3 Tips For Performing Under Pressure

Recently I featured on Eat What You Kills' blog where I talked all things related to my SOF career and Warfighter Athletic. A section I think you will find valuable was where I was asked "You’ve held a role in a unit at the spear tip of our military capability. What are your top three tips for performing under pressure?", here was my answer. 

1. “Focus on the mission-critical/ closest target. In high-pressure situations, there’s a lot going on, a lot of information to process, a lot of moving parts, and often it is happening at speed. You can’t focus on it all at once, at the macro-level focus on what is mission critical at that time, at the micro-level engage the closet threat, once that is dealt with move onto the next one. In a non-military context let’s look at rugby, at the macro level are you on offense or defense, what are the mission-critical tasks that need to be conducted in each of those phases? At the micro-level, make that tackle, mark that man, create that space, make that pass, hit that gap.”
2. “Repetition. No matter what field you’re in, there is only one way to become part of the 1% so to speak, repetition. Whatever it is that you do, do it again and again and again, over time you will get better and you will make progress. When you do it enough times, those actions, movements, and drills become subconscious, allowing your conscious mind to process the new and ever-evolving environment around you.”
3. “Communication. You can’t do it on your own, you have to work for the team. For any team to operate efficiently and effectively you MUST communicate in the same manner. Putting time and effort into improving how you communicate is always going to be time well spent. Even in the most chaotic of environments, a team that communicates well is a team that will perform well.”

Performing under pressure comes down to preparation, mindset, and communication, master these 3 and you will thrive in the chaos of life.