situation. You have a better chance of doing that when you manage pressure and get as close to your full capability as possible. And when you do so, you’ll usually live to fly another day. (c)
Q:
You can observe the particularly powerful effect of uncertainty on the brain and body from the patterns of stomach ulcers recorded in London residents during the Second World War. In general, higher cortisol levels deplete a stomach’s mucosal lining, which, in turn, leads to an increased frequency of ulcers. During the war, central London was bombed relentlessly every night by Germany; in the suburbs, the Germans bombed in a more sporadic, unpredictable fashion. Interestingly, it was in the suburbs, not central London, where doctors found a higher incidence of stomach ulcers. It wasn’t the magnitude of the bombings, but the uncertainty of them, that had a greater effect on the brain and body. (c)
Q:
As John Coates wrote in his book The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, prolonged exposure to cortisol also does longer-term damage to two structures of the brain that proportionally have more cortisol receptors: the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala is where the emotional content of memories is stored, and the hippocampus is where factual memory of an event is stored. The amygdala records how you felt as you faced a pressure moment from the past; the hippocampus stores the facts: what happened, who was involved, how it was resolved, and what was learned.
While the receptors of the hippocampus (where factual information is stored) shrink under the influence of excessive cortisol, receptors in the amygdala undergo a significant growth in number of branches when immersed in cortisol. This is why, over time, our thinking can become more emotional and less factual. (c)
Q
Balachandra studied 185 venture-capital pitches and found that variables like “calmness,” “passion,” “eye contact,” and “lack of awkwardness” were stronger predictors of success than the actual content of the pitch. …
In high-pressure situations, pressure derails us not just by causing us to become mentally rigid, but on a behavioral level as well. When we are in a pressure moment and we are experiencing anxiety, we behave very differently. We are more uptight in how we show up, more defensive when tough questions are asked, less warm and a little more ill at ease, and less able to engage in humor. (c)
Q
The philosopher Epictetus said more than two thousand years ago, “Man is not troubled by events but rather how he interprets them.” … cognitive appraisal has the power to keep us out of the rough. Psychologists today agree: It is not the event that causes our reactions but rather how we interpret the event, which makes us either confident or anxious. (c)
Q
At work, if you find yourself procrastinating on a project or are afraid to make a mistake, it might be because you are feeling like this is your one chance and you don’t want to blow it. This might have been true for prehistoric man, but your own experiences will tell you that there is almost always another chance, be it a sales call, a test, or someone new to meet (and hundreds of thousands of individuals on their second marriage will agree). (c)
Q
Magnification often comes into our thinking when we become too attached to the outcome. While emphasizing the importance of a test or task might increase our effort, the extra pressure we put on ourselves typically downgrades our performance. (c)
Q
Decades ago, psychologist Albert Ellis introduced rational emotive behavior therapy, based on the principle that your life will be more productive if you interpret events rationally and rid yourself of cognitive “neurotic” distortions, such as “Everybody should love me,” “I should never get angry.” (с)
Q
The team told half the students that recent research suggested “people who feel anxious during a test might actually do better.” In other words, if the students felt anxious during the practice test, they were told, “You shouldn’t feel concerned.… Simply remind yourself that your arousal could be helping you do well.”
Simply because they read this statement before the test was administered, the students’ performance improved significantly. They scored fifty points higher in the quantitative section of the practice test (out of a possible eight hundred) than the control group. A couple of months later, the students took their actual GRE test and reported back scores. Jeremy and his team were interested in seeing if the intervention had long-term staying power or whether its effects were short-lived. The group taught to see pressure and anxiety as beneficial in the lab experiment scored sixty-five points higher than the control group on the actual test. In other words, those students who were told to believe that anxiety could be helpful did markedly better. (c) Yay, so everyone who reads this could possibly benefit as well. Sounds like the coolest freebie ever.
Q:
When it comes to incentives, emphasize quality of work—not the attainment of an incentive. (c)
Q:
As for preventing yourself from being trapped by pressure, step back and take a look at why incentives, social support, and competition can derail your performance. (c)
Q:
Instead, free yourself from pressure traps by letting your own values, interests, and goals motivate you; value yourself, and focus on what you can control—your own efforts. ... For those individuals who are unable to escape the pressure traps, be aware that you will continue to feel the heat, even in cold weather. (c)
Q:
Their fear of facing pressure situations can prevent them from advancing, because they avoid being in the spotlight—for fear of choking. (c)
Q:
Insecure Subjective Experience. Individuals with anxiety and panic disorders have an external locus of control—they believe their behavior is driven or influenced by external factors. They also tend to have feelings of insecurity—perfectly natural if you perceive your environment as hostile and threatening. Individuals who do not suffer from these disorders more often have an internal locus of control—they believe they are in charge of their lives. As a result they find it easier to manage their emotions. (c)
Q:
Avoidance Behavior. Highly anxious individuals rarely look forward to a presentation and may seek to avoid one. (c)
Q:
Some of the pressure solutions influence how you think about pressure moments; others immunize you by directing your focus to specific mental imagery; and others serve to depressurize you by managing your physiology...
✧Befriend the Moment. - Think of the pressure moments as a challenge or opportunity/fun. ... Think of your tasks and responsibilities as daily challenges to strut your stuff.
✧Multiple opportunities.
✧Downsize the importance.
