Coping with pressure: 6 tips from the world of sport

Your heart races, your stomach knots, and nausea creeps in. Whether you’re presenting, interviewing, playing in Wimbledon, or on a first date, pressure intensifies when the stakes matter to you or to others.

Management textbooks love to talk about “thriving under pressure” but that’s not everyone’s reality. Why does it hit so hard—and what can you do to stop it hijacking your decisions?

Managing pressure is a skill that many take for granted—and few master. But you can learn to control it.

Pressure: Yours or From Others?

Pressure isn’t objective or fixed. It’s a transitory state of mind shaped by your context and interpretation. Two people can face the same situation—one sees opportunity, the other panics. When clients, teams, or children depend on you or the unwanted spotlight arrives, it can hit you with a thud.

As a board member in sport, I’m always struck by the pressure facing athletes, whether they’re in their Olympic prime or facing the end of their career.

It’s emotional. Who would want to be a penalty taker in a World Cup final? Pressure can be exhilarating but also excruciating and even debilitating. Welsh former British & Irish Lions player Leigh Halfpenny recently told fans how he loves rugby but doesn’t envy the constant pressure. When physicality declines, every game adds another layer of performance pressure.

Sometimes pressure can be self-imposed by perfectionist standards or unrealistic goals. At other times, expectations are imposed by others—bosses, the market, media, shareholders, or colleagues.

Pressure can build over time. For instance, four U.S. presidents delayed strategic withdrawal from Afghanistan, each seeking the perfect exit. The longer they waited, the harder the decision became until the window for a clean outcome closed.

It isn’t just political. Emotional pressure appears in boardrooms, trading floors, and classrooms. That weight can harm well-being and distort judgment. Stress has also been linked to the leading causes of death.

How Pressure Hijacks Decision-Making

Under pressure, our brains shift gears. It narrows cognitive bandwidth and changes how we process risk. How many pilots, politicians, firefighters, engineers or doctors have made catastrophic errors? Stress affects us in several important ways.

• Risk sensitivity drops. Sometimes it leads to reckless decisions. Everest mountain climbers and Formula One racing drivers push safety boundaries in search of glory. NASA’s leadership ignored warnings about Challenger, under massive pressure to meet launch deadlines. It doesn’t end well.
• People freeze. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Sonia O’Sullivan withdrew mid-race from the 10,000 meter. Officially, it was severe stomach upset. But how much was physiology—and how much was pressure?
• Pressure amplifies in crisis. When the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was under siege, 376 officers waited 77 minutes to act. Meanwhile, a shooter killed 21 children. An investigative report called it an “unacceptably long period.” This wasn’t incompetence but paralysis under pressure in which the fear of a wrong move outweighed the fear of delay.
• Creativity contracts. Fear of failure makes us overcautious. Do you choose the traditional holiday, comfortable role or safe strategy? Pressure can affect brand longevity. Think AI-deniers or corporate delays in embracing technology.

You can turn pressure into advantage and learn lessons from other industries, especially sports.

Six Lessons You Can Learn From Sport

1. Adopt calmness rituals. Rituals go beyond superstition into the realm of science. For instance, Grand Slam winner Serena Williams bounces the ball five times before a first serve and twice before a second. Rafael Nadal arranges his water bottles in precise order. These small repeatable routines create familiarity in uncertainty.
2. Simulate before you act. Before the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps visualized his goggles filling with water as a pressure valve. When it happened mid-race, he was ready, breaking a world record. We can rehearse high-stakes scenarios until they feel more routine, boosting calmness.
3. Use checklists for clarity. In my book TUNE IN: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World, the PERIMETERS checklist identifies 10 bias-driven misjudgment traps that we face. These relate to power, ego, risk, identity, memory, ethics, time, emotion, relationships, and stories. Under pressure, every single one of these judgment traps amplifies. Spotting them early keeps decisions on track.
4. Reframe stressful situations. Pressure doesn’t have to be a threat. Stanford research shows that reframing stress as enhancing rather than debilitating can improve performance. Emotional regulation helps. Think measured breathing or mindfulness. When tennis ace Novak Djokovic misses a critical match point, he resets to the current state—a technique Rory McIlroy adopted in his U.S. Masters golf victory.
5. Control the controllables. Under severe pressure, control begins with mindset. Australian police officer Derrick McManus was shot 14 times in five seconds and left bleeding for hours. He credits his survival to slow breathing to lower his heart rate. Athletes appreciate that durability is an underestimated skill.
6. Recover intentionally. Pressure is exhausting. Always build in enough time for decompression after big events or strategic decisions to avoid fatigue-driven errors. Decision fatigue carries an underestimated cost.

Of course, stress is inevitable, whether you’re having a party, starting a business, or running a board. What separates those who thrive isn’t always toughness but self-awareness, perspective, and mastering the deliberate pause.

For those who tend to catastrophize, remember that everything passes. So the next time your stomach flips before a big moment, ask yourself: Is this pressure or possibility? The answer can change how you perform. Then you can start using it to make smarter decisions. No pressure there.