Pressure in the NHL

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Yesterday during session with a client, as I’m sure comes as now surprise, our discussion landed on the topic of pressure (he’s a goalie, need I say more?). Goalies aside, pressure is likely the most common experience spoken of amongst high performing athletes.?

As a behavioral scientist, the very first place I start when attempting to come up with a strategy or intervention is to come up with an operational definition of the behavior we are trying to decrease or increase. In this case, pressure.

So, what does pressure look like? What is it if we attempted to define it? It’s important to consider that pressure looks and feels different for every individual. Thus, I don’t assume to know that one players experience of pressure is the same as another player.

To this client, his definition of pressure goes like this:

Pressure = The feeling you feel while you’re doing something and other people are watching you do it.?

Brilliant!?

It may seem simple, but it’s not simplistic.

The reason I loved his definition so much is because it highlights the fact that whatever we are doing when we are feeling pressure, it’s not the thing we are doing or how we are feeling when we do the thing…it’s people watching us do the thing and then how them watching us makes us feel (and I would argue, how we feel about what we think they are thinking as they watch us).?

To break it down, pressure is:

• First, you're engaging in a behavior?
• You feel something while engaging in that behavior (this isn’t pressure)
• You continue engaging in the behavior while you're feeling whatever you were feeling doing that behavior
• Then, because people are watching you engage in this behavior, you now feel a second emotion (this is pressure)

In reality, the second feeling isn’t actually pressure, it starts off as, perhaps, hesitation given one’s desire to perform or engage in the behavior accurately while an audience is watching.? It could also indicate lack of preparation. Another possibility is excitement, which mistakenly gets labeled as pressure given the context. The aforementioned combined with the high stakes of the game then equate to what we call pressure.??

This is why the role of emotional intelligence is so important on the ice (and life). What looks like anger is often embarrassment, disappointment, shame, fear, etc. knowing exactly how a player experiences pressure, and the ability to identify and operationally define pressure, gives them the power to redirect pressure into an alternative emotion (focus, intensity, compete).?

It’s the relationship that an athlete has with the experience of feeling pressure, rather than the pressure itself that is a barrier to performance.? Reason being, as mentioned earlier, excitement could potentially be misidentified as pressure given the contextual variables in the environment during a hockey game, rightfully so.?

However, if we pick apart all of the pieces in the variables, it's not difficult to differentiate between excitement and excitement mistakenly labeled as pressure.? Whereas one player can come into contact with the feeling and experience of excitement during a game, another player? might come into contact with the same feeling and label it something different: pressure.? The discrepancy between these two labels is perhaps what differentiates between players who have the mental edge over the players who don't.??

So, what does this mean for players and coaching staff?? It means that attempts to avoid pressure or reduce pressure are likely to be ineffective. Rather, one’s energy is better spent developing a more productive and workable relationship to the feeling that we label as pressure.? How does one do that??

First, by identifying when that feeling arises internally, as with anything, awareness is the first step.? Next, it's helpful to anticipate the feeling before it even happens, which decreases the significance when it does show up.?

Lastly, this concept highlights the significance of the social impact on pressure. A player can engage in any skill/behavior on the ice, and how that shows up can change significantly simply due to an audience observing.

A useful strategy is to reframe the feeling of pressure as an indicator of one's passion and care for their craft and their game.? Emotions are data. They indicate to us what matters, and by incorporating this notion into one’s experience of feeling pressure, pressure becomes less aversive, allowing for a player to lean into acceptance of their internal experience rather than feeling conflicted because they feel pressure and therefore inhibiting their performance on the ice.

As with all things that involve human behavior, this is not an overnight or quick fix that requires repetition and condition and willingness to train a skill less conventional.

Well, that’s all for now my friend. Thank you for being here & and supporting my work by sharing it with your community and network. See you next time!

Dr. Alicia Naser, Ph.D., BCBA

CEO of AN Sports Consulting

??https://linktr.ee/alicianaser?