✧
✧
🌹 Takeouts 🌹:
➳Singularity distortion
➳Magnification
➳Pressure regulation
➳Cognitive appraisal & distortions
➳The Anatomy of Choking
➳Working and Procedural Memory Paradox
➳Pressure vs Stress
➳A Biological Predisposition for Intensity
Q:
When you are on the witness stand in a courtroom, everything you say is recorded, interpreted, challenged, and judged against the letter of the law. A distorted fact, a failure to remember, the truth told unconvincingly, a stutter or two can all influence a verdict that brings irrevocable, life-changing effects to you and to others. (с)
Q:
“Do you feel you work better under pressure?” “Are you more concerned with failing in a pressure moment or more focused on succeeding in one?” (с)
Q:
The bottom line—pressure is the enemy of success: It undermines performance and helps us fail. When under pressure, air traffic controllers, pilots, and oil rig chiefs make errors in judgment. NBA players, World Cup soccer players, and champion golfers frequently miss their usual shot under pressure. ER doctors and nurses can make inappropriate decisions and incorrect diagnoses. Actors forget their lines, politicians forget their talking points or otherwise stumble and fumble. Corporate executives, managers, and sales professionals make poor decisions, and parents have less patience with their children. Pressure is more than a nemesis; it is a villain in our lives. (с)
Q:
Pressure is often camouflaged. The influence of pressure on derailing your performance is often disguised. We have found that many conventional tools, such as incentives or praising results, used to motivate ourselves and others, and improve organizational effectiveness, are actually pressure traps; these disrupt performance, stimulate cheating, encourage absenteeism, and, most noticeably, intensify our daily feelings of pressure. (c)
Q:
... helping people manage pressure in their lives is an untapped strategy for unleashing their creative and intellectual potential. This strategy allows them to consistently perform up to the level of their capabilities, rather than having their capabilities dismantled or compromised by pressure. (c)
Q:
Accordingly, we provide the nuts and bolts for building the attributes that allow individuals to consistently do their best when they are in pressure moments. These attributes include confidence, optimism, tenacity, and enthusiasm, which we collectively refer to as COTE. Metaphorically, these attributes offer users a COTE of Armor. Instilling them in yourself offers a long-term strategy for consistently defeating pressure and doing your best when it counts the most. (c)
Q:
We believe that when you walk into pressure situations, you will see them more as challenges than as crises, and you will walk away feeling confident that you performed in a way closer to what you are capable of, not less. (c)
Q:
He listed what his friends said epitomized the Stuyvesant experience: “copying homework in the hallway while walking to class”; “sneaking in and out of school during free periods”; and “widespread Facebook cheating.” Only a few months earlier, Stuyvesant had been the scene of one of the most notorious acts of cheating to take place at a high school; it involved more than one hundred “excellent” students in a ring of deception. (c)
Q:
Most of us share the perception that there are folks out there who are particularly gifted at exhibiting grace under pressure, people who always rise to the occasion, who hit the money shot. These are the people we think have nerves of steel and are oblivious to pressure. (c)
Q:
To win this award once is a big deal. To win it more than once confers almost legendary status. David Grabiner won this award three times, in 1986, 1987, and 1988, as an undergraduate student at Princeton. He went on to earn his PhD at Harvard. (c)
Q:
I was very surprised to learn that, while our participants were giving evidence of less creative thinking on time-pressured days, they reported feeling more creative on those days. (c)
Q:
Take the pressure of starting a new job. We tend to think, I have to show I am worthy. I have to prove myself. In sports, this leads to the athlete “pressing,” or trying too hard. In psychology, this is called a reinvestment strategy—the individual attempts to cope with the situation by increasing his or her effort, which numerous studies show has little effect and, in fact, intensifies anxiety and stress, which can lead you to do worse. (c)
Q:
in most pressure situations in life, you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to deliver the task or behavior required of you in the situation. You have a better chance of doing that when you manage pressure and get as close to your full capability as possible. And when you do so, you’ll usually live to fly another day. (c)
Q:
You can observe the particularly powerful effect of uncertainty on the brain and body from the patterns of stomach ulcers recorded in London residents during the Second World War. In general, higher cortisol levels deplete a stomach’s mucosal lining, which, in turn, leads to an increased frequency of ulcers. During the war, central London was bombed relentlessly every night by Germany; in the suburbs, the Germans bombed in a more sporadic, unpredictable fashion. Interestingly, it was in the suburbs, not central London, where doctors found a higher incidence of stomach ulcers. It wasn’t the magnitude of the bombings, but the uncertainty of them, that had a greater effect on the brain and body. (c)
Q:
As John Coates wrote in his book The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, prolonged exposure to cortisol also does longer-term damage to two structures of the brain that proportionally have more cortisol receptors: the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala is where the emotional content of memories is stored, and the hippocampus is where factual memory of an event is stored. The amygdala records how you felt as you faced a pressure moment from the past; the hippocampus stores the facts: what happened, who was involved, how it was resolved, and what was learned.
While the receptors of the hippocampus (where factual information is stored) shrink under the influence of excessive cortisol, receptors in the amygdala undergo a significant growth in number of branches when immersed in cortisol. This is why, over time, our thinking can become more emotional and less factual. (c)
Q
Balachandra studied 185 venture-capital pitches and found that variables like “calmness,” “passion,” “eye contact,” and “lack of awkwardness” were stronger predictors of success than the actual content of the pitch. …
In high-pressure situations, pressure derails us not just by causing us to become mentally rigid, but on a behavioral level as well. When we are in a pressure moment and we are experiencing anxiety, we behave very differently. We are more uptight in how we show up, more defensive when tough questions are asked, less warm and a little more ill at ease, and less able to engage in humor. (c)
Q
The philosopher Epictetus said more than two thousand years ago, “Man is not troubled by events but rather how he interprets them.” … cognitive appraisal has the power to keep us out of the rough. Psychologists today agree: It is not the event that causes our reactions but rather how we interpret the event, which makes us either confident or anxious. (c)
Q
At work, if you find yourself procrastinating on a project or are afraid to make a mistake, it might be because you are feeling like this is your one chance and you don’t want to blow it. This might have been true for prehistoric man, but your own experiences will tell you that there is almost always another chance, be it a sales call, a test, or someone new to meet (and hundreds of thousands of individuals on their second marriage will agree). (c)
Q
Magnification often comes into our thinking when we become too attached to the outcome. While emphasizing the importance of a test or task might increase our effort, the extra pressure we put on ourselves typically downgrades our performance. (c)
Q
Decades ago, psychologist Albert Ellis introduced rational emotive behavior therapy, based on the principle that your life will be more productive if you interpret events rationally and rid yourself of cognitive “neurotic” distortions, such as “Everybody should love me,” “I should never get angry.” (с)
Q
The team told half the students that recent research suggested “people who feel anxious during a test might actually do better.” In other words, if the students felt anxious during the practice test, they were told, “You shouldn’t feel concerned.… Simply remind yourself that your arousal could be helping you do well.”
Simply because they read this statement before the test was administered, the students’ performance improved significantly. They scored fifty points higher in the quantitative section of the practice test (out of a possible eight hundred) than the control group. A couple of months later, the students took their actual GRE test and reported back scores. Jeremy and his team were interested in seeing if the intervention had long-term staying power or whether its effects were short-lived. The group taught to see pressure and anxiety as beneficial in the lab experiment scored sixty-five points higher than the control group on the actual test. In other words, those students who were told to believe that anxiety could be helpful did markedly better. (c) Yay, so everyone who reads this could possibly benefit as well. Sounds like the coolest freebie ever.
