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The Moment Before You Perform: How High Performers Regain Focus, Overcome Competition Anxiety, and Succeed Under Pressure

Right before you perform—whether you are leading, speaking, competing, or making a critical decision—there is often a subtle shift. Your awareness sharpens, your body activates, and your attention begins to turn inward. This moment can feel like the beginning of losing control, but in reality, it is the point where performance can either become disrupted or intentionally directed. What you do with your attention in these few seconds is what determines whether you stay connected to what you already know—or momentarily lose access to it.

Maybe before performing

Your body tightens slightly.
Your thinking speeds up.
Your attention turns inward.

You begin watching yourself.
Evaluating.
Trying to get it right.

And what you know becomes just slightly harder to access.

Stay here with me.

Because instead of trying to remove this experience, we are going to work with it— in a way that respects how your mind actually functions under pressure.

Just notice this:

You are not losing your ability in that moment.

What is happening is something very specific.

As pressure rises, the brain shifts from automatic execution to conscious control. Skills that normally run smoothly—because they are stored in well-learned, automatic systems—can become disrupted when attention turns inward and begins monitoring each step of the process. In sports psychology, this interference is known as choking under pressure (Beilock & Carr, 2001; Beilock, 2010).So instead of doing…

You begin thinking about doing.

Instead of expressing…

You begin evaluating.

And that shift creates interference.

Not lack of skill.

Interference.

So let me ask you something:

When you have performed well before—not perfectly, just effectively—

what was different about your attention?

Where was it?

Maybe it was on the conversation.
Maybe it was on the person in front of you.
Maybe it was on delivering one clear idea.

Stay with that.

Because that is evidence.

Evidence that you already know how to perform under pressure.

Now, instead of trying to eliminate the anxiety you feel…

give your attention somewhere to go.

Because research consistently shows that performance stabilizes when attention is directed toward process-relevant cues, rather than inward self-monitoring (Kingston & Hardy, 1997).

So imagine that moment again.

ask yourself:

What is one small thing I can focus on right now that keeps me connected?

Not everything.

Just one.

One sentence.
One breath.
One point of contact.

And notice what happens.

You are still aware.
But you are no longer trapped inside yourself.

You are back in movement.

Now let’s gently go further.

What would you like to be different in these moments?

Not what you want to avoid.

What you want to move toward.

Take a moment.

And if what you want has already started to happen…

what would you notice first?

Would your breathing feel slightly steadier?
Would your pace slow down just a little?
Would your attention stay outward a bit longer?

Stay with that.

Because what you are doing right now is activating a different pathway.

Instead of reinforcing threat…

You are building success.

There are already moments—no matter how small—where you have handled pressure better than expected.

Exceptions are evidence.

When was a time you did this even slightly better?

What did you do in that moment?

What did you focus on?

Whatever comes up—hold onto it.

Because change comes from doing more of what already works.

So if that version of you showed up again…

what would they do in the first few seconds?

Would they rush?

Or would they take one steady breath?

Would they scan themselves?

Or would they look outward?

Would they try to control everything?

Or simply take the next step?

You don’t need to eliminate anxiety to perform well.

In fact, research shows that a certain level of activation supports performance (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908).

The shift is not about calming down completely.

It is about anchoring your attention while activated.

So the next time you feel that moment—

see if you can notice it just a second earlier.

And instead of asking:

“What if this goes wrong?”

Try asking:

“What matters most in the next few seconds?”

And go there.

Stay there.

performance does not disappear under pressure.

It gets interrupted.

And what you are learning now is how to gently remove that interruption—

not by force,

not by overthinking,

but by direction.

References (APA 7)

Beilock, S. L. (2010). Choke: What the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to. Free Press.

Beilock, S. L., & Carr, T. H. (2001). On the fragility of skilled performance: What governs choking under pressure? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(4), 701–725.

Connie, E. (2013). The art of solution focused therapy. Springer.

Connie, E., & Froerer, A. (2015). Solution building in couples therapy. Springer.

Gallwey, W. T. (1974). The inner game of tennis. Random House.

Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39(3), 281–291.

Kingston, K. M., & Hardy, L. (1997). Effects of different types of goals on processes that support performance. The Sport Psychologist, 11(3), 277–293.

Selye, H. (1956). The stress of life. McGraw-Hill.

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459–482.