Q:
When it comes to incentives, emphasize quality of work—not the attainment of an incentive. (c)
Q:
As for preventing yourself from being trapped by pressure, step back and take a look at why incentives, social support, and competition can derail your performance. (c)
Q:
Instead, free yourself from pressure traps by letting your own values, interests, and goals motivate you; value yourself, and focus on what you can control—your own efforts. ... For those individuals who are unable to escape the pressure traps, be aware that you will continue to feel the heat, even in cold weather. (c)
Q:
Their fear of facing pressure situations can prevent them from advancing, because they avoid being in the spotlight—for fear of choking. (c)
Q:
Insecure Subjective Experience. Individuals with anxiety and panic disorders have an external locus of control—they believe their behavior is driven or influenced by external factors. They also tend to have feelings of insecurity—perfectly natural if you perceive your environment as hostile and threatening. Individuals who do not suffer from these disorders more often have an internal locus of control—they believe they are in charge of their lives. As a result they find it easier to manage their emotions. (c)
Q:
Avoidance Behavior. Highly anxious individuals rarely look forward to a presentation and may seek to avoid one. (c)
Q:
Some of the pressure solutions influence how you think about pressure moments; others immunize you by directing your focus to specific mental imagery; and others serve to depressurize you by managing your physiology...
✧Befriend the Moment. - Think of the pressure moments as a challenge or opportunity/fun. ... Think of your tasks and responsibilities as daily challenges to strut your stuff.
✧Multiple opportunities.
✧Downsize the importance.
✧
✧
July 5, 2016
Good to know that pressure doesn't help performance, but this book was 75% too long.
January 23, 2023
5 out of 5
I was expecting some pressure relief methods and approaches, but this books delivers so much more. It's divided into separate parts addressing different areas of pressure and well-being. While the first addresses why and how pressures affects you, the second provides just-in-time methods that one can apply with low effort to a current situation. The last part, that was unexpected, addresses well-being aspects and planning the long haul game of life. As cheesy as this sounds, the methodical approach presented in this last part is great as there's not that much clapping & cheap motivation, but simple actionable steps.
Will get back to this book to get more out of it.
I was expecting some pressure relief methods and approaches, but this books delivers so much more. It's divided into separate parts addressing different areas of pressure and well-being. While the first addresses why and how pressures affects you, the second provides just-in-time methods that one can apply with low effort to a current situation. The last part, that was unexpected, addresses well-being aspects and planning the long haul game of life. As cheesy as this sounds, the methodical approach presented in this last part is great as there's not that much clapping & cheap motivation, but simple actionable steps.
Will get back to this book to get more out of it.
February 2, 2022
"Chance favours the prepared mind..."
I really enjoyed Performing Under Pressure.
Author Hendrie Davis Weisinger, Ph. D., is a licensed psychologist trained in clinical, counseling, school, and organizational psychology. He is also a Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor. Dr. Weisinger is the originator of criticism training and is one of the half-dozen experts in the area of anger management.
Hendrie Weisinger:
Weisinger gets the writing here off on a good foot, with a great intro. He lays out the scope early on, and mentions that the writing will draw on research he did on over 12,000 people. The book is more of a science-driven look into the topic than a conventional self-help book.
He begins by mentioning that the common notion of performing better under pressure is a falsehood. Most people do not perform better under pressure. Quite the opposite, he writes.
He also mentions that the story of the nerves of steel ringer, brought in to score the game-winning point and who is impervious to pressure is a myth. He calls this the "Roy Hobbs Myth," and calls these athletes "clutch-hitters." His research showed that these ringers were not statistically better at delivering under pressure than at any other given time.
Weisinger also differentiates stress from pressure here:
Weisinger also includes 22 "pressure solutions" in here, beginning @~4:10:00 in the audiobook. These are tried and tested solutions for helping the performance-minded reader achieve their best while under pressure.
He advises the reader to develop a "COTE" of armour, to help them under pressure-driven situations. The word COTE being an acronym for Confidence, Optimism, Tenacity, and Enthusiasm; writing that these are essential traits for the high performance individual.
Weisinger breaks down each, and expands upon their importance.
He also summarized his findings from the ~12,000 people he researched for this book, noting that the top 10% of performers shared the following 10 values:
************************
As briefly touched on at the start of this review, I enjoyed Performing Under Pressure.
Weisinger did a great job with the research, writing and production of this book.
If you are interested in the field of high-performance, then this one needs to be on your list.
5 stars.
I really enjoyed Performing Under Pressure.
Author Hendrie Davis Weisinger, Ph. D., is a licensed psychologist trained in clinical, counseling, school, and organizational psychology. He is also a Marriage, Family, and Child Counselor. Dr. Weisinger is the originator of criticism training and is one of the half-dozen experts in the area of anger management.
Hendrie Weisinger:
Weisinger gets the writing here off on a good foot, with a great intro. He lays out the scope early on, and mentions that the writing will draw on research he did on over 12,000 people. The book is more of a science-driven look into the topic than a conventional self-help book.
He begins by mentioning that the common notion of performing better under pressure is a falsehood. Most people do not perform better under pressure. Quite the opposite, he writes.
He also mentions that the story of the nerves of steel ringer, brought in to score the game-winning point and who is impervious to pressure is a myth. He calls this the "Roy Hobbs Myth," and calls these athletes "clutch-hitters." His research showed that these ringers were not statistically better at delivering under pressure than at any other given time.
Weisinger also differentiates stress from pressure here:
"There is a specific evolutionary function for stress and one for pressure. Since the beginning of time, human beings have had demands placed on them by their environment. Meeting these
survival demands—fleeing and fighting predators, gathering food, seeking shelter, tending a fire, taking care of progeny, engaging in rituals to the gods, and so on—required effort and time, so a stress response evolved that would set o a chemical cascade in the body to get it ready to get things done. It arouses and alerts the body that there are demands being made upon it, and thus it helped us. This was true for our ancestors and it is true for us today, until we reach the point that we have so many demands placed on us that we can’t respond to all of them—then we feel stressed and negative consequences begin to appear. Up to that time, though, stress can be useful, a point that has been research-validated hundreds of times.
Pressure functions differently. Pressure evolved as a selection mechanism to decide who would advance in life and who would not.
Having a disagreement with your wife about how to discipline your firstborn child is stressful. Escaping a predator chasing you is more than just stress; it’s pressure—either you and a way to escape or fend o the predator, or you potentially will die. With pressure, something critical is on the line..."
Weisinger also includes 22 "pressure solutions" in here, beginning @~4:10:00 in the audiobook. These are tried and tested solutions for helping the performance-minded reader achieve their best while under pressure.
He advises the reader to develop a "COTE" of armour, to help them under pressure-driven situations. The word COTE being an acronym for Confidence, Optimism, Tenacity, and Enthusiasm; writing that these are essential traits for the high performance individual.
Weisinger breaks down each, and expands upon their importance.
He also summarized his findings from the ~12,000 people he researched for this book, noting that the top 10% of performers shared the following 10 values:
Big 10:
1) Does not become defensive when criticized
2) Can stay calm under pressure
3) Handles setbacks effectively
4) Manages anxiety, stress, anger, and fear in pursuit of a goal
5) Utilizes criticism and other feedback for growth
6) Is positive
7) Maintains a sense of humor
8) Tries to see things from another’s perspective
9) Recognizes how his or her behavior affects others
10) Airs grievances skillfully
************************
As briefly touched on at the start of this review, I enjoyed Performing Under Pressure.
Weisinger did a great job with the research, writing and production of this book.
If you are interested in the field of high-performance, then this one needs to be on your list.
5 stars.
July 24, 2017
Another great book in the same vein as Mindset, Thinking Fast... Thinking Slow, and others on how your brain works and how you can optimize how you think and how you act.
The author goes through many tips on how to work better under pressure. Things like taking a deep breath, thinking of past achievements, and focus. After the many tips, the author talks about the 4 key personality traits of being able to deal with pressure situations that are basically core to you: confidence, enthusiasm, tenacity, and optimism.
You do come with a personality, but like everything, you can change your personality over time... for better or worse. The author gives detailed information on these personality traits and how they affect how you deal with stress and pressure in your life. Tips are provided to help you figure out where you sit on a scale and how you can change.
I recommend this book to everyone. It's also a book I plan to dip into occasionally.
The author goes through many tips on how to work better under pressure. Things like taking a deep breath, thinking of past achievements, and focus. After the many tips, the author talks about the 4 key personality traits of being able to deal with pressure situations that are basically core to you: confidence, enthusiasm, tenacity, and optimism.
You do come with a personality, but like everything, you can change your personality over time... for better or worse. The author gives detailed information on these personality traits and how they affect how you deal with stress and pressure in your life. Tips are provided to help you figure out where you sit on a scale and how you can change.
I recommend this book to everyone. It's also a book I plan to dip into occasionally.
December 9, 2014
I am not sure where to start! This book is exactly what I needed to read in order to understand how to deal with all of the pressure that is going on in my life right now. New promotion, renovations, last child headed off to school, aging parents...you name it, the pressure is on! This book gave me the knowledge to help me to deal with everything that is coming at me.
March 30, 2015
I am thankful for the market because the value in this book exceeds its price.
That said, I won the book in an 800-CEO-Read give-away. I would have bought it anyway.
Looking at the title one might think he or she has to be a CEO or high level athlete to benefit from reading Performing Under Pressure. Not so. Plain and simple, this book is about enhancing human performance. If you're human there's a lot to be gained here.
With evidence-based as its foundation, the authors begin with a thorough treatment of pressure and how it differs from stress. The second part of the book gives us specific solutions to deal with pressure. In the last part the authors help us build a COTE of Armor. COTE is an acronym for confidence, optimism, tenacity and enthusiasm.
Of course the book is about performing under pressure, but IMHO the real value is in enhancing human performance.
That said, I won the book in an 800-CEO-Read give-away. I would have bought it anyway.
Looking at the title one might think he or she has to be a CEO or high level athlete to benefit from reading Performing Under Pressure. Not so. Plain and simple, this book is about enhancing human performance. If you're human there's a lot to be gained here.
With evidence-based as its foundation, the authors begin with a thorough treatment of pressure and how it differs from stress. The second part of the book gives us specific solutions to deal with pressure. In the last part the authors help us build a COTE of Armor. COTE is an acronym for confidence, optimism, tenacity and enthusiasm.
Of course the book is about performing under pressure, but IMHO the real value is in enhancing human performance.
December 19, 2014
This book was really eye opening and impactful. The research they share about the myth of "clutch hitters" and how even the best athletes really do not perform better under pressure was a relief to hear. You mean - I am not weak if I can't manage to be my best self all the time? The tools are fantastic to help with difficult moments. The stories were so relatable and I enjoyed sharing what I learned with my family and friends. I wish they taught these skills to young children in school - maybe we would have less anxiety in our world and better self regulation!! I highly recommend this book. It would appeal to leaders, managers, athletes, and regular young women like myself.
November 11, 2019
This was very appropriate for my current situation at work. It has a couple of nice practical tips on how to best handle pressure and why it does what it does.
I am yet to practice these and evaluate them in real life, but on paper it mostly makes sense.
Generally speaking though, it's a good read for anyone who might face pressure (a.k.a everyone).
I am yet to practice these and evaluate them in real life, but on paper it mostly makes sense.
Generally speaking though, it's a good read for anyone who might face pressure (a.k.a everyone).
January 15, 2023
While there are a few good ideas in this book, much of it is full of pseudo-scientific nonsense and magical thinking that permeates pop-psychology and self-help books.
The book is full of “studies show…” followed by some dubious conclusion or absurd experimental setup with small numbers of participants. For example, the authors advocate “power-posing”, based on the now debunked work of Amy Cuddy who made a name of herself promoting this idea. The fact that the authors spent several pages talking about power posing made me question a lot of the other claims they made based on other “studies”.
At one point the authors actually recommend imaging yourself succeeding at some goal or task that you have to achieve and suggest (based on “studies”) that this has some kind of placebo effect where you will get the same release of positive hormones that you would if you actually succeeded in achieving the goal. They claim that you should practice doing this because it will make you perform better when the actual time comes to face the high-pressure situation. To reinforce the efficacy of doing this, they cite a study that claimed that you could increase your finger strength by imagining doing the exercises! Not only is this magical thinking, its also just bad advice because triggering your reward circuits without having accomplished anything is more likely to lead you to complacency rather than success.
The reason that I am not giving this one start is because there were a few good pieces of advice, especially in section two where they provide twenty-two different strategies for dealing with pressure in the moment.
The book is full of “studies show…” followed by some dubious conclusion or absurd experimental setup with small numbers of participants. For example, the authors advocate “power-posing”, based on the now debunked work of Amy Cuddy who made a name of herself promoting this idea. The fact that the authors spent several pages talking about power posing made me question a lot of the other claims they made based on other “studies”.
At one point the authors actually recommend imaging yourself succeeding at some goal or task that you have to achieve and suggest (based on “studies”) that this has some kind of placebo effect where you will get the same release of positive hormones that you would if you actually succeeded in achieving the goal. They claim that you should practice doing this because it will make you perform better when the actual time comes to face the high-pressure situation. To reinforce the efficacy of doing this, they cite a study that claimed that you could increase your finger strength by imagining doing the exercises! Not only is this magical thinking, its also just bad advice because triggering your reward circuits without having accomplished anything is more likely to lead you to complacency rather than success.
The reason that I am not giving this one start is because there were a few good pieces of advice, especially in section two where they provide twenty-two different strategies for dealing with pressure in the moment.
June 28, 2019
I'd give a good 2,5 stars, but half stars are not a thing.
Most of the "scientific" explanations in the beginning of the book are crap.
There's tons of claims that are simple misunderstandings, presented as facts. I could go on naming them one by one, but that's also impractical. Just don't read the first 20% of the book, there are occasionally some true facts, and then absolute bollocks explanations that are messing with you. Also, it gives a very vague reason why stress and pressure are a different thing.
It has way too much sports jargon and examples that may make it hard to follow, although it's written in a very easy to read way. Many methods are created for sports performance so not every method should be used on stage when you need to focus on talking and thinking, and not on moving your limbs, so gotta watch out on those.
But then, why a whole 3 stars?
Because most of the methods are surprisingly useful, practical, realistic. Just read the methods part and ignore explanations. It's useful and anything useful deserves at least 3 stars.
Most of the "scientific" explanations in the beginning of the book are crap.
There's tons of claims that are simple misunderstandings, presented as facts. I could go on naming them one by one, but that's also impractical. Just don't read the first 20% of the book, there are occasionally some true facts, and then absolute bollocks explanations that are messing with you. Also, it gives a very vague reason why stress and pressure are a different thing.
It has way too much sports jargon and examples that may make it hard to follow, although it's written in a very easy to read way. Many methods are created for sports performance so not every method should be used on stage when you need to focus on talking and thinking, and not on moving your limbs, so gotta watch out on those.
But then, why a whole 3 stars?
Because most of the methods are surprisingly useful, practical, realistic. Just read the methods part and ignore explanations. It's useful and anything useful deserves at least 3 stars.
February 3, 2015
Life is full of pressure and we are all expected to attempt to perform like champions in high pressure situations. This book is extremely validating as it provides a ton of research and examples of how it is NOT realistic for anyone (not even professional athletes or famous celebrities or politicians) to perform perfectly or like super humans under pressure. It isn't necessarily a cover to cover beach read but more of an incredible resource for understanding how our minds and bodies react to pressure and how we can manage pressure better and do our best in given situations or life phases. I highly recommend you get this book and keep it handy like a reference manual. It has fantastic strategies and useful content that you are sure to be able to apply in every aspect of your life. You can get it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1zDlQfV Enjoy!
May 3, 2018
Solid and to-the-point advice on how to perform our best when under pressure. Prior to reading this I had the misconception that I did perform well under pressure and that there are people who thrive on pressure. The insight from reading this is that being under pressure is not ideal and no one does well in that state, it limits our capacity to do our best work. The strategies offered in this book by Hendrie Weisinger are to help us manage ourselves in what we perceive as pressure situations. Enlightening and fantastic read for anyone really.
October 20, 2017
Quick read. Good examples, some new, many from other sources. I would recommend this book. In a nutshell, we don't perform better under pressure. We need ways to deal with stress and pressure and need to have some optimism.
January 3, 2018
Great read
The book was very enjoyable. The principles were clearly highlighted and the author knew his subject. I learned things that will help me and my teams.
The book was very enjoyable. The principles were clearly highlighted and the author knew his subject. I learned things that will help me and my teams.
February 25, 2018
I really enjoyed this book! It helped fuel my runs this week. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to handle stress and pressure better.
June 24, 2019
I personally liked the book. It is good to help understand how to perform during some critical moments, how to accept pressure and how it can affect your thinking and performance. Most of the examples are based on sports, but it is still applicable in all fields of work or study where high performance is expected.
For me personally, the book helps to understand what is pressure. Accept the fact that no one is actually performing well under pressure and you cannot expect of yourself doing better under pressure than on a regular basis, lowering your expectations of yourself actually can make a big difference. Understand how to feel and see it better on a physical level.
I loved all of the scientific explanations, I believe this part is really strong.
What was lacking IMHO is the part with advice and tools and techniques on how to work under pressure. There are some good bits of advice and I take away many quotes from the book, but that part of the book left a mixed feeling after.
Main takeaways and quotes below:
It is not the event that causes our reactions but rather how we interpret the event, which makes us either confident or anxious.
If you get some self-revelations about your trap reactions by asking yourself which side drives your feelings of pressure the most, you get better control. Fear of not getting the reward or the need to attain the reward Fear of being rejected by others or your need to be accepted by others Not wanting to lose or having to win Reflecting on your answers will give you some smart insights into where the traps squeeze you the hardest and tell you which polarity you need to move away from the most.
Accept the moment and think of it as one moment of many rather than a definitive point in life. Nothing is going to destroy your life unless you are under bullets. When we perceive a pressure moment as fun, the arousal we experience is enjoyable and exciting rather than uncomfortable and unsettling. Positive arousal translates into enthusiasm, powerful emotion in overcoming anxiety and fear.
Focusing on your mission is different from focusing on the outcome. Focusing on the outcome steers your thinking into whether or not you will suffer negative consequences if you do not succeed; worrying over failure can distract and derail you. Focusing on the mission creates a challenge.
Prepare. Rehearse, simulate the situation, be ready for the stress you expect. Being prepared gives confidence.
Flashing back to previous successes helps to gain more confidence and build up some positive thinking for the upcoming challenge you face.
Writing out your specific concerns before a high-pressure situation helps you to minimize distractive thinking, which eats up your working memory capacity. Expressing your concerns in writing increases your insight into the sources of the pressure. These insights allow you to reexamine and reappraise the situation in a way that decreases your tendency to worry when you need your “A” game.
Slowing down the response gives time to think. Developing “slowdowns”, responses that give yourself more time, be it a minute or day so that your cognitive operations have the best chance to succeed.
Breathing and meditation practice helps with self-control and therefore helps with a pressure situation.
Micro-successes are important in your life for self-confidence and self-development.
Simply acting enthusiastically will make you feel enthusiastic. Positive realistic expectations will help. Be confident and things should play out better and easier.
For me personally, the book helps to understand what is pressure. Accept the fact that no one is actually performing well under pressure and you cannot expect of yourself doing better under pressure than on a regular basis, lowering your expectations of yourself actually can make a big difference. Understand how to feel and see it better on a physical level.
I loved all of the scientific explanations, I believe this part is really strong.
What was lacking IMHO is the part with advice and tools and techniques on how to work under pressure. There are some good bits of advice and I take away many quotes from the book, but that part of the book left a mixed feeling after.
Main takeaways and quotes below:
It is not the event that causes our reactions but rather how we interpret the event, which makes us either confident or anxious.
If you get some self-revelations about your trap reactions by asking yourself which side drives your feelings of pressure the most, you get better control. Fear of not getting the reward or the need to attain the reward Fear of being rejected by others or your need to be accepted by others Not wanting to lose or having to win Reflecting on your answers will give you some smart insights into where the traps squeeze you the hardest and tell you which polarity you need to move away from the most.
Accept the moment and think of it as one moment of many rather than a definitive point in life. Nothing is going to destroy your life unless you are under bullets. When we perceive a pressure moment as fun, the arousal we experience is enjoyable and exciting rather than uncomfortable and unsettling. Positive arousal translates into enthusiasm, powerful emotion in overcoming anxiety and fear.
Focusing on your mission is different from focusing on the outcome. Focusing on the outcome steers your thinking into whether or not you will suffer negative consequences if you do not succeed; worrying over failure can distract and derail you. Focusing on the mission creates a challenge.
Prepare. Rehearse, simulate the situation, be ready for the stress you expect. Being prepared gives confidence.
Flashing back to previous successes helps to gain more confidence and build up some positive thinking for the upcoming challenge you face.
Writing out your specific concerns before a high-pressure situation helps you to minimize distractive thinking, which eats up your working memory capacity. Expressing your concerns in writing increases your insight into the sources of the pressure. These insights allow you to reexamine and reappraise the situation in a way that decreases your tendency to worry when you need your “A” game.
Slowing down the response gives time to think. Developing “slowdowns”, responses that give yourself more time, be it a minute or day so that your cognitive operations have the best chance to succeed.
Breathing and meditation practice helps with self-control and therefore helps with a pressure situation.
Micro-successes are important in your life for self-confidence and self-development.
Simply acting enthusiastically will make you feel enthusiastic. Positive realistic expectations will help. Be confident and things should play out better and easier.
December 1, 2021
Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most by Hendrie Weisinger and J. P. Pawliw-Fry was a very enlightening read for that puts a name to the stressors of everyday life and enriches the mind. To begin, this nonfiction read eloquently deduces why there is no such case of a person performing better under pressure (such as in sports) and uses many empirical studies and statistics to prove such a notion. The book then elaborates on the distinct differences between stress and pressure and how the mind handles them both, uses them both for its benefit, and creates them in certain situations. During this section of the book, it should be mentioned that there are many verified studies regarding psychology and neuroscience that are used which amplify the reading and make it more scientific and believable. The book then concludes with a long list of strategies to use when dealing with the pressures met in life and elucidates how superb it truly is to have the correct tools for coping with immense pressure in vital situations. Although this book is incredibly well written and the scientific evidence is well handled, it should be mentioned that this book is not for those who get easily distracted or are not interested in the science behind stress and pressure. The book heavily focuses on the science and scientific solutions behind pressure and stress making it boring for those who are not interested and confusing to those who do not understand the vernacular used. Overall, however, the book is eloquently written and the points made really mitigate the understanding of real-life pressure and real-life issues that will occur in life no matter what. To end, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology and the different apparatuses of the mind.
April 13, 2021
Some truly great advice for boosting crunch performance. While listening I couldn't help but wish that management had to read this and use many of the practices, viewpoints, and beliefs within.
March 26, 2017
There are a couple of chapters that I consider the most valuable, they give you research-based tips on how to decrease stress and preform under pressure.
May 3, 2015
When last we saw our superheroes they’d saved the Earth again.
What’s an appropriate ‘Thank You’ gift for saving a whole planet?
Some flowers?
A massage, after all, most action movies have a happy ending.
Maybe just a nice bottle of wine.
Yet they’ve never come across a menace such as this…
My eyes scanned the parking lot. Left, right, rear mirror, we were surrounded.
Nothing on the news to warn us, no mention of unusual phenomena, no word of any outbreaks and yet…there they were.
I stopped the car to let them shuffle past. I remained still, barely breathing, but some small movement, maybe a twitch, or release of breath alerted them to my presence. There was no escape!
Oh where, oh where were The Avengers now?
Watery eyes narrowed as one sort of focused on me and muttered loudly about young whippersnappers.
My terror fled, I smiled, did he just say ‘young’? Sure, I know, it’s all about perspective, he’d obviously starred 80 in the eye and kept going, but still, I’ll take it.
I’m always fairly shocked at how impatient and downright rude some people are to the elderly. They’re old, not stupid. They’re still people, they’re just older people.
So you have to wait as an older lady counts out $5.35 in change (way to be a stereotype).
Listen as they grumble about everything, tossing out the phrase, ‘in my day’ randomly.
Wait as another takes minutes to pick out a loaf of bread. Ok, that one isn’t unreasonable, what happened to the bread section, when did it become so complicated?
I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, dear readers, I’m sure it shows in my posts, so when I saw Performing Under Pressure by Dr. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry (Crown Business) on http://www.bloggingforbooks.com/ I thought, it couldn’t make it worse. Generally self-help books are a lot of flash and little substance. They give tons of examples, most of which don’t pertain to you, and then a few ideas of how to help. This book isn’t much different, but they did have some interesting ideas I thought I might try to get the weight of the world off my back, it’s wreaking havoc with my posture and social life – who wants to date someone with that much baggage?
The Avengers already follow most of this advice:
Befriend the Moment. Don’t think of it as saving a world, but being part of a world and helping where you can. It’s an opportunity, it can even be fun.
Focus on the mission – save the world, don’t worry about how Tony Stark’s arrogance is going to Scooby-Doo the plan.
Be a control freak – totally works for Dr. Banner, not so much The Hulk, he’s more like an out-of-control freak.
Practice experiencing pressure – I hope we have plenty of practice with pressure by now. Slow down, there’ll be plenty more peril!
Share the pressure – assemble your own team of Avengers, people that will be there for you, to help, give advice, offer support, and always have your back.
Be kind to older people, if you’re lucky, you might be one yourself…as will The Avengers:
Thor will get old and gray and need Thoréal (because, he’s worth it).
Hawkeye will need bifocals (hopefully he won’t get cataracts).
Iron Man will rust and creak.
The Hulk will become The Bulk.
Captain America will become Captain Forgetful.
Black Widow will become Gray Widow (she’ll probably still be gorgeous).
Nick Fury will become Nick Cranky.
Like many of us, my life may not always have gone where I wanted it to go, but I try to do my best, even under pressure, so maybe it will end up where it’s supposed to be. As for the pressure, it’s still there, but even writing about it, banishes it briefly to another galaxy where it can hang out with Loki (since they left him out of The Avengers: Age of Ultron).
http://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/05/02/t...
What’s an appropriate ‘Thank You’ gift for saving a whole planet?
Some flowers?
A massage, after all, most action movies have a happy ending.
Maybe just a nice bottle of wine.
Yet they’ve never come across a menace such as this…
My eyes scanned the parking lot. Left, right, rear mirror, we were surrounded.
Nothing on the news to warn us, no mention of unusual phenomena, no word of any outbreaks and yet…there they were.
I stopped the car to let them shuffle past. I remained still, barely breathing, but some small movement, maybe a twitch, or release of breath alerted them to my presence. There was no escape!
Oh where, oh where were The Avengers now?
Watery eyes narrowed as one sort of focused on me and muttered loudly about young whippersnappers.
My terror fled, I smiled, did he just say ‘young’? Sure, I know, it’s all about perspective, he’d obviously starred 80 in the eye and kept going, but still, I’ll take it.
I’m always fairly shocked at how impatient and downright rude some people are to the elderly. They’re old, not stupid. They’re still people, they’re just older people.
So you have to wait as an older lady counts out $5.35 in change (way to be a stereotype).
Listen as they grumble about everything, tossing out the phrase, ‘in my day’ randomly.
Wait as another takes minutes to pick out a loaf of bread. Ok, that one isn’t unreasonable, what happened to the bread section, when did it become so complicated?
I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, dear readers, I’m sure it shows in my posts, so when I saw Performing Under Pressure by Dr. Hendrie Weisinger and J.P. Pawliw-Fry (Crown Business) on http://www.bloggingforbooks.com/ I thought, it couldn’t make it worse. Generally self-help books are a lot of flash and little substance. They give tons of examples, most of which don’t pertain to you, and then a few ideas of how to help. This book isn’t much different, but they did have some interesting ideas I thought I might try to get the weight of the world off my back, it’s wreaking havoc with my posture and social life – who wants to date someone with that much baggage?
The Avengers already follow most of this advice:
Befriend the Moment. Don’t think of it as saving a world, but being part of a world and helping where you can. It’s an opportunity, it can even be fun.
Focus on the mission – save the world, don’t worry about how Tony Stark’s arrogance is going to Scooby-Doo the plan.
Be a control freak – totally works for Dr. Banner, not so much The Hulk, he’s more like an out-of-control freak.
Practice experiencing pressure – I hope we have plenty of practice with pressure by now. Slow down, there’ll be plenty more peril!
Share the pressure – assemble your own team of Avengers, people that will be there for you, to help, give advice, offer support, and always have your back.
Be kind to older people, if you’re lucky, you might be one yourself…as will The Avengers:
Thor will get old and gray and need Thoréal (because, he’s worth it).
Hawkeye will need bifocals (hopefully he won’t get cataracts).
Iron Man will rust and creak.
The Hulk will become The Bulk.
Captain America will become Captain Forgetful.
Black Widow will become Gray Widow (she’ll probably still be gorgeous).
Nick Fury will become Nick Cranky.
Like many of us, my life may not always have gone where I wanted it to go, but I try to do my best, even under pressure, so maybe it will end up where it’s supposed to be. As for the pressure, it’s still there, but even writing about it, banishes it briefly to another galaxy where it can hang out with Loki (since they left him out of The Avengers: Age of Ultron).
http://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/05/02/t...
March 24, 2019
Required reading if you're in a high pressure work
Book discusses a lot of mind set strategies and tools to make you more efficient in high pressure situations. The book has a situations chapter that helps you start applying the techniques quickly , followed by an explanation of why these techniques work. Highly recommend
Book discusses a lot of mind set strategies and tools to make you more efficient in high pressure situations. The book has a situations chapter that helps you start applying the techniques quickly , followed by an explanation of why these techniques work. Highly recommend
January 5, 2015
We live in such a high-pressure society that we all feel such pressure to succeed - and that pressure can actually derail us (as anyone who has ever "choked" in an interview, during a presentation or while playing in a big game will attest). This book was tremendously helpful, with compelling real-life stories/examples of people under pressure. While we can't change the pressure-filled world that we live in, this book shows that we CAN improve the way we handle pressure. I especially enjoyed the actionable "pressure solutions" - clear, easy to implement techniques to perform better under pressure - regardless if we have a big game on the line, are anxious about winning an important account at work, or nervous about a test or interview. This book is well-written, full of interesting facts/statistics and helpful for anyone under pressure (which is everyone I know)! I highly recommend this book.
March 16, 2023
Started out slow. The first section tells us all the reasons why we're under pressure. We DON'T need to be reminded. We know all the pressure we're under. But I'm glad I stuck with it. The pressure solutions were practical and helpful. I picked up this book because I'm a professional speaker and thought it might help fine-tune my skills. It was worth the read for the reminders. The book reminded me that events are just one of many opportunities. It reminded me to focus on my mission, anticipate what might go wrong and plan for it, be positive, stay in the moment, and focus on what I can control. I especially appreciated the section on optimism and positivity.
May 11, 2017
Книга рассказывает, как воспринимать свое психологическое напряжение и предупреждать негативные последствия своих действий в этом состоянии. Подача похожа на книгу Чалдини: список правил как вести себя в напряженных ситуациях с подробными примерами из жизни. Последнее скорее избыточно – вода, но как же тогда воспринимать материал, если не на образах. Лично меня напрягли постоянные отсылки к человеку пещерному.
December 29, 2021
I loved this book's thorough examination of the science behind pressure. The author dispels myths about pressure to set the stage for conquering it. As a natural skeptic, I appreciated the repeated citation of studies and statistics to convince the reader of the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. Although much of the advice might be obvious, the author's supporting evidence goes a long way towards encouraging the reader to put such notions in to practice.
December 10, 2017
Fantastic book
One of the best books I read on the subject. I’m interested in the topic because of my job & because my kids play competitively sports, so I’ve read a few books & articles on the matter. This is one of the best sources I found so far. Good structure with good examples covering several areas in life yet could be utilized in any specific field of choice.
One of the best books I read on the subject. I’m interested in the topic because of my job & because my kids play competitively sports, so I’ve read a few books & articles on the matter. This is one of the best sources I found so far. Good structure with good examples covering several areas in life yet could be utilized in any specific field of choice.
September 8, 2021
I was really surprised that it is not self help trash.I become really bored when reading any pseudoscience psychology book because of the lack of real ‘proven’ background behind them.
Despite giving it five points I have something to say about what I do not like about this book and move to the topics which have common sense and which I find interesting.
Main disadvantage for me was the amount of real life examples. For me it was just too much. But I realise that it could be too little for someone else and also my own opinion can be biased by many factors, starting from mood. Despite so many examples they anyway were interesting to read.
Now, lets move to the cool stuff.
Basic understanding of pressure:
1) You are not productive under pressure. Pressure makes you worse, and the best you can do is to neglect the impact of pressure, and perform on average. It is even worse when not only you are an individual who is under pressure but you are part of the team which is under the pressure.
2) When you are under pressure you are more likely to be immoral.
3) The time pressure can stop us from procrastinating and help us actually get more things done. Time (and other) pressure can make you feel more creative, but it does not help you do higher-quality work. In fact, it does just the opposite, usually with consequences to the project that is being worked on.
So the main goal when it comes to the pressure and productivity is to minimize the injurious effects of pressure.
Reinvestment strategy (bad thing) - the individual attempts to cope with the situation by increasing his or her effort, which numerous studies show has little effect, and, in fact, intensifies anxiety and stress, which can lead you to do worse.
Pressure vs stress: pressure moments as stressful moments in which the consequences or results matter (and truly depends on us).
It is always good being the calm person in a boat.
Pressure traps:
1) Setting Traps.The methods we rely on—financial incentives, encouragement and support, and the spirit of competition—are often thought to be positives in terms of motivating and improving performance. But they are not always. New studies in cognitive and social psychology and behavioral economics show us that these methods are often counterproductive. In fact, they can actually intensify the pressure of the moment, contributing to under performance. In effect, our efforts then make us part of the problem.
2) Support Trap. Support frequently magnifies performance pressure and often induces performers to do poorly on skill-based tasks. : It has to do with our need to be accepted, and our primal fear of abandonment.
3) The Inception Trap. Its when boss says - ‘if we do x you get more money boyz’ or ‘if you fail, you fired’. In fact, there is considerable research that demonstrates that the desire to achieve incentives, such as a quarterly or even a weekly bonus, intensives pressure on those seeking them, and often leads to cheating, deception, and poor employee relationships, three
results that all organizations seek to avoid. Offering financial incentives is one of the bedrock tools used to drive performance in companies, and yet in financial institutions, it is often to blame for causing inside trading violations.
4) The Competition Trap. There are basically two mindsets here: the ranking mind-set and the excellence mind-set.
The ranking mindset can be simplified as win-at-all-costs approach driven by insecurity and the need to prove oneself. Zero-sum game: somebody wins and somebody loses.
Individuals with a competitive nature are also aggressive individuals.
Another interesting problem with such mindset is that usually becoming the winner is just not enough. People with such mindset will get anxiety anyway if they will succeed as a part of group. Shortly this statement can be rephrased as ‘It is not enough to win. Others must fail’.
However, as man evolved into more a social being, it became evident that it was no longer necessary to beat others to achieve success. Rather, what evolved was the requirement too cooperate with others and make a contribution to the group by doing your best. Today, we call this the excellence mind-set. So in contrast to a ranking mind-set, the excellence mind-set is characterized less by a focus on ranking or competition and more by a focus on developing yourself to your fullest capability. People, who use this approach use the spirit of competition as an opportunity to get better - not as a way to prove they are necessary better than someone else, but as a way of challenging themselves. They welcome, even honor, competition as a way to develop or improve their expertise and abilities.
The fast solutions and long-term personal improvements to beat the pressure moments are the main part of this book and I really encourage you to read it by yourself. I will just drop some conclusion and finish the review here.
Conclusion: What you can control, we suggest, is your own feelings. The more you value yourself, the more confident you will become and the less pressure you will experience (Marc is it you?).
Free yourself from pressure traps, by letting your own values, interests, and goals motivate you; value yourself, and focus on what you can control - your own effort.
Despite giving it five points I have something to say about what I do not like about this book and move to the topics which have common sense and which I find interesting.
Main disadvantage for me was the amount of real life examples. For me it was just too much. But I realise that it could be too little for someone else and also my own opinion can be biased by many factors, starting from mood. Despite so many examples they anyway were interesting to read.
Now, lets move to the cool stuff.
Basic understanding of pressure:
1) You are not productive under pressure. Pressure makes you worse, and the best you can do is to neglect the impact of pressure, and perform on average. It is even worse when not only you are an individual who is under pressure but you are part of the team which is under the pressure.
2) When you are under pressure you are more likely to be immoral.
3) The time pressure can stop us from procrastinating and help us actually get more things done. Time (and other) pressure can make you feel more creative, but it does not help you do higher-quality work. In fact, it does just the opposite, usually with consequences to the project that is being worked on.
So the main goal when it comes to the pressure and productivity is to minimize the injurious effects of pressure.
Reinvestment strategy (bad thing) - the individual attempts to cope with the situation by increasing his or her effort, which numerous studies show has little effect, and, in fact, intensifies anxiety and stress, which can lead you to do worse.
Pressure vs stress: pressure moments as stressful moments in which the consequences or results matter (and truly depends on us).
It is always good being the calm person in a boat.
Pressure traps:
1) Setting Traps.The methods we rely on—financial incentives, encouragement and support, and the spirit of competition—are often thought to be positives in terms of motivating and improving performance. But they are not always. New studies in cognitive and social psychology and behavioral economics show us that these methods are often counterproductive. In fact, they can actually intensify the pressure of the moment, contributing to under performance. In effect, our efforts then make us part of the problem.
2) Support Trap. Support frequently magnifies performance pressure and often induces performers to do poorly on skill-based tasks. : It has to do with our need to be accepted, and our primal fear of abandonment.
3) The Inception Trap. Its when boss says - ‘if we do x you get more money boyz’ or ‘if you fail, you fired’. In fact, there is considerable research that demonstrates that the desire to achieve incentives, such as a quarterly or even a weekly bonus, intensives pressure on those seeking them, and often leads to cheating, deception, and poor employee relationships, three
results that all organizations seek to avoid. Offering financial incentives is one of the bedrock tools used to drive performance in companies, and yet in financial institutions, it is often to blame for causing inside trading violations.
4) The Competition Trap. There are basically two mindsets here: the ranking mind-set and the excellence mind-set.
The ranking mindset can be simplified as win-at-all-costs approach driven by insecurity and the need to prove oneself. Zero-sum game: somebody wins and somebody loses.
Individuals with a competitive nature are also aggressive individuals.
Another interesting problem with such mindset is that usually becoming the winner is just not enough. People with such mindset will get anxiety anyway if they will succeed as a part of group. Shortly this statement can be rephrased as ‘It is not enough to win. Others must fail’.
However, as man evolved into more a social being, it became evident that it was no longer necessary to beat others to achieve success. Rather, what evolved was the requirement too cooperate with others and make a contribution to the group by doing your best. Today, we call this the excellence mind-set. So in contrast to a ranking mind-set, the excellence mind-set is characterized less by a focus on ranking or competition and more by a focus on developing yourself to your fullest capability. People, who use this approach use the spirit of competition as an opportunity to get better - not as a way to prove they are necessary better than someone else, but as a way of challenging themselves. They welcome, even honor, competition as a way to develop or improve their expertise and abilities.
The fast solutions and long-term personal improvements to beat the pressure moments are the main part of this book and I really encourage you to read it by yourself. I will just drop some conclusion and finish the review here.
Conclusion: What you can control, we suggest, is your own feelings. The more you value yourself, the more confident you will become and the less pressure you will experience (Marc is it you?).
Free yourself from pressure traps, by letting your own values, interests, and goals motivate you; value yourself, and focus on what you can control - your own effort.
January 28, 2017
Practical in the moment tips and longer term strategies for performing under pressure. I highly recommend this book.
May 6, 2017
Useful tips.